4. Linda Ronstadt, Living in the USA In 1978, Linda Ronstadt was about as big as a rock ‘n’ roll performer could get, though most of the superlatives that got flung around centered on her gender. After a slightly belated … Continue reading College Countdown, The First CMJ Album Chart, 4
Every Joan Jett song should feature her barking out “Fuck you!” within the first fifteen seconds. Jett was all over the radio when I first really started paying attention to it as something other than background the adults had on. With backing band the Blackhearts, her cover of “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” was the number one song in the country for seven weeks in the spring of 1982 (originally recorded by the British band Arrows, Jett had taken an earlier pass at it in 1979, with no less than the Sex Pistols in tow). It was absolutely everywhere, heralding … Continue reading One for Friday: Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, “Spinster”
I’m going to break a rule. It’s one of my own rules, so I guess it’s okay if I decide to break it. The song shared today is in print and presumably available at your favorite local, independently-owned record store. In fact, there’s a whole mess of Dave Alvin albums that can be purchased, including the recently-released collaboration with his brother that’s drawn laudatory reviews. So I’ll begin by urging you to contact the proprietor of that favorite store and discuss making a purchase. Not necessarily today, though. It’s a holiday. Let them have a break. “4th of July” is … Continue reading One for Friday: Dave Alvin, “4th of July”
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. Unquestionably the most successful group of the highly successful Motown record label, the Supremes had thirty-three Top 40 singles in the U.S., with more than a third of them reaching the very top of the Billboard chart. That included an amazing run of five straight #1 singles in 1964 and 1965, beginning with “Where Did Our Love Go” and ending with “Back in … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “I’m Going to Let My Heart Do the Walking”
6. Jethro Tull, Bursting Out Look. It’s Jethro Tull, the band that brought flute solos into rock ‘n’ roll. It’s a double live album, because it’s the nineteen-seventies and double live albums were the standard filler on the discography of … Continue reading College Countdown, The First CMJ Album Chart, 6
I knew practically nothing about the Swimming Pool Q’s back when I used to play them on 90FM, but I know a few more things now. The group formed in Atlanta in the late nineteen-seventies, in part thanks to connections made through Glenn Phillips, cult hero singer-songwriter and former member of the Hampton Grease Band. They released their first album in 1981, followed by a pair of releases on A&M Records, recently pulled together in a deluxe reissue using funds from a successful Kickstarter campaign. By the time I found my way to them, they’d parted ways with the label … Continue reading One for Friday: The Swimming Pool Q’s, “More Often Than Never”
7. Neil Young, Comes a Time Comes a Time, released in October of 1978, was the ninth solo release credited to Neil Young. It was at once a departure and a return to form. After a batch of prickly, complex, … Continue reading College Countdown: The First CMJ Album Chart, 7
This is one of the album reviews I wrote for The Independent, the weekly publication once presided over by the most indefatigable human being I know. Clearly, my later instinct when writing for Spectrum Culture to claim music that was outside my general comfort zone was in effect even back then. I’d like to say that all the cross-references that can be found in this short piece were indicative of the strong influence Mojo magazine had on my writing at the time, but I still do that. Polysics offer up a “Special Thanks to Devo” in the liner notes to … Continue reading From the Archive: Neu
Every band deserves one perfect song, a pop gem so glistening and lovable that all other transgressions against creative good taste can be forever forgiven. Flesh for Lulu had exactly that with “Postcards from Paradise,” a single off of their 1987 album, Long Live the New Flesh. The song is so good that any greatest hits album that includes that track and a random assemblage of eleven other of the band’s efforts is guaranteed to be a pretty damn good record. Of course, there’s a downside to that, too. Every other song, almost without exception, is going to sound fairly … Continue reading One for Friday: Flesh for Lulu, “Time and Space”
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. Gene Cotton was a singer-songwriter who worked primarily in the nineteen-seventies, racking up a few moderately successful singles, four of which landed in the Billboard Top 40. Among that quartet was a 1978 duet with Kim Carnes on the song “You’re a Part of Me,” a track that stood as her first trip to the Billboard charts, two years before she made it … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Like a Sunday in Salem”
Coffee for Two 