pop Archive
20 Aug 2020
Album Review: Martin Denny — Exotic Moog
Introduced in the middle 1960s, Dr. Robert A. Moog’s invention – the Moog Modular synthesizer – changed the musical landscape. Groundbreaking releases like Switched on Bach made it plain that […]
17 Aug 2020
Ben Folds Five’s Debut at 25
In 1997, Ben Folds Five’s second album, Whatever and Ever Amen took the charts by storm. By ’90s measures as unlikely an act as could be imagined, the North Carolina-based […]
07 Aug 2020
Why Not Give it a Try: Gordon Lightfoot Goes ‘Solo’ (Part 3 of 3)
Continued from Part Two … Things took off from there. His long string of hits would include many highlights, including “Sundown” and “Carefree Highway,” both from 1974’s Sundown LP, and […]
06 Aug 2020
Why Not Give it a Try: Gordon Lightfoot Goes ‘Solo’ (Part 2 of 3)
Continued from Part One … And he had another fleeting concern. All those years had gone by, and then he returns with a simple, unadorned album? “I didn’t want people […]
05 Aug 2020
Why Not Give it a Try: Gordon Lightfoot Goes ‘Solo’ (Part 1 of 3)
When Gordon Lightfoot soared to the top of the U.S. singles charts with 1970’s “If You Could Read My Mind,” most listeners considered him a new artist. But the Ontario-born […]
31 Jul 2020
Album Reviews: Five from the Coed Record Label
Doo-wop – or r&b vocal, if you prefer – is an important part of the rock and roll story. The style began just after World War II, and doo-wop enjoyed […]
23 Jul 2020
Album Review: Spygenius – Man on the Sea
One observation made about The Beatles when they hit America is that they sang without thick Liverpudlian (Scouse) accents; they keys to their success were clearly myriad, but that may […]
19 Jul 2020
EP Review: Local Nomad — s/t
I nearly gave this one a miss, based on the cover art alone. The cover graphic immediately made me think that I held in my hand a new release from […]
18 Jul 2020
Album Review: Open Sound — s/t
Fernando Perdomo is everywhere (including the virtual pages of this music magazine). Equally comfortable in (and skilled at) progressive rock and powerpop, he’s a utility man to the stars since […]
16 Jul 2020
Album Review: Cupid’s Carnival — Color-blind
When it comes to certain substrains of powerpop (itself a subgenre), being derivative is a feature, not a bug. Do you sound like the Beatles, Badfinger, Raspberries? Success! And quite […]