In the most recent installment of the College Countdown feature, I continued to let the writing be colored by personal disgruntlement over my alma mater station’s embrace of mediocre (to be kind) soundtracks in the mid-nineties. Realistically, though, those student programmers were properly, albeit somewhat painfully, reflecting the state of the music scene at the time. Just as blockbuster, mass appeal soundtrack albums were the norm about a decade earlier, round about 1996, filmmakers and labels were actively pursuing the alternative music fan with soundtrack efforts, maybe in part because the likes of Hole, while big in their own way, … Continue reading One for Friday: Boss Hog, “I’m Not Like Everybody Else”

For a time in college, we always knew what the final song on a party mix tape would be. In my circle, these were usually parties thrown by and for the staff of the student-run radio station, meaning that mixes were often assembled in the station’s production studio, with the entirety of an impressive music library to draw upon. Still the closing song of the anticipated last tape was always assured: “Celebrate” by An Emotional Fish. An Emotional Fish was (and perhaps still is) a band from Dublin, Ireland, signed by U2’s Mother Records, which guaranteed a certain amount of … Continue reading One for Friday: An Emotional Fish, “Celebrate”