Today’s title is, as some of you might recognize, a line snatched from the U2 track “Zooropa.” As such, it’s sung “in character”—the sentiment, that is to say, belongs not to Bono, ostensibly, but to his evil leather twin, The Fly. Whoever’s responsible for the sentiment, I’m here to disagree with it, at least as [...]
According to Friday’s on-line edition of Rolling Stone, U2 will have a new album out in the next six months or so: U2 are recording a new album with Danger Mouse, and they plan on releasing early next year. “We have about 12 songs with him,” Bono told The Age . “At the moment that [...]
Thanks again to Susie A. for her evocative mediation on the art that grows on you. I feel some kind of Chia Pet joke coming on, but I shan’t succumb. But Susie’s argument did get me thinking, really just as soon as I read it, of the counter-argument: that equally there are songs (just to [...]
Here’s a tasty tidbit that even former roommate Texas Steve doesn’t know: “Smoke on the Water” was the first rock & roll record I ever owned. The single was released in May 1973, and I was a freshman in high school; 93 KHJ was givin’ away the hits as they played them—which meant that before [...]
Heh heh heh. Heh heh heh heh heh. So back over summer (August 4–5), I got into some good-natured mud wrestling with some of fcrp’s good readers about Steely Dan. To wit: All the predictors would suggest that I should like them, but I don’t. Boy, don’t I. Meanwhile readers and friends like Len and [...]
So after the tough sledding of the past few days, it’s time for us all to frolic a bit in the shallow end of the cultural pool: it is, after all, still summer, and Labor Day’s just around the corner. Here, then, a parlor game: What are your ten favorite “rock movies”? That phrase wobbles [...]
OK, so this has been building up for a while; and rather than lurking around all snippy and defensive in the Comments section, really I need to mount a more thoughtful, and measured, response to this whole topic. And the topic, of course, is the charge that I “over-analyze” things. I’d like to begin by [...]
Well, this is an interesting problem to have: the comments on yesterday’s post, from Ken, Scott, Susie, Tim—they’re just wonderful. Between them, amongst them, they’ve effectively stolen my “thunder”—and seem, without having seen it, to be running through Steve’s outline on the topic, as well. I’d thought it would take a couple more posts to [...]
[Part 3 of 4] As he tells it, Santana’s rise back to the top of the pop music charts was fueled by a very human desire. After signing with Arista records in 1997 and being reunited with his friend and producer Clive Davis, he complained: “I’ve got three kids at home and they want to [...]
[Part 2 of 4] The name “Santana” points always in two directions: both to the band originally called the Santana Blues Band (shortened to Santana by the release of their first album), as well as the band’s founder and lead guitarist. The ambivalence captured in that name—is Santana a band or a man?—registers something [...]