College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #464 to #462

464. Thrashing Doves, Bedrock Vice (1987) “I loved it,” Margaret Thatcher announced after watching the video for Thrashing Doves’ jagged pop-rock single“Beautiful Imbalance” on the children’s television show Saturday Superstore. “I liked the constant music. I liked the color. There’s … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #464 to #462

This Week’s Model — Bartees Strange, “Boomer”

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”