Favorite Songs of 2025
Once again we have reached the end of a calendar year and one of the greatest days of the blogging year: the unveiling of my favorite songs of 2025. This year the process was as fun as I can recall. As you know, I keep a running list throughout the year, constantly shuffling songs in and out as they catch…
Christmas Playlist
Time to close up Ye Olde Blogge Shoppe for the Christmas holiday. To celebrate I’m going to offer a playlist I last shared a couple years back that features some of my favorite Christmas music deep cuts. Some of these are fun, some are wonderful, all of them are terrific. Merry Christmas to all my readers!
Weekend Notes
A relatively chill weekend for us without any of our football teams playing and no KU basketball. Power Out Friday morning I was jolted out of bed around 5:30 when high winds sent a tree or branch into a power line located a couple hundred feet from our back windows. The sky lit up with all the fun colors that…
Friday Playlist
I am putting the finishing touches on my Favorite Songs of 2025 list. Not sure if it will get posted before or after Christmas, but it is getting very close, my friends! For this week’s playlist I’ll share the songs that were in the running for the final list but just missed. “Afraid Of Guns” – MotorbikeBest…
Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 122
Chart Week: December 11, 1982 Song: “The Look Of Love (Part 1)” – ABC Chart Position: #20, 14th week on the chart. Peaked at #18 for three weeks in January 1983. As a true music geek, sometimes it really pisses me off when a band’s best song was not their biggest hit. I realize this is purely subjective; who am…
Wednesday Links
Some of these I knew, some were new. I can’t believe this one was new to me. “Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Joy Division was a direct response to the popular pop song “Love Will Keep Us Together” by Captain & Tennille. Very Good Music Fun Facts So fun he quickly did it again. More Very Good Music Facts…
Weekend Notes
Winter is kind of horseshit. Talk about that and other things that happened over the past few days below. Winter Weather The biggest event of the weekend was our latest winter storm Saturday. We didn’t quite hit the predicted snowfall of 6–7 inches, but we were easily over 5” at our house. It started snowing late morning and continued all…
Friday Playlist
Just enough songs this week to put together a playlist, with a little help from a couple seasonal tracks. This is likely the last normal FP of 2025. Also, I think I finally figured out how to embed Apple Music playlists. With Spotify becoming more and more problematic, I think it is important to offer than option even if most…
Reader’s Notebook, 12/11/25
The Poet’s Game – Paul VidichVidich’s books have been hit-and-miss with me, perhaps because they lean more towards proper literature than pulpy, exciting spy works. There’s a dryness and darkness to them that feels very Russian, and for me difficult to connect with. Honestly I could flip a coin on this one to determine whether it was a hit or…
Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 121
Chart Week: December 1, 1984 Song: “Valotte” – Julian Lennon Chart Position: #18, seventh week on the chart. Peaked at #9 the week of January 12, 1985. When Julian Lennon released his first album in the fall of 1984, there was no mistaking his genetics. His voice was eerily similar to that of his late father. Hell, I was 13…