I wish my college radio station was well-stocked with Big Star records, but that was sadly not the case. Instead, I often had to settle for their descendants, those happy few who were doing their best to carry forward the banner of power pop. There were few things that got me immediately excited quite like big, buzzing guitars propping up ridiculously catchy hooks. Similarly, when power pop bands turned to ballads–the emotions were the part of the song turned up to eleven–they were crafting exactly the sorts of songs that I wanted when I was doing the late night shift … Continue reading One for Friday: Velvet Crush, “Faster Days”

Thought I can’t necessarily parcel my personal journey as a music fan into clear, clean divisions, I have had a few distinct phases, stretches when the material I sought out was actively influence by one source or another, be it individuals or, in a couple of case, entire radio station music libraries. And then there are the periodicals, led by the foundational and sometimes regrettable impact of Rolling Stone on my taste. I hold far greater fondness for a later period of time I think of, as I must, as “The Mojo years.” I started buying the U.K. magazine after … Continue reading One for Friday: Earth Opera, “The Red Sox are Winning”

I’d like to say that I grabbed a hold of Fountains of Wayne after seeing That Thing You Do!, but that’s not quite accurate. Fountains of Wayne songwriter Adam Schlesinger penned the title cut to Tom Hanks’s directorial debut, miraculously creating an instantly catchy number that never overstayed its welcome despite being circled back to repeatedly in the film (and then there are those of us who’ve watched the film countless times and still never gotten sick of it). That introduction should have reasonably been enough to convince me that this was an artist made for me, particular since his … Continue reading One for Friday: Fountains of Wayne, “Utopia Parkway”

I have enough invested in the idea of perfect artistic finality that occasionally I can drift into the mental parlor game of selecting the best last album for an individual artist. This doesn’t necessarily mean identifying their very best work under the theory that everyone should go out at their absolute peak. Instead, it’s about finding those releases that feel just right as a sort of summation, a proper closing statement of artistic identity and intent. To shift the topic to movies for a useful illustration, Robert Altman probably made at least a dozen movies that I consider plainly better … Continue reading One for Friday: Lyle Lovett, “Step Inside This House”