Author: Dan Seeger

Music58 Comments

Top 40 Smash Taps: “Video Killed the Radio Star”

Dan Seeger

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. Now that MTV treats music videos like some syphilitic growth that it had removed, I wonder if anyone but the most hardcore nostalgists really cares about retaining the tidbit about which song was the first to cross the coaxial launching the cable channel. There was certainly a time when it was a requirement to serious music fans to have the ready capability to … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Video Killed the Radio Star”

Books, Comics1 Comment

Great Moments in Literature

Dan Seeger

“The smoke alarm went off in the hallway upstairs, either to let us know the battery had just died or because the house was on fire. We finished our lunch in silence.” –Don DeLillo, White Noise, 1985 “SETTING SUNLIGHT SLICES SHARPLY THROUGH THE DRY NOVEMBER AIR, BUT CANNOT CUT ITS CHILL. RUSH HOUR THRONGS CROWDING THE STREETS PULL THEIR COATS TIGHTER AGAINST THIS FIRST TOUCH OF APPROACHING WINTER…YET ONE MAN, LOOMING HIGH ABOVE THEM ALL, CASUALLY SHRUGS AWAY THE COLD…AS ALWAYS, HE KNOWS THE COMING DARKNESS WILL BRING A NEED FOR HIM–AND, AS ALWAYS, HE IS GRIMLY PREPARED–FOR HE IS … Continue reading Great Moments in Literature

Music1 Comment

College Countdown: First Billboard Top 20 Modern Rock Tracks, Fall 1988, 2 and 1

Dan Seeger

2. “Just Play Music” by Big Audio Dynamite I’m sure the expectation was that Big Audio Dynamite would have a significant breakthrough with their 1988 album, Tighten Up, Vol. ’88. The main preoccupation for Mick Jones after departing the Clash has enjoyed some amount of success with their first two outings, especially garnering some attention when Jones reunited with his former bandmate Joe Strummer on B.A.D.’s sophomore release, No. 10, Upping Street, with Clash co-producing the record and co-writing several songs. They’d spent a chunk of 1987 opening for U2 on a world tour that just so happened to be … Continue reading College Countdown: First Billboard Top 20 Modern Rock Tracks, Fall 1988, 2 and 1

Film, MusicLeave a comment

Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

I had a fairly busy week with Spectrum Culture. I had two different pieces post in the music review area, beginning with a consideration of the the first solo album from Sophia Knapp. The second review I wrote this week was probably more significant: the new album from Bruce Springsteen. I like the record quite a bit–probably more than anything he’s put out since 1995’s The Ghost of Tom Joad–which was a bit of a relief. It gave me a chance to make up for trashing The Boss in an earlier List Inconsequential feature, which felt like a bit of … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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One for Friday: Shane MacGowan and the Popes, “That Woman’s Got Me Drinking”

Dan Seeger

Where do I even begin with Shane MacGowan? The former and eventually reinstated lead singer of the Pogues always seemed like a likely casualty of himself, burning out from hard living that was exacerbated by live performance venue green rooms well stocked with beer and liquor. Through the late nineteen-eighties and early nineties, whenever the band got a prime showcase to perform, say on Saturday Night Live, MacGowan wavered on stage like a slender bamboo pole in a brisk wind. By all indications he lived his life according to the credo suggested by the title of a 1942 Louis Jordan … Continue reading One for Friday: Shane MacGowan and the Popes, “That Woman’s Got Me Drinking”

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Greengrass, Nolfi, Scorsese, Van Dyke, Winer

Dan Seeger

George Harrison: Living in the Material World (Martin Scorsese, 2011). It’s very fun to watch Martin Scorsese in this later phase of his career in which he clearly feels empowered and has the accumulated goodwill and respect to make whatever damn movie he feels like at any given time. If that means he’s sometimes going to flip through his record collection and say, “Hey, what about this guy?,” so be it. This documentary on the Quiet Beatle isn’t hugely revelatory in any way, but it’s a nice, creative compendium of the life and art of someone whose undervalued membership in … Continue reading Greengrass, Nolfi, Scorsese, Van Dyke, Winer