No time for a gentle rain, no time for my watch and chain
Time has gotten away from me today, I’m afraid. Words are beyond my capabilities right this second. I’ll do better. Continue reading No time for a gentle rain, no time for my watch and chain
Author: Dan Seeger
Top Fifty Films of the 80s — Number Eight
#8 — sex, lies, and videotape (Steven Soderbergh, 1989) The characters in Steven Soderbergh’s feature directorial debut are so well-drawn and deeply considered that the filmmaker was able to defer the task of titling the work to one of them. When … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 80s — Number Eight
Top 40 Smash Taps: “Naturally Stoned”
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. Some biographies of Chuck Woolery note that his nineteen-sixties band the Avant-Garde “had one-hit wonder success in 1968 with the top 40 pop hit ‘Naturally Stoned.’” This is absolutely true, fully verifiable. The duo Woolery was part of with some character named Elkin “Bubba” Fowler peaked at #40 with their soft, almost lackadaisical psychedelic song. It was a pretty oddball year for music … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Naturally Stoned”
My Misspent Youth: Marvel Premiere by David Kraft and George Perez
I read a lot of comic books as a kid. This series of posts is about the comics I read, and, occasionally, the comics that I should have read. When I was in college, I knew a guy who insisted that his copy of Super-Villain Team-Up #12 was the only comic book he needed. The reason? It featured Dr. Doom and Red Skull fighting on the moon, and once you had that, how could anything else even compare? One of my favorite things about superhero comic books in the nineteen-seventies–especially those titles that emanated from the House of Ideas known … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: Marvel Premiere by David Kraft and George Perez
College Countdown: The Trouser Press Top 10 Albums of 1981, 8 (tie)
8. The dB’s, Stands for Decibels Trouser Press wrote: “Thanks to an amazing timewarp, this band is with us right now–and almost singlehandedly saving power pop’s reputation.” Some records announce that they’re special from the very first notes. Stands for … Continue reading College Countdown: The Trouser Press Top 10 Albums of 1981, 8 (tie)
Spectrum Check
This was another fairly light week for me, in part because I’m still trying to catch up on music reviews I owe. One of those went up: an assessment of the new album from Crooked Fingers. This was one of the instances in which I was assigned the release instead of claimed it. It actually took me a really long time to figure out my angle on the review. As the numerical rating indicates, this is one of those albums that was clearly good, but didn’t stir me especially deeply. It’s not background music, but it’s one of those CDs … Continue reading Spectrum Check
One for Friday: Blackgirls, “Happy”
There is some music that simply sounds like 90FM to me. Or rather, it sounds like the version of 90FM that was there for me when I was an undergraduate student. Tuning in to the campus radio station was like reading a letter from my closest friends. The music that achieved the greatest success there often connected with someone there in a deeper way that a simple admiration for its catchy hooks (although, let’s not diminish the importance of that factor). It didn’t necessarily have moony, heartfelt lyrics that expressed some unspoken melancholy among my friends or, conversely, some triumphant … Continue reading One for Friday: Blackgirls, “Happy”
Top 40 Smash Taps: “I’ve Seen All Good People” and “Rhythm of Love”
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. When I started pulling together the list of songs that qualified for the “Top 40 Smash Taps” feature, my geeky, secret hope was that I’d find at least one artist who accomplished the bittersweet feat of peaking at #40 on more than one occasion. Turns out it wasn’t such a crazy notion; several different acts have watched as two different tracks stalled at … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “I’ve Seen All Good People” and “Rhythm of Love”
Top Fifty Films of the 80s — Number Nine
#9 — Amadeus (Milos Forman, 1984) Based on the available evidence, it’s mightily difficult to portray the creation of great art on film, especially those pinnacles of expression that can be defined as “fine art.” The process of turning inspiration into moving manifestations of such usually winds up seeming wan and empty. Even when there’s actual, canonical works to draw from, drawing the line from a dramatization of intellectual toil to a finished piece is often burdened by a veneer of phoniness. Even when the art of filmmaking is addressed, a topic that is theoretically near to the heart of creators … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 80s — Number Nine
Boden and Fleck, Joost and Schulman, McGrath, Sherman
Megamind (Tom McGrath, 2010). Just as surely as Pixar has forged its own auteuristic identity as a studio, the same has been achieved by DreamWorks Animation, their main rival for family box office dollars. Where Pixar is built on rigorous storytelling acumen and emotional authenticity, DreamWorks opts for cheap jokes, an overt embrace of fleeting pop culture trends and endlessly frenetic onscreen business. If they can prop it all up with overly familiar pop songs, all the better. The studio is prolific enough that exceptions slip through, almost like accidentally pristine product missed by the lack-of-quality control department of a … Continue reading Boden and Fleck, Joost and Schulman, McGrath, Sherman
