These posts are about the songs that fell just short of crossing the key line of chart success, entering the Billboard Top 40. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 41. Bob Dylan logged seven Top 40 singles … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Near Misses — “Wigwam” and “Watching the River Flow”
422. Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Live Rust (1979) Lest anyone doubt Neil Young’s entrepreneurial spirit, he is one of the few artists who opted to make a live album to document the tour mounted in support of a live … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #422 to #420
It takes diligence to track the minor shifts and major changes Tigers Jaw has experienced over the years. Formed in Scranton, Pennsylvania a decade and a half ago, the group has undergone significant roster changes and refined their sound along … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Tigers Jaw, “Lemon Mouth”
425. Big Country, The Seer (1986) The intent was a return to the band’s roots. Big Country had the sort of hit debut that bands dream about. The Crossing, released in 1983, sold enough copies to earn a gold certification … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #425 to #423
In Praise of Phoebe Bridgers, a Thoroughly Good Celebrity by Madeline Ducharme Writing for Slate, Madeline Ducharme offers an accounting of Phoebe Bridgers’s contributions to the culture in recent months, and it’s a welcome compendium of good things in a … Continue reading Outside Reading — If We Make It Through December edition
It’s a tricky time to be an emerging artist. Arlo Parks started 2020 with a headlining tour through Europe that couldn’t be completed because of public heath lockdowns, prompting the need to find other ways to keep her name out … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Arlo Parks, “Caroline”
These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art. Now that our regular Sunday diversion around these here digital parts has shifted to a spot on … Continue reading The Art of the Sell — “Then Came the ‘Reckoning’”
428. The Boomtown Rats, A Tonic for the Troops (1978) The Boomtown Rats were getting big in the U.K. and it was time to conquer the bigger, more lucrative market on the other side of the Atlantic. A Tonic for … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #428 to #426
“The Spirit Of,” the new track by Cloud Nothings, cracks open my id and sluices in everything my younger self ever wanted in a song. It’s guitars and drums and bass, and producer Steve Albini making a lovely smear of … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Cloud Nothings, “The Spirit Of”
These posts are about the songs that just barely failed to cross the key line of chart success, entering the Billboard Top 40. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 41. Antonio Jeffries went nearly as high as … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Near Misses — “Like a Woman”
Coffee for Two 