A selection of Laura Nyro songs that have meaning to me and have stuck with me through the years, appearing frequently on mix tapes and playlists. Not necessarily stuff you’ll find on an artist’s Greatest Hits collection.
Continue reading In Ten Tracks: Laura NyroCategory Archives: Pop
Taylor Swift’s Devil’s Contract
Taylor Swift won’t get her masters back anytime soon, but her voice adds to the growing chorus insisting the industry must change
Continue reading Taylor Swift’s Devil’s ContractMalcolm McLaren: A Brief Appreciation
The story of Malcolm McLaren’s emergence onto the pop music stage is pretty well-known, but as is usual with mythical creatures, any number of variations have presented themselves over the years.
Continue reading Malcolm McLaren: A Brief AppreciationIn Ten Tracks: Heart
A selection of Heart songs that have meaning to me and have stuck with me through the years, appearing frequently on mix tapes and playlists. Not necessarily stuff you’ll find on an artist’s Greatest Hits collection.
Continue reading In Ten Tracks: HeartIn Ten Tracks: Linda Ronstadt
In Ten Tracks is a selection of tracks that have meaning to me and have stuck with me through the years, appearing frequently on mixtapes and playlists. Not necessarily stuff you’ll find on an artist’s Greatest Hits collection.
Continue reading In Ten Tracks: Linda RonstadtBeth Orton and the Beat
Beth Orton’s work with top electronic artists and producers wasn’t an add-on to her folkie songs. It was part and parcel of her artistic DNA, and her last album, Kidsticks, shows that maybe it still is. Here’s a playlist of Orton’s most electronically-influenced songs and remixes with commentary.
Continue reading Beth Orton and the BeatIn Ten Tracks: Elvis Costello
In Ten Tracks is a selection of tracks that have meaning to me and have stuck with me through the years, appearing frequently on mixtapes and playlists. Not necessarily stuff you’ll find on an artist’s Greatest Hits collection.
Continue reading In Ten Tracks: Elvis CostelloChristine McVie and Fleetwood Mac 1970-1974
During Fleetwood Mac’s transitional period Christine McVie wrote and recorded fifteen songs with the band. Hear all of them and read about the group’s changes.
Continue reading Christine McVie and Fleetwood Mac 1970-1974Give A Damn
Spanky & Our Gang, John V. Lindsay and the counterculture meet in the whirlwind of 1968
by Marshall Bowden
1968, the summer of the New York Urban Coalition’s ‘Give a Damn’ campaign was much different than that of 1967. The summer of love rose in a giant puffy cloud over the San Franciso Bay area and wafted out across the country. But now that cloud was turning darker.
For Spanky and Our Gang, a Chicago-based pop music group whose music helped spawn the sun-drenched subgenre ‘sunshine pop,’ as for many Americans, it turned into the year.
Continue reading Give A Damn10cc: Art For Art’s Sake
10CC was one of those bands that were simply too clever for their own good. Once they had established themselves as a band of gifted songwriters with a knack for puns and a slightly warped sense of humor as well as instrumentalists who could play in almost any popular musical style, their more genuine, pop-oriented work was viewed with suspicion. Yet those lured in by the pop songs could never quite warm up to the group’s cynical humor and offbeat musical styling.
Continue reading 10cc: Art For Art’s Sake