Author: Dan Seeger

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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

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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

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College Countdown: First Billboard Top 20 Modern Rock Tracks, Fall 1988, 4 and 3

Dan Seeger

4. “Breakfast in Bed” by UB40 I’m going to try and untangle just what was going on with UB40 on the Billboard charts in the fall of 1988. On the Hot 100 chart, the band was rapidly climbing with a new version of Neil Diamond’s “Red, Red Wine,” which would eventually reach #1 (preceded and followed at the top of the chart by absolute junk). It’s probably more accurate to describe the gently loping, Brit boy reggae of the UB40 take as a cover of Tony Tribe’s 1969 go-round with the song. Diamond reportedly didn’t especially care for the good … Continue reading College Countdown: First Billboard Top 20 Modern Rock Tracks, Fall 1988, 4 and 3

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

Luckily enough, I had a very light week at Spectrum Culture just when I needed a break. I’d like to say I orchestrated that, but that’s plainly not the case. The only thing I reviewed was the new film from the director of Maria Full of Grace, which was surprisingly left behind in the first go-around in our selection process. Were I smarter or at least less of a procrastinator, I would have take the comfortable schedule to actually work ahead on a couple of the pending record reviews I have. Of course I didn’t, so I suddenly have a … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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One for Friday: Max Q, “Way of the World”

Dan Seeger

It’s interesting the way that certain performers hold onto their fame forever, even after death, and how some completely fade away, even if their music survives. Dying young has made so many rock ‘n’ roll stars into permanent icons–Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain–and yet there are those who rarely get a mention, the untimely ends somehow escaping romanticized sadness. Michael Hutchence of INXS was only thirty-seven when he died, just a few years after becoming a full-fledged sex symbol when his band’s album Kick turned into a huge blockbuster. What’s more, his death was ruled a suicide, … Continue reading One for Friday: Max Q, “Way of the World”