Category: Pop (Page 193 of 216)

Don’t call it a comeback. Oh, wait, actually, DO call it that.

The Onion’s A.V. Club has put together a list of their 15 True Comeback Albums, giving everyone something to complain about.

Some of the selections are on the money, like Lou Reed’s New York, Johnny Cash’s American Recordings, or Steely Dan’s Two Against Nature…but putting John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy on the list seems iffy; it was a huge hit, but most critics complained that it was lackluster. Same with the B-52’s Cosmic Thing, despite being a gargantuan hit. Still, kudos for including Electric Light Orchestra’s 2001 album, Zoom, which was great, even if it was a commercial flop.

A few selections which deserved to be included but weren’t are Paul McCartney’s Flowers in the Dirt, Echo and the Bunnymen’s What Are You Going To Do With Your Life?, the Bee Gees’ This Is Where I Came In, Willie Nelson’s Across the Borderline, and, dammit, I stand by Rick Springfield’s Karma. I’ll even throw ABC’s Skyscraping into the fray, as well as Tears For Fears’ Everybody Loves A Happy Ending.

Dave Adams, “Tears”

I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s gone through a cut-out bin or sale bin in the past and bought an album simply because A) it was cheap, and B) it looked like it would sound good.

I know, there’s no sense to that, really, but sometimes an album cover just has a cool look about it, and, as a result, it leads to suspect that if it looks cool, then there’s at least a halfway decent chance that it sounds cool. And then, when you consider that you haven’t actually heard of the artist before makes you wonder, “Have I discovered some heretofore-unappreciated gem…?”

Enter Dave Adams.

I’d never heard of the guy before, but to be painfully honest, I bought his cassette because the picture of him on the cover made him look like Feargal Sharkey (late of the Undertones)…and I thought, “Well, I like Feargal Sharkey.” And, for 99 cents, I rationalized that the mere fact that he LOOKED like someone whose music I liked was enough to make it a worthwhile purchase.

So I bought it, opened it, popped it into the cassette player…and heard “Tears.”

For my money, it’s one of the greatest lost ’80s pop songs of all time. See what you think; it’s only a two-minute clip, but it spotlights both the verse and chorus, and that’s more than enough to get the gist.

It’s raining men. Very, very gay men.

The Game Show Network’s revival of the ’50s staple, “I’ve Got A Secret,” has – for no discernable reason – gone with a theme of having a completely gay panel. Fair enough. But, apparently, the executive producers of the show are as straight as an arrow, because, according to the website Scott-O-Rama, they didn’t think the panel would need to be blindfolded because they wouldn’t recognize Martha Wash, lead singer of the Weather Girls and of their enormous hit, “It’s Raining Men.” Producer Gary Green assured them that, swear to God, they needed the blindfolds. At the 3:05 mark of this video on YouTube, you’ll see he was unquestionably right.

« Older posts Newer posts »