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One for Friday: The Shaking Family, “Tic Toc”

Dan Seeger

  A debate flared up from time to time at my radio station regarding the relative merits of digging into albums versus concentrating on the singles. It was more of a jabbering-over-beers debate than an almost-coming-to-blows one, but still it was there. Generally, I opted for the deep cuts argument, feeling it was what most differentiated us from just about everyone else on the dial. Especially in an era that found some of the most unlikely college rock bands and tracks crossing over (seriously, how on earth does “I Touch Myself” become a Top 5 song?) sticking to what the labels … Continue reading One for Friday: The Shaking Family, “Tic Toc”

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Top 40 Smash Taps: “I’m Movin’ On” and “Sticks and Stones”

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. Ray Charles is one of the few figures in the history of American popular music who deserves the descriptor “legend.” With well over one hundred singles to his credit, tallying up his total entries into the Billboard Top 40 is beyond my current mental energy, so let’s concentrate strictly on the two songs that qualify for this feature. “I’m Movin’ On” was the … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “I’m Movin’ On” and “Sticks and Stones”

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College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 51-49

Dan Seeger

51. King Crimson, Thrak It’s so bizarre to me that the 90FM charts from around this time are peppered with the sort of improbably enduring prog rock bands that I thought I and my cohorts had swept out of the main airplay times with an aggressive recalibration of the stacks a couple years earlier (the 1996 list previously counted down had a Rush album in it, which I think is at least partially explained by the fervent fandom of a good friend who graduated that particular year). Thrak was the first full-length studio album by King Crimson in over ten years. Multi-instrumentalist … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 51-49

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One for Friday: Kimya Dawson, “I Like Giants (live)”

Dan Seeger

This is a extremely busy time for me at work. Not only am I basically in charge of the fast approaching graduation ceremony at the small, liberal arts college that cuts me a monthly paycheck, but the biggest program of the year, a spectacle we simply call Circus, takes place this weekend and has been properly exhausting me during the extensive lead-up to it. Plus, next week we’re bringing the extraordinary Nikki Giovanni to campus, and I’ve got a lot of heavy lifting associated with that event. I barely have time to blink, much less tap out a little flurry … Continue reading One for Friday: Kimya Dawson, “I Like Giants (live)”

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College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 54-52

Dan Seeger

Now where were we? Ah, yes…. 54. Suddenly, Tammy!, We Get There When We Do I originally intended to tap out a longer review of this particular release, but getting my ears on it proved as elusive now as it was for me then. I read a review of We Get There When We Do somewhere — most likely CMJ New Music Monthly — and immediate decided it was likely in my aural taste wheelhouse, probably because of comparisons with Juliana Hatfield (lead singer Beth Sorrentino sometimes sounds like a vocal twin) and a weakness for piano-based pop that compelled me … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 54-52

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One for Friday Encore: Mollie Donihe, “Come On Eileen (Cover)”

Dan Seeger

My Trivia team has a theme song. We even have a outside source to confirm it: Okay, so that Wikipedia edit is long gone, but I swear it was accurate. Since that song holds a special hold on me and my cohorts, a version of it is shared in this space on the Friday on the day The Only Trivia Contest That Matters (my phrasing) kicks off. For years, I scoured the web for covers or other alternate takes that existed so I had something to put in this space without sharing the original, chart-topping recording. Then last year I … Continue reading One for Friday Encore: Mollie Donihe, “Come On Eileen (Cover)”

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College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 56 and 55

Dan Seeger

56. Rancid, …And Out Come the Wolves Rancid’s third album was greeted with an extremely rare A+ review in Entertainment Weekly (back when that publication still had some credibility), with writer Chuck Eddy asserting the Berkeley punkers made a “better Clash record than London Calling.” That is the very definition of a bold statement. I do understand the impulse Eddy felt to draw a straight line from the California punkers to The Only Band That Matters. Circa 1995, there was a lot of tug of war taking place over the legitimacy of different bands, especially in the punk realm. Now, that’s … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 56 and 55

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One for Friday: Laurie Anderson, “Babydoll”

Dan Seeger

When I trace my foundational knowledge of the music I eventually immersed myself in at my college radio station, I usually have to cite either Rolling Stone or, more rarely, the keepers on the airwaves in my hometown. When it comes to Laurie Anderson, though, I’m fairly confident I was introduced to her by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. While the Chicago film critics dutifully covered the major studio releases on their weekly movie review program, they also committed themselves to highlighting the smaller, independent, even oddball films that weren’t likely to play at a theater near me, not just … Continue reading One for Friday: Laurie Anderson, “Babydoll”

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Top 40 Smash Taps: “Good Timin'”

Dan Seeger

By my rough count, the Beach Boys notched thirty-eight Top 40 singles over the course of their multi-decade career. A significant number of those made it into the Top 10, and four of those topped the chart. That quartet of number ones includes their final Top 40 song, a single so simultaneously awful and incessantly catchy that the only word that suitably describes it is “hellish.” (Seriously, don’t click on that link. The song will be trapped in your brain for increasingly uncomfortable hours upon hours.) In 1979, the band was in a rough space commercially. It had been three years … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Good Timin’”

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College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 59-57

Dan Seeger

59. Simple Minds, Good News from the Next World If I’d been forced to lay money on whether or not Simple Minds was still releasing new music in 1995, I would have placed my chips smack on “NO” and felt like I’d made a pretty safe bet. The band that peaked hard with the quintessential John Hughes soundtrack song one decade earlier never really stopped trying to outrace their biggest chart success, which came with the indignity of being the rare example of a track they recorded which they didn’t write themselves (they were at least the fourth different act … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 59-57