When Ben Affleck made his directorial debut with Gone Baby Gone in 2007, there were a few qualities that merited special praise which have since grown into genuine strengths he has as a filmmaker. There’s a laudable focus, a pronounced … Continue reading In Hollywood where all the lights are low, and truth’s as rare as the winter snow
36. “Alone Again Or” by the Damned Given the opportunity, I don’t think I ever would have listed Love, the nineteen-sixties band fronted by Arthur Lee, as an influence on the Damned. But the U.K. punk legends gave exactly that reason when asked why they recorded a cover of Love’s seminal song from Forever Changes, their 1967 masterpiece. The cover version showed up on the band’s 1986 album entitled Anything, which came out well after the point that most were even paying attention to the group, at least stateside (they were still making regular visits to the Top 40 back … Continue reading College Countdown: KROQ-FM’s Top 40 Songs of 1987, 36 and 35
I had a fairly light week at Spectrum Culture, in part because a malfunctioning streaming screener caused me to falter in my marital pledge to use my position as a film reviewer to secure access to intriguing new horror films. Instead, I only had a single music review go up, covering the full-length debut of Poor Moon, a Fleet Foxes side project. It’s mostly a useful album for those looking for a sleep aid. I also kicked in a few words for this week’s List Inconsequential, focused on cover songs that are better than the originals. In this instance, I … Continue reading Spectrum Check
Strangely enough, you often can judge an album by its cover. While the old adage about books and covers remains fairly sound when applied to the products of the publishing industry, there’s a remarkable correlation between awful album art and bands that have plainly run out of ideas. Similarly, an album cover that absolutely leaps out and grabs the viewer often houses a record that contains equally striking music. And then there are those particularly fortuitous times when an album cover somehow conveys the entire sense of the music it fronts and promotes. The second full-length from the U.K. punky … Continue reading One for Friday: Senseless Things, “Ex Teenager”
I was voraciously seeking out new fiction in the late nineteen-nineties, no doubt partially inspired by the fact that it was realistically the first time in my life I had enough disposable income to regularly offer business to local bookstores … Continue reading My Writers: Jonathan Lethem
These posts are about the songs that can accurately claim to crossed the key line of chart success, becoming Top 40 hits on Billboard, but just barely. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 40. Upon its release in 1964, Billboard reviewed Gene Chandler’s single “What Now” in the following manner: “Tear-jerker tale of a guy done wrong by a fickle gal! Gene wails in fine style backed by driving instrumentation.” The track was Chandler’s fourth song to grace the Billboard Top 40 and the third straight, following “Just Be True,” which peaked at #19, and “Bless Our … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “What Now”
#12 — Last Tango in Paris (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1972) I’ll admit that I don’t even have the time to watch everything I want to (an issue to which some of the omissions from this list may attest), much less immerse … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 70s — Number Twelve
This series of posts is dedicated to the many, many six packs, pony kegs and pints that have sauntered into my life at one point or another. Years ago, a friend of ours who, believe me, knows winetold us that … Continue reading Beers I Have Known: 21st Amendment Bitter American
38. “Heartbreak Beat” by the Psychedelic Furs In a stunning example of hubristic hyperbole, Columbia Records saw fit to promote the fifth album from the Psychedelic Furs, Midnight to Midnight, as the band’s “masterstroke.” It had been around two-and-a-half years since the group’s previous album, and their profile had risen significantly thanks to one of their songs lending a title to a high profile John Hughes movie. They even rerecorded the song for the flick, drawing ire from many longtime fans who found the new version to overly slick and commercial. Turns out that was a mere precursor to a … Continue reading College Countdown: KROQ-FM’s Top 40 Songs of 1987, 38 and 37
I had another fairly typical week at Spectrum Culture with one full contribution apiece on the film and music sides. For the former, I reviewed a new documentary focused on the heated immigration issue in the United States. Unfortunately, it falls into one of the pitfalls common to modern documentaries: straining to do far too much. As for music, I reviewed a new compilation of classic, obscure soul music from the generally excellent Now-Again label. As usual, the crate-digger depths of discovery are impressive in the tracks selected, but the intensive focus on ballad-driven, so-called “sweet soul” winds up giving … Continue reading Spectrum Check
