Remember how I said yesterday that naming my favorite song was really, really hard? Uh-huh. Piece of cake compared to naming my least favorite song. At the root of the issue is a basic math problem: if 99% of everything is crap (and that’s probably understating the case) then there are 99 times as many crap songs as great ones.
Read more“Hey, Sam. What’s your favorite song?” This is about as hateful a question as it is possible to ask a guy like me. I own somewhere in excess of 4,000 CDs probably and if you put a gun to my head I could make a case for at least several dozen songs that fit the bill. I could pick a
Read moreIf you have a Facebook account it’s damned-near inconceivable that you haven’t tripped across the 30-Day Song Challenge. You may even have done it (or be in the midst of doing it) yourself. I was thinking about having at it myownbadself, but I couldn’t imagine just posting a song on some of these days (come on, my favorite song? The
Read more2011 is already shaping up to be a great year for new music. Esben & the Witch’s greatly anticipated debut really delivers, Adele’s sophomore effort is a strong step forward, and Wire is back, after all these years, with an outstanding effort that manages a sound that’s both contemporary and true to their New Wave heritage. A fantastic new REM
Read moreI watched one season of American Idol a few years back out of a combination of boredom and morbid curiosity. It was everything I had imagined and less, a welcome-to-the-Fall-of-Rome extravaganza where everything wrong with popular music, if not American popular culture in general, was frog-marched past the cameras in a weekly parade of cynicism and banality that would have
Read morePreviously: Part 1: The Gold LPs Part 2: The Platinum LPs Things fall apart, but the band plays on. There have been a lot of years where the competition for CD of the Year was hotly contested, but I’ve always been able to make a call in the end. I think I probably got it wrong a couple of times
Read moreFreddie Mercury died 19 years ago today. If you’re a Baby Boomer you probably remember how you felt when John Lennon died. Freddie was my John Lennon. I finally wrote something about his death a few years later. In truth, it’s not a very good poem at all, but I kept it around and treated it with reverence because it
Read moreThose of us from the Carolinas know that the term “Beach Music” has nothing to do with The Beach Boys. Instead, it’s an amalgam of old dance R&B (The Drifters, The Tams, Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs, plus some Sam Cooke and a host of Motown artists) and “similar” music produced by contemporary artists such as The Embers, The Catalinas,
Read moreThe more observant among you might have noticed that I’m a fan of The Birthday Massacre. The new CD, Pins and Needles, dropped today. Just…damn.
Read moreCourtesy of comedian Tim Hawkins, today’s TunesDay is dedicated to S&R’s own rock star, who flips another year on the calendar this Saturday. He knows who he is.
Read moreYeah, I don’t know, either. It’s fun, though. Stop whatever you’re doing and dance.
Read moreThere’s been an interesting upsurge in decidedly old-fashioned chorale-style music of late. Perhaps we should have seen it coming a few years ago with the emergence of the upbeat, multi-layered harmonies of The Polyphonic Spree, but now the trend is upon us in full throat, if you will. A capella is big enough that it spawned a TV show, The
Read moreOh. Oh dear. It’s hard to know where to start with this one. You’re just going to have to watch it for yourself. Trust me – it’s worth it. ALERT: This is not a parody.
Read moreI remember distinctly how I first discovered Jag Star. I was snooping around on eMusic for new bands and was using the old triangulation method – who sounds like band X? One of my favorite bands is VAST, and Jag Star turned up as a “Similar Artist.” That was both a great moment and a confusing one. On the one
Read moreLilac, lovelace / remind me of / your true grace About four years ago I tripped across a band called The Lost Patrol. Since then I’ve noted their work a number of times: they made my best CDs for 2007 and 2008 reviews; their music served as a key element in a piece on the nonlinearity of influence; and they
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lullaby pit 