Author: Dan Seeger

Music15 Comments

College Countdown: KROQ-FM’s Top 40 Songs of 1987, 24 and 23

Dan Seeger

24. “Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before” by the Smiths “Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before,” the fourth and final single from the Smiths’ fourth and final studio album, Strangeways, Here We Come, was the first track from the band that I openly enjoyed, mostly because I was stupid. While I was arduously learning to expand my musical tastes during high school, I naturally and unfortunately took cues from my peers, a group of largely unenlightened souls who will quick to tag the U.K. group built around the creative tension between lead … Continue reading College Countdown: KROQ-FM’s Top 40 Songs of 1987, 24 and 23

MusicLeave a comment

One for Friday: Tommy Shaw, “Girls with Guns”

Dan Seeger

I would never claim to be some sort of brilliant tweeter. I have my account, and I dutifully throw observations and snarky commentary up there. Mostly, it’s little more than links to different things that catch my eye during the day. Occasionally, though, an interesting little chat springs up around there, as was the case this past week when I expressed my helpless admiration for a certain Tommy Shaw single. Shaw was a guitar player for the ludicrously bombastic nineteen-seventies and nineteen-eighties rock band Styx. The group broke up shortly after the mammoth success of their 1983 album Kilroy Was … Continue reading One for Friday: Tommy Shaw, “Girls with Guns”

Music13 Comments

College Countdown: KROQ-FM’s Top 40 Songs of 1987, 26 and 25

Dan Seeger

26. “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” by U2 The Joshua Tree, the fifth studio album from U2, was released on March 9, 1987. I think it’s quite far to tag that as the date that everything changed decisively for the Irish quartet. It’s not like they hadn’t enjoyed a taste of success previously, especially back home in the U.K., where they were an established Top 10 act. Even in the presumably tougher-to-crack United States, their previous two studio albums had peaked just outside of the Billboard Top 10, and the single “Pride (In the Name of Love)” … Continue reading College Countdown: KROQ-FM’s Top 40 Songs of 1987, 26 and 25

FilmLeave a comment

Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

This was a week strictly about film for me at Spectrum Culture. My main piece of writing was a review of a new documentary about an ongoing photography project intended to relay easily understandable evidence of the effects of climate change. It’s quite good, which also means it’s highly depressing. I also bookended the latest edition of our ongoing survey of the best comedic performances of each year of each decade. This time getting the privilege of two of the very best acting jobs of the whole decade, comedic or not. Continue reading Spectrum Check

MusicLeave a comment

One for Friday: The Soft Boys, “I Love Lucy”

Dan Seeger

As a general rule, I’m highly suspicious of band reunions. Several years ago, when people were flipping with excitement about the prospect of the Pixies getting back together to play a few dates and maybe–but probably not!–record again, I was entirely unmoved and uninterested. Admittedly, that may stem in part from the fact that I wasn’t nearly as devoted a fan of the band as my college radio brethren during the Pixies’ heyday, but it was also because it was such a transparent attempt to cash in on past success by performers whose respective solo and spin-off careers had pretty … Continue reading One for Friday: The Soft Boys, “I Love Lucy”