Some weeks are longer than others. Sometimes the only solution is to dance away whatever woes have accumulated. Luckily, there’s a fresh slice of gleaming Norwegian pop for those who might have received the diagnosis and prescription where a spinning … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Sigrid, “Mirror”
The town of Marfa was established in Southwest Texas, in the late eighteen-hundreds, because steam-engine locomotives needed a place to stop in their journey and replenish their water supply. A century and half later, the community endures. With a population … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — The Marfa Tapes
350. The House of Love, The House of Love (1988) Signed to Creation Records not long after their formation, the House of Love released a couple successful singles and seemed quickly, comfortably on their way to their debut full-length album, … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #350 to #348
Sinead O’Connor Remembers Things Differently by Amanda Hess This fantastic profile of Sinéad Marie Bernadette O’Connor, who also goes by the name Shuhada Sadaqat, offers a definitive, paper-of-record pardon of the artist’s notorious rending of a religious figure’s photograph. Better … Continue reading Outside Reading — Very Much an Irish Woman edition
Sometimes nothing hits my ears, and my heart, more sweetly than a new track that reminds me of the chiming, charming college rock when I regularly roamed the poster-covered walls of my beloved radio alma mater. “A Fake Idea,” the … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Hurry, “A Fake Idea”
The new album from the Danish band Iceage finds them on a sonic journey that used to be fairly commonplace. Among the titans of college rock who ruled the left end of the dial through the nineteen-eighties, there are a … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — Seek Shelter
353. Meat Puppets, Mirage (1987) Meat Puppets spent the first chunk of the nineteen-eighties making music almost relentlessly. They churned out recordings with speed and aplomb, then followed those with lengthy tours. About the only think that could slow their … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #353 to #351
Count me among those who thought Sleater-Kinney’s 2019 album, The Center Won’t Hold, was utterly fantastic. I know the churlish consensus is that the beloved band misstepped in adopting some of the ideas proffered by their famous producer, or perhaps … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Sleater-Kinney, “Worry With You”
Like a Stone, the new album from the Philadelphia band Remember Sports, gave me a beloved sensation that is all too rare for me now. It took me back to my college radio days — both iterations — when a band … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — Like a Stone
356. Translator, No Time Like Now (1983) When 415 Records, an independent label based in San Francisco, inked a distribution deal with Columbia Records, Translator was the first act they brought to the newly accessible masses. Heartbeats and Triggers, Translator’s … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #356 to #354
Coffee for Two 