Author: Dan Seeger

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

This week at Spectrum Culture, I started with a piece on the music review side. I’ve previous written on Vivian Girls and La Sera, so it only seemed logical to me that I should continue weighing in on all the groups bobbing across that shared orbit. That meant writing on the second Best Coast album, not really knowing when I claimed it that the band was on the receiving end of enormous antipathy. That at least gave me an angle with which to start the review. I also had my regular contribution on the film side, writing about the new … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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One for Friday: Joe Jackson, “Tomorrow’s World”

Dan Seeger

When I think back on the artists and albums that were decisively, definitively ours during my youthful days in college radio, I almost always conjure up memories of the bands and performers that started on the left end of the dial and probably never managed to creep up to the higher frequencies: Hüsker Dü, the Replacements, the Smithereens. They certainly represented a central part of my musical experience, but there was a whole other batch of artists that got regular play at 90FM who were more like reclamation projects. These were the performers who had experience some commercial success, unlikely … Continue reading One for Friday: Joe Jackson, “Tomorrow’s World”

Music54 Comments

Top 40 Smash Taps: “The Last Time I Made Love”

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. Jeffrey Osborne was the lead singer for the R&B band L.T.D. when they had a Top 5 hit in 1977 with the song “(Every Time I Turn Around) Back in Love Again.” He put out his first solo album in 1982, doing well on the R&B charts but struggling to generate the some heat on the Billboard Hot 100. In fact, one of … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “The Last Time I Made Love”

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College Countdown: CMJ Top 50 Albums of 2001, 38 and 37

Dan Seeger

38. The Shins, Oh, Inverted World The debut album from the Shins holds a special place of significance for me in my return journey through college radio. This was the first CD I bought at the primary local, independently-owned record store in my new city of residence. What’s more, I bought it specifically because of the songs I heard played on WPRK. I think I actually decided I had to have it when I myself played “Know Your Onion” on the air, a return to a happy, costly time several years later when filling out my radio playlist directly coinciding … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 50 Albums of 2001, 38 and 37

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

It can be frustrating writing reviews from my relatively remote outpost (of course, there are greater frustrations here these days than that minor inconvenience). I’m reliant on studios that are willing to send out DVD screeners, and that’s a little harder to come by in the day of prolific online piracy. There are often weeks when the film I’m most interested (or best equipped) to review flatly isn’t available to me. And then there are weeks like this one. I tried and tried and tried to select a film from the limited release offerings that might have a screener and … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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One for Friday: Nuclear Valdez, “Where Do We Go From Here”

Dan Seeger

When I was an impressionable youth working in college radio, I know I was supposed to be learning to love the arch, indie abstractions of bands like Pavement and Guided by Voices. They were releasing their first records then and provoking genuflections from much of the music press, small and eager as it was. Authenticity was always a major criteria for those of us playing music on the left end of the dial, especially as we saw bands that used to operate solely in our territory achieve significant crossover success, a group led by U2 and R.E.M., but also including … Continue reading One for Friday: Nuclear Valdez, “Where Do We Go From Here”

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Don’t you think every kitten figures out how to get down whether or not you ever show up?

Dan Seeger

It never seemed like Whit Stillman was going to be prolific. There were four years between his 1990 debut Metropolitan and the largely forgotten follow-up Barcelona and then another four years before his third film, 1998’s The Last Days of … Continue reading Don’t you think every kitten figures out how to get down whether or not you ever show up?