Radio Thoughts
A couple thoughts related to radio that have nothing to do with Casey Kasem.* (I’m still listening to the American Top 40 replays, although for some reason there wasn’t one last weekend. Just haven’t had any good stories from one for awhile.) First, three times in the last week I’ve heard songs and thought, “Is that U2?” The answer was…
This Week With Casey
A brief American Top 40 The 80s update.* (Don’t worry, an extensive basketball post is coming.) This week’s show was from 1981, making it the first repeat year countdown since I began listening in January. It was fun to track where songs I heard six weeks ago were in the latest chart. At least for this amateur music historian. Two…
Kickin’ It With Casey
I owe my fellow music geeks some AT40 updates. So a couple items from the last two weeks are below. Last week’s show was from 1986. I only caught the last 15 songs or so, and it was a rather unremarkable collection of music. Sure, I loved a lot of the songs at the time, but with the exception of…
AT40 Trivia
A little trivia from this week’s American Top 40: The 80s* rebroadcast. (Apparently this is the official name for these programs.) Until 1980, no artist had ever had two top ten hits at the same time as both a member of a group and as a solo artist. Diana Ross did it first in late 1980. Another artist accomplished the…
Casey’s Coast to Coast
In which I listen to the music of my youth. Those of you that follow my Facebook status may have caught that I spent Sunday morning listening to a 25 year old American Top 40 rebroadcast. Our local retro hits station began reairing AT40s from the 80s last fall and, life with a newborn and two preschoolers being what it…
Favorite Songs Of 2008
Hey, it’s time for my annual listing of the songs that moved me and/or stuck with me the most this year. Enjoy. Honorable Mention “Buildings & Mountains” – The Republic Tigers. A lovely song by a fine band from Kansas City. This sounds like a warm, early summer afternoon. “Northern Lights” – Science For Girls w/Boots Ottestad. Mellow brilliance. “Got…
First Album Update
Going back to the first album I purchased with my own money for a moment, I’ll admit thinking about Def Leppard’s <em>Pyromania</em> made me a little nostalgic. So I fired up the iTunes Music Store. No <em>Pyromania</em> available there. Jump over to the Amazon MP3 Store. Not there either. So one of the biggest selling albums of the 80s –…
Holiday Perfection
Admit it, you were glued to VH1 Classic’s 80 Hours of the ’80s this weekend (That is if you have VH1 Classic). Lord knows I was. I thought about e-mailing each of you individually to make sure you knew it was on. In between shows for the kids and doing things outside, I tried to check in on the A-Z…
All Time Favorite Songs, 10-1
10 “Paid In Full” – Eric B. & Rakim, 1987. I’ve told this story before. In the fall of my year in the Bay Area, I discovered a hip-hop show on Stanford’s campus radio station, KZSU. The only problem was we lived way across the Bay, and I could only pick the show up on a small, portable radio that…
How To
A few words about the methodology for my favorite songs list. First, I had to own a song for it to appear on the list. Duh. Second, I limited myself to one song per artist. After some consultation with a few other music geeks, I determined that I could consider both Beatles songs and John Lennon’s solo work separately. Same…