Category: Music

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One for Friday: Michael Penn, “No Myth (Acoustic)”

Dan Seeger

Though it clearly charted at my college radio station, I have no clear recollection of playing any music from Michael Penn’s debut LP, March, when it was in the new music rotation. I probably did, but it didn’t stick with me, even once its lead single, “No Myth,” started edging its way up the charts (eventually becoming Penn’s sole Top 40 hit). Very much in the know-it-all phase of my late adolescence, I was probably given to a needlessly reactionary indifference to Penn’s music, so certain that he had a record deal only because his brother was a movie star, … Continue reading One for Friday: Michael Penn, “No Myth (Acoustic)”

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College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 223 – 221

Dan Seeger

223. Lou Reed, “No Money Down” By the mid-nineteen-eighties, there were two surefire ways to stir up extra interest in a single: make a attention-getting video that MTV couldn’t resist playing, or make an attention-getting video that MTV rejected from their cable-waves for one squeamishness-based reason or another. When Lou Reed released his 1986 album, Mistrial, he was in a strange, unsettled place professionally. Thanks to his creative leadership in the Velvet Underground and a edgy nineteen-seventies solo career that could be used as a shorthand introduction to that decade’s drug-addled grittiness, Reed was approaching the status of legend, albeit one … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 223 – 221

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The New Releases Shelf: A Man Alive

Dan Seeger

Operating with the mixed blessing of a highly distinctive voice — in every sense of that word — Thao Nguyen could presumably get along all right taking an easier, less deliberatively disruptive course. She could probably make a string of records laden with relatively straightforward, folk-tinged rock songs and keep herself and her band, the Get Down Stay Down, in regular music biz work for some time. Instead, she ties composition into tricky knots, constantly seeking the challenging dynamic, as if enough effort in that direction will finally create the song that can surprise her in midstream. As a listener, it’s … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: A Man Alive

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Bait Taken: The New York Times Magazine’s “25 Songs That Tell Us Where Music is Going”

Dan Seeger

There are many building blocks of the internet, but the cornerstones are think pieces, offhand lists, and other hollow provocations meant to stir arguments and, therefore, briefly redirect web traffic. Engaging such material is utterly pointless. Then again, it’s not like I have anything better to do.   As I’m sure they secretly hoped, the outrage geysered up right away. The New York Times basically turned over the entirety of their most recent Sunday magazine to a feature entitled “25 Songs That Tell Us Where Music is Going,” which was further billed as “A One-Time Spectacular.” Though positioned as an intricately considered … Continue reading Bait Taken: The New York Times Magazine’s “25 Songs That Tell Us Where Music is Going”

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College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 226 – 224

Dan Seeger

226. 10,000 Maniacs, “Peace Train” Ahead of recording In My Tribe, 10,000 Maniacs was noticeably struggling to get a foothold on commercial success, enough so that guitarist Robert Buck reported it stirred somewhat unique worries among his family: “My uncle Charlie read somewhere that we were a cult band so he thought we were playing for the Moonies. He even confronted me with it; he said, ‘Are you giving your money to the Moonies? Is that why you don’t have any money?’” The band’s label, Elektra Records, wasn’t worried about that particular problem, but they were anxious enough to see their … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 226 – 224

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One for Friday: Timbuk 3, “National Holiday”

Dan Seeger

Well, this was bound to happen. After having cause and capability to revisit a college radio chart from 1989 that I helped craft (it was probably from somewhere around my one-year anniversary at the station), my mind’s been awhirl with thoughts of all the more obscure records on it. There were plenty of albums included there that have received at least periodic revisits from me over the years, but I’m currently more intrigued by those that were used to fill the airwaves during that particular week only to see them later fade almost entirely from my attention. Casting back to … Continue reading One for Friday: Timbuk 3, “National Holiday”

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Top 40 Smash Taps: “Bewildered,” “Get It Together, Part 1,” “Let a Man Come In and Do the Popcorn, Part 2” and “King Heroin”

Dan Seeger

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. Throughout this life of this feature, I’ve featured several acts that wound up with two separate singles that peaked at #40 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. As best I can tell, only one artist accomplished the strange feat more than twice. Fittingly, it’s the person dubbed “The Hardest Working Man in Show Business” who did it, putting a total of four singles … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Bewildered,” “Get It Together, Part 1,” “Let a Man Come In and Do the Popcorn, Part 2” and “King Heroin”

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College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 229 – 227

Dan Seeger

229. Van Halen, “Jump” Eddie Van Halen wrote “Jump” on the synthesizer. Famously and even a bit notoriously, the song was a significant departure for the band the bore his name, a group that forged a fervent fan base largely through their vaunted lead guitarist’s six-string heroics. When “Jump” arrived as the lead single from Van Halen’s 1984, the divergence from the band’s typical sound was all anyone could talk about, a flurry of chatter which served the song well. Interest in the track was high, and it quickly became the most successful single the band ever released, cruising to the top … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 229 – 227

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From the Archive: 90FM’s Top 35, Early September 1989

Dan Seeger

An old friend of mine has recently been moving heaven, earth, and government agencies to get his hands on as much material from the early years of the college radio trade journal CMJ as he can. Among his bounty is a batch of photocopies of a issue from September of 1989, collecting some of the first reports of stations after the start of the school year. The main album chart has Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Mother’s Milk at the top and includes such left of the dial luminaries as the Sugarcubes, the Cure, and the Pixies. Of greater immediate interest to … Continue reading From the Archive: 90FM’s Top 35, Early September 1989