This coming weekend, I’ll participate in The World’s Largest Trivia ContestTM. As per tradition, this week is filled with idle reminiscing about memorable answers in past years. This time around, I’m going to focus on one of the recurring question … Continue reading Trivia Answer of the Day — Seven Wishes
This coming weekend, I’ll participate in The World’s Largest Trivia ContestTM. As per tradition, this week is filled with idle reminiscing about memorable answers in past years. This time around, I’m going to focus on one of the recurring question … Continue reading Trivia Answer of the Day — Hit Trip
744. Robert Palmer, Secrets (1979) Secrets was the fifth solo album from Robert Palmer and his first after finally enjoying some success on the U.S. pop charts. The flamenco-tinged “Every Kinda People,” from the 1978 album Double Fun, pushed its … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #744 to #741
Titus Andronicus is one of those bands I’ve followed with appreciation, but without ever quite locking in fully. The rafter-rattling power of their music and the fierce craft that clearly goes into their songs is admirable, to be sure. I … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Titus Andronicus, “(I Blame) Society”
On the Line, the new album from Jenny Lewis, exists in a glorious time warp. The artistic sensibility that she’s developed across the two decades since Rilo Kiley’s debut is firmly in place, but is as if there’s a spinning … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — On the Line
748. The Kinks, State of Confusion (1983) On the U.S. singles chart, the nineteen-seventies were rough for the Kinks. Previously shoulder to shoulder with the Who on the tier just below the Beatles and the Rolling Stones on the pyramid … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #748 to #745
The opening guitar riff is almost enough for me. Rhythmic, echoing, and steely strong, it reminds me of the first moments of Billy Bragg’s “The Saturday Boy,” though with an extra coat of hard toffee gloss and a quickened pace … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Tacocat, “Hologram”
These posts are about the songs that just barely failed to cross the key line of chart success, entering the Billboard Top 40. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 41. In 1962, Sam Cooke released the cut … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Near Misses — “I’ll Bring It Home to You”
752. Bleached Black, Bleached Black (1987) College programmers who first dropped the needle on the self-titled debut of Bleached Black might have been expecting to get a sweeping dose of glorious goth music. Instead, the band from New Haven, Connecticut … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #752 to #749
In my music fandom, I have a few clear weaknesses, sounds and conceits before which I am utterly helpless. One of chief bits that gets me almost every time is a song that is about being a song, calling attention … Continue reading This Week’s Model — An Horse, “This is a Song”
Coffee for Two 