Big Star “Thank You Friends” (1978)
"The most influential band you've never heard of" helps bring jangly Thanksgiving wishes.... Read More
Oasis “Champagne Supernova” (1995)
They recorded some of rock's greatest songs, but broke up over a decade ago because the two leaders, brawling brothers, just couldn't take each other. Could Oasis ever be together again?... Read More
Elvis Costello “Accidents Will Happen” (1979)
Elvis Costello has been a lot of things in his astounding forty-years-and-counting musical career: post-punk prototype, new wave renegade, encyclopedic musical raconteur, image-bending iconoclast, standards revivalist, acerbic pop culture polemicist, hook-mastering marvel, and whip-smart wordsmith. What he has never been is sloppy. So whether it was a quirk of his songwriting style, or a subtle...... Read More
Hall & Oates “Back Together Again” (1976)
Who's the most successful duo of the rock era? I think most people’s first reaction would rightfully be Simon & Garfunkel, while some would choose The Everly Brothers. Upset picks could go to Sam & Dave, The Carpenters, or Jan & Dean. They’d all be wrong..... Read More
Maxshh “Song For Dad” (2020)
..Rather than try to record what he’d conceived of as his far-reaching “super-incubated encyclopedia of everything,” he returned, instead, to one of his earliest listening roots: pop/rock music, songs formulated and stylized to leave a first impression of “nice” rather than “challenging.”... Read More
The Beatles “All Together Now” (1969)
Since the onset of the Coronavirus crisis we’ve been bombarded with the message “We’re all in this together.” Celebrities, newscasters, friends, neighbors, all well-intentioned, no doubt. Well guess what, I’m calling bullshit. Sad to say but we’re not actually all in this together... Read More
Another Covid 19 Playlist
Another weird week, in a string of weird weeks. Another 19 songs. Another Covid 19 Playlist. Unlike my prior effort, no self-imposed, OCD-driven, 1970’s-only restrictions for this one, so I can now give ‘Strange Days’ the opening slot it deserves. Lots of cautions lately to please ‘Don’t Stand So Close To Me,’ ‘Keep Your Hands...... Read More
Bruce Springsteen “Countin’ On A Miracle” (2002)
"Hope is not a strategy" is a well accepted maxim in the world of business, and surely for life in general as well. Plenty has been written, deservedly, about the power of positive thinking, and yet it must also be remembered that irrational optimism is not always benign. Personally, I can be accused... Read More
The Covid 19 Playlist
What can I say, what can any of us say, to describe the surreal times in which we find ourselves. Well, not much, unfortunately. So, I thought I’d take a shot at providing a small benefit to the current manifestly twisted zeitgeist, in about the best way I know: with a Playlist..... Read More
Rookie “I Can’t Have You But I Want You” (2020)
It’s just a moment, lasting but a second or two. The verse has come to a clipped end, the band pauses, as if taking a deep inhale on the precipice of something big, and then…the chorus blasts in! I really love that moment... Read More