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The New Releases Shelf: AIM

Dan Seeger

  I’m not sure M.I.A. has ever made a single album that’s great from start to finish. Her muse has too much wanderlust for that. Running freely can lead an artist to cross entirely new landscapes, but it can also result in a mad rush into a blind alley or two. It can also lead to a sort of artistic exhaustion, which isn’t quite what M.I.A. copped to in suggesting that AIM, her fifth full-length overall, will be her final album. Still, she’s said she’s ready to move onto other projects, and there are times when AIM betrays a sense … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: AIM

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College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 124 – 122

Dan Seeger

124. Siouxsie and the Banshees, “Cities in Dust” One of the indicators that the nineteen-eighties was a time of very different expectations around bands’ productivity, there was some anxiety around how long it had been since new Siouxsie and the Banshees music had hit record store shelves when “Cities in Dust” was issued as a single, in August of 1985. This was despite the fact that had put out a full-length album and an EP the prior year. A trio of singles had been drawn from those two releases, each of which performed with the usual level of respectability on … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 124 – 122

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One for Friday: De La Soul, “A Roller Skating Jam Named ‘Saturdays'”

Dan Seeger

When I reviewed De La Soul’s gratifyingly strong new album, and the Anonymous Nobody, I wrote about my own journey with the group, from initial hesitance to cheerful embrace, a trajectory that spanned from their debut to their sophomore effort. As I noted, 3 Feet High and Rising was one of those records that completely flummoxed me during my college radio years. It got rave reviews and was clearly sparking with creativity, but it also provoked heightened ambivalence in me when I tried to figure out how it might fit onto our station’s airwaves, especially since the playlists were typically … Continue reading One for Friday: De La Soul, “A Roller Skating Jam Named ‘Saturdays’”

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College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 127 – 125

Dan Seeger

127. Bronski Beat, “Smalltown Boy” There’s probably no way to overstate the importance and the power a song like “Smalltown Boy” carried in 1984. The first single from the London synthpop band Bronski Beat addresses the difficulty of growing up a gay young man in the era, empowered enough to fully understand his own identity, but also cruelly judged and shunned by those around him, their own levels of enlightenment not up to the decidedly simply task of acceptance. “As hard as they would try/ They’d hurt to make you cry/ But you never cried to them/ Just to your … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 127 – 125

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One for Friday: the Mountain Goats, “Cubs in Five”

Dan Seeger

One of the aspects of John Darnielle’s songwriting I admire most is his eager conviction that anything — absolutely anything — is potential inspiration for him to sit down with his guitar and create a tune that is piercing and true. He’s talked about that in live performances I’ve seen. He’d learn something in a history class and immediately want to rush home and merge his impressions of the particular slice of the past with a couple of well chosen chords. I’d long assumed that his song “Cubs in Five,” which leads the 1995 EP Nine Black Poppies, referenced the … Continue reading One for Friday: the Mountain Goats, “Cubs in Five”

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College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 130 – 128

Dan Seeger

130. Cocteau Twins, “Carolyn’s Fingers” The Cocteau Twins sound was well-established by the time they recorded their 1988 album, Blue Bell Knoll, stirring the ethereally gloomy hearts of a sizable enough fan base in the U.S. to trigger genially perplexed stories on local television news. They could have easily locked in and kept on with the flow — that’s what the dreamy music sounds like it’s suited for, after all — but they wanted to take greater control of what they created. The band’s fifth album was the first on which they took charge completely. “I just realized I needed … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 130 – 128

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One for Friday: Billy Bragg, “Sulk”

Dan Seeger

I adore those rare instance when a music discovery hits with an immediacy and clarity of a ringside bell. To my mind, there’s nothing more magical than when such a revelation happens in the midst of a crowd, basking in live music delivered by a skilled performer. The first of many times that I saw Billy Bragg live, he was touring to support his 1991 album, Don’t Try This at Home. This excursion to stand before the Bard of Barking was of major importance to me. Workers Playtime was one of the albums I clung to like a religious artifact … Continue reading One for Friday: Billy Bragg, “Sulk”

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College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 133 – 131

Dan Seeger

133. They Might Be Giants, “Ana Ng” According to John Linnell, “Ana Ng” has its foundation in his childhood memories. “There’s a cartoon I read as a kid in which a character shoots a gun through a globe to find out where the other side of the world is. So that was sort of the beginning,” he told MTV at the time. The comic in question was an installment of Walt Kelly’s great Pogo, and Churchy LaFemme was the pistol-wielding geographer. Further inspiration came from Linnell letting his fingers do the walking through a New York City phone book, noting there … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 133 – 131

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One for Friday: Bettie Serveert, “The Pharmacy”

Dan Seeger

I like music. And I like a lot of different bands and performers. It’s a breadth that I’ve tried to cultivate every since I first started buying records with focus and dedication over thirty years ago. When others prodded me with questions about favorites — bands, styles, songs, albums — it’s usually resulted in me stammering out some noncommittal response, not because I’m lacking in opinions (as this digital outpost presumably makes clear), but because those sorts of singular declarations felt so limiting. I always wanted more. I’m a broadcaster by inclination. Narrowcasting holds little interest for me, even when … Continue reading One for Friday: Bettie Serveert, “The Pharmacy”

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Laughing Matters: Bruce McCulloch, “Daves I Know”

Dan Seeger

Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. Having spent the past several days swinging wildly between obsessive tracking of political news and happy but tense viewings of postseason baseball, I need a soul and spirit cleanser. And this will do, nicely. Previous entries in this series can be found by clicking on the “Laughing Matters” tag. Continue reading Laughing Matters: Bruce McCulloch, “Daves I Know”