As she’s spun up new pop jelly beans in recent years, Carly Rae Jepsen has developed a reputation for ludicrous productivity, reportedly generating hundreds of new songs for each album. So it’s hardly surprisingly that a pesky annoyance such a … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Carly Rae Jepsen, “Me and the Boys in the Band”
According to Lianne La Havas, she started writing songs for her latest album shortly after a breakup. That makes sense, because soul music is practically made for heartache. Or seduction, but the heartache brings out a sharper tang. The resulting … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — Lianne La Havas
470. Red Rockers, Good as Gold (1983) By the time Red Rockers started work on their second full-length album, Good as Gold, they had undergone an evolution in their sound. Formed in New Orleans as an act essentially trying to … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #470 to #468
The Death of Bon Appétit Is Proof Media Companies Have No Idea What Makes Videos Work by Victoria Song As someone who worked for a B2B publishing company that floundered its way into nonexistence, I can attest to the validity … Continue reading Outside Reading — Kitchen Fires edition
The new song “Boomer” is reportedly inspired by Bartees Strange’s experience of smoking weed with his father for the first time. (“smoking with your parents is something ever my grown human should experience. Full circle shit,” confirmed Strange, via tweet.) That entertaining detail doesn’t get at the crux of the song’s appeal, which is Strange’s astounding musical creative that reveal boundaries between genres to be useless fictions. There are flavors of exuberant hip hop, propulsive rock, jangling indie, and bendy pop. And then the breakdown in the middle sounds like classic blues conjured into reincarnated life (“You can’t hurt me/ I’ve … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Bartees Strange, “Boomer”
These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art. One year after the Coca-Cola Company introduced the citrusy, sugar-free soda Fresca to the U.S. market, they … Continue reading The Art of the Sell — Trini Lopez, “The Blizzard Song”
This series of posts covers my long, beloved history interacting with the medium of radio, including the music that flowed through the airwaves. Several years ago, an idea came to a fellow alumnus of the college radio station WWSP-90FM. He … Continue reading Radio Days — 90FM Reunion 8
473. Wang Chung, Points on the Curve (1984) When Geffen Records signed Huang Chung, there was an immediate suggestion about the band’s name. They could keep it, but a change of spelling was advised, prompted in part by a noticed … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #473 to #471
Some weeks I am diligent and devoted, scouring as much of the superhighway of information as I possibly can in hunt of the new song that speaks deeply to me in that particular moment. Some weeks I find a song and the process is immediately, unquestionably complete. This week is one of the latter. I mean, come on. Continue reading This Week’s Model — Phoebe Bridgers and Courtney Barnett, “Everything is Free”
476. Love Tractor, This Ain’t No Outer Space Ship (1986) The early nineteen-eighties was a good time for a band to ply their trade in Athens, Georgia. In addition to an especially fertile club scene, boosted by a college crowd … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #476 to #474
Coffee for Two 