The Shapeshifter by Sam Anderson I played music from a multitude of artists during my long-ago tenure as a student programmer in college radio. Many of those performers were clearly talented, and developed their gifts with commitment and craft. Those … Continue reading Outside Reading — Deep Normalcy Inflected By Sharp Stabs of Strangeness edition
Guitarist Leo Nocentelli helped form New Orleans band the Meters in the middle of the nineteen-sixties. The mostly served as studio backups on recordings made for Allen Toussaint’s Sansu Enterprises record label, a sort of Funk Brothers of the swampy … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Leo Nocentelli, “Give Me Back My Loving”
Kacey Musgraves has a story to tell. It’s a sad story, it’s a true story, and it’s her story. After filling Golden Hour, her roundly acclaimed 2018 release that won her the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, with … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — Star-Crossed
290. Quarterflash, Quarterflash (1981) The members of the Portland band Seafood Mama spent a good portion of 1980 peddling their independently released single “Harden My Heart” as they gigged across the Pacific Northwest. The song took hold in local radio, … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #290 to #288
A mild panic rose a couple years ago, when Mitski announced she was withdrawing from the music-biz grind for an indefinite period of time. She had to take to social media to remind her devotees that “indefinite” is foremost a … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Mitski, “Working for the Knife”
This series of posts covers my long, beloved history interacting with the medium of radio, including the music that flowed through the airwaves. There are many enormous pleasures to returning with some frequency to my college radio alma mater to … Continue reading Radio Days — Rediscovering the Jazz Butcher
These posts are about the songs that fell just short of crossing the key line of chart success, entering the Billboard Top 40. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 41. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers had a … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Near Misses — “I Need to Know”
293. Cocteau Twins, Blue Bell Knoll (1988) After Cocteau Twins were given their U.S. coming-out party with the release of the 1985 compilation The Pink Opaque, fans had to wait a long time for a proper new studio album from … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #293 to #291
It’s been twenty-six years since Alanis Morissette released Jagged Little Pill. The album was a sensation, launching her to pop superstardom. The relative suddenness of her transition from obscurity to omnipresence combined with her youth made it see like a … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Deep Sea Diver, “Hand in My Pocket”
Chvrches might not have felt like they needed a rebound from their third album, Love Is Dead. There are some signs that the Scottish trio knows they went down a blind alley, both in some stray comments here and there … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — Screen Violence
