• Friday Playlist

    Another week when I’m not terribly prepared to share a playlist of (mostly) new music. I’ve reached the point in the year when I start looking backwards and doing some tentative work on my Favorite Songs of the Year list. While there has been plenty of new music in the middle half of the year, and some of that music…

  • Friday Vids

    For most of this week I’ve been listening to A) the new Doves album, which is awesome, and B) working through Steven Hyden’s The Best Bruce Springsteen Songs, Ranked list. As of Thursday night I am just past the mid-point of the list. I’ve discovered some songs that are new to me that I’ve really enjoyed while building more respect…

  • Tops of Eighty Four

    It only took six weeks for Tom Breihan to roll through the 20 number one songs of 1984. 1985 has some bangers, for sure, but we’re approaching the point where I’ll be more interested in his words than in the songs themselves. In the comments, people ranked the Number Ones of 1984 in their preferred order. Believe it or not…

  • Friday Playlist

    https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0GsxVh1NWy0CQ9dV0SQ7Lw?si=WQHcozPTSX6IpxDjNf1HqA “Child’s Romance” – Nap Eyes This song sounds soooooo Australian. Yet this band is from Nova Scotia. Even if they aren’t from my favorite musical continent, I still really dig this song. All kinds of good bits in it. “Mustang” – Strange Not sure there’s anyone in music right now like Bartees Strange. He combines a variety of disparate…

  • Friday Playlist

    Let’s see what I can whip up for you this week. Some old stuff, some new stuff. All good stuff. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4nxSIt6ruOKjE7x7N3Aby3?si=JYLq6p1dSb-u9r8BQpn7Iw “You Got The Love” – Rufus & Chaka Khan This week I read a long interview with Ray Parker, Jr. He seems like a pretty cool dude and has had an amazing career. He wrote this song with Chaka…

  • Friday Vid

    I didn’t work on a playlist this week, so only a video today. “Release” – Pearl Jam I couldn’t settle on something to watch last Saturday so started scrolling through YouTube and came across Pearl Jam’s 2018 performance at Lallapalooza in Brazil. Two and a half hours later I had watched the entire thing and knocked out a couple bourbons…

  • Reaching for the Stars, Vol. 47

    Chart Week: August 14, 1982 Song: “Someday, Someway” – Marshall Crenshaw Chart Position: #40, 6th week on the chart. Peaked at #36 for two weeks in August/September. Some one-hit wonders are easy to explain. There are the accidental hits, songs by unknown artists that get tied to popular movies or TV shows. There are novelty hits that piggyback on some…

  • Friday Playlist

    A delayed but very special playlist for this week. Today would have been Joe Strummer’s 68th birthday. To celebrate, a group of musicians is doing [a virtual tribute concert](https://www.joestrummer.com) for Joe later today. Sadly I’ll be running around getting the girls then heading to kickball, but I will certainly be watching a replay over the weekend. As Strummer is on…

  • Friday Playlist

    All about the ladies this week. Well, kind of. There is a male artist in the PL, but as you’ll learn, he was “in a phase,” as my mom would have said. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0qnJThjEn3irKQDbqIwjNu?si=uQNjlCdESFyn7EOxNKP4UQ “the 1” – Taylor Swift I give Taylor all the credit: show knows how to write a fucking song. I keep getting drawn back to her folklore…

  • Reaching for the Stars, Vol. 46

    Chart Week: August 2, 1986 Song: “Your Wildest Dreams” – The Moody Blues Chart Position: #20, 16th week on the chart. Peaked at #9 for two weeks in July. Having a teenage crush on a teacher is kind of a rite of passage, the stuff dozens – perhaps hundreds – of trashy novels and movies have been based on over…