Category: Music

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

This was one of those wholly manageable weeks for me at Spectrum Culture: one album review, one film review. The album review was the tricker of the two, largely because it was another instance of a record that didn’t inspire strong feelings one way or the other. And “It’s pretty good” simply isn’t enough. In my malaise, I completely missed my opportunity to invoke a long dreamed of touring contingent. Since I spent the first part of the review musing on how many different groups shared some variation of the band’s name, I should have suggested that all of the … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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One for Friday: James Brown, “Gonna Have a Funky Good Time”

Dan Seeger

When We Were Kings, Leon Gast’s definitive documentary on the fabled “Rumble in the Jungle” fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, started life as a concert film. As part of the associated festivities in Zaire, several funk and soul artists were there to stage a live show, which undoubtedly seemed like perfect fodder for a hit movie release back when Michael Wadleigh’s film of the Woodstock Music & Art Fair was still making the rounds to young, adoring and probably pretty stoned audiences. While there, Gast quickly figured out that the real story was happening over in the training … Continue reading One for Friday: James Brown, “Gonna Have a Funky Good Time”

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

Thankfully, it was a light week for me at Spectrum Culture, somewhat by design. For instance, I entirely opted out of picking a film for this week, so the only full-length piece I had was for one of the music releases that’s been sitting in my iTunes for ages. I wrote on the debut release from the Brooklyn band Desert Stars. The writing process exists in my memory as only static, so I hope the review is at least reasonably well written. I also expelled a few words in service of lauding R.E.M. in the second entry in our countdown … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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One for Friday: Shona Laing, “(Glad I’m) Not a Kennedy”

Dan Seeger

When I showed up at the college radio station in that fateful fall of 1988, I had a little catalog in my head of songs that I needed to find. I have been combing Rolling Stone for a couple years by then, fascinated by all these elusive artists that popped up in the review section or other humble corner of the publication. There was no way one of my local radio stations was going to play a performer like Shona Laing or a song like “(Glad I’m) Not a Kennedy,” but that didn’t stop it for lodging in my brain … Continue reading One for Friday: Shona Laing, “(Glad I’m) Not a Kennedy”

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College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1996, 46 and 45

Dan Seeger

46. Aimee Mann, I’m with Stupid Aimee Man is perhaps the quintessential example of the perils of the sort of pop stardom MTV delivered in the mid-eighties. Her band ‘Til Tuesday had a true smash with their first proper single, “Voices Carry,” (following a big, local hit in their hometown of Boston with a a song that proved to later be something of a dud when released nationwide) but it so completely defined them that it obscured Mann’s skill as a songwriter, something should have been evident to anyone paying attention. After ‘Til Tuesday’s final album, released in 1988, it … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1996, 46 and 45

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

I was irritated that I had a day this past week when I plainly gave up on writing a post for this space. Here’s part of the reason why: I wrote an awful lot for Spectrum Culture this week. First, I wrote about the new album from Washed Out, which I think is a significant improvement on the full-length debut from a couple years back. I asked for the release because it’s a little different material for me, and I thought it would be a good stretch for me. When I sat down to write the review last weekend, I … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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One for Friday: Emmylou Harris, “Amarillo”

Dan Seeger

I like shopping for records. And I specifically mean records, large vinyl discs in cardboard sleeves. Of course, it’s the music (or the comedy, or the…uh…miscellaneous) pressed onto them that I’m really after, but there’s something very different about the tactile quality of going through record albums that entirely exceeds the same experience done with CDs or some other format. I’m prepared to attribute that somewhat to nostalgia. There’s no getting around that. I think there is more to it, though, especially when it comes to used albums. There’s the larger presentation to the art, the added sense of anticipation … Continue reading One for Friday: Emmylou Harris, “Amarillo”

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Top 40 Smash Taps: “A Love So Fine”

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. The Chiffons came into being when Ronald Mack heard three girls singing together in a Bronx high school lunchroom. A fourth member was recruited and Mack wrote them a batch of songs, including “He’s So Fine,” which the group recorded with the Tokens as their backing band. The Chiffons kept experimenting–including the release of two charting singles as the Four Pennies–but it quickly … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “A Love So Fine”