The Kinks’s 1979 album Low Budget remains their highest-charting US non-compilation album, and a validation of sorts for the band. It continues the mainstream AOR vein that began with Sleepwalker and Misfits, their first two Arista albums — aka the band’s so-called “Arena Rock” period. The album was a big commercial success for the band,…
While I’m not a Christian, I remain a Big Star acolyte… and quite frankly, I’d imagine this particular song is apropos for Christmas Eve. So that being said, I’ll just let this one play out without any further commentary.
From the unbelievably hilarious Blackadder’s Christmas Carol, which if you’ve never seen, you pretty much need to drop everything you’re doing right now and catch it on Netflix or whatever streaming services are available. The first time I ever watched this program — I’m thinking around 1993 or ’94, maybe — it instantly became one…
Talk to most people about bands like Weezer, Green Day, Foo Fighters, or any neo-power-pop band that emerged in the mid ’90s, and there’s always huge debate on when exactly they “sold out” or “went commercial” or “started to suck”, etc. etc. I dunno, man. Some of them were always commercial, or even perhaps “always…
It’s really, REALLY hard to talk up an Otis Redding song. Try it sometime. It ain’t easy. It’s freakin’ OTIS REDDING. But I realized I was missing some classic R&B from my list, and man there are some great ones to choose from. I’ll start with Redding’s 1967 cover of the classic Christmas standard Merry…
I’m not a particularly religious man, by any stretch of the imagination. I think that’s the rub, really. “Religious man”. As in, religion is a man-made construct: a home-made, grassroots means of interpreting God. And yet also a bureaucratic, flawed, collective means of interpreting the Universe, Creation, Existence, and Eternity. It just doesn’t work all…
“TWIST-ed SIS-TER?!!” Well sure… look no one can deny their place in pop culture history for such cheese- and amaze-balls rock anthems in ’80s rock video classics We’re Not Gonna Take It and I Wanna Rock (their catalog is surprisingly good before then, but those songs get zero airplay/recognition from anyone who isn’t Eddie Trunk), and Dee Snider,…
Yeah hear me out on this… Boots absolutely adores this holiday classic covered by Ms. Gibson from the 1992 A Very Special Christmas 2. And I wanted to score some Brownie Points with my better half so I’m including it my esteemed list. And I know what you’re thinking: how on EARTH are the words “Debbie…
An exchange from the 1994 movie Airheads: [Chazz and Rex are testing Chris] Chazz: Who’d win in a wrestling match: Lemmy or God? Chris Moore: Lemmy. [Rex imitates a game show buzzer] Chris Moore: … God? Rex: Wrong, dickhead, trick question. Lemmy *IS* God. Well now who can argue with that? Truth be told, there were…
OK bear with me on this one… Pete Townshend’s classic 1980 hit Let My Love Open The Door is not, strictly speaking, a “holiday song” by any imagination. It is, however, a deeply spiritual and extremely uplifting one. Ostensibly a love song, this Top 10 hit from his Empty Glass solo album is indeed about love, but not romantic…