I know basically nothing about Bruce Hornsby. I remember seeing his name on a Mix 99.9 ad on the subway in high school. And I know he toured with the Dead. That’s all I got.
Tag: Heartland Rock
Into the Great Wide Open (1991) by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
The Jeff Lynne infestation of Petty’s Full Moon Fever has been allowed to fester and now infects the entire band. I understand this was a big hit, and I grew up with the two biggest songs here too, but this is a particularly polished version of the Heartbreakers, that is relatively unrecognizable to the band …
Musicforthemorningafter (2001) by Pete Yorn
It sure is a good thing I didn’t know anything about Pete Yorn and didn’t read any of the reviews about this album before I started listening to it. Because reading some of the breathless critical acclaim this received would have just about guaranteed that I wouldn’t have liked it. Fortunately, I listened first.
The River (1980) by Bruce Springsteen
We were driving back from a ski resort in Vermont – Bolton Valley or Killington, I don’t remember which – and we got slowed by a massive snowstorm. I was in my tweens or early teens. We were driving up the west side of Lake Champlain and we could only get one radio station from …
Damn the Torpedoes (1979) by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
This is the Tom Petty I like – full of attitude and spunk, with a touch of meanness or bitterness. Like basically everyone, he mellowed out significantly with age, which is the version of him I’m much more familiar with.
Hootie and the Blowfish Live at the Budweiser Stage August 29, 2019
You read that right. Last night, I went to see Hottie and the Blowfish. The band I wrote this review about. I went because my girlfriend wanted to go. I hadn’t been to the Molson Amphitheatre Budweiser Stage in so long I almost forgot what it was like. It seems they have made it a …
Cracked Rear View (1994) by Hootie and the Blowfish
The joke goes something like this: Q: What is the biggest selling album in history which nobody bought? A: Cracked Rear View. (Because everyone who bought it was so embarrassed by it later that they hid it and swore to their friends they never bought it, or sold it to the local used music store …
Born in the U.S.A. (1984) by Bruce Springsteen
I understand why a lot of Boss fans love this record. More than any other record of his I’ve heard, this one has a (relative) lot of songs I know, and I generally avoid Springsteen as much as possible. There are at least four songs here which, to me, are among the most famous Springsteen …
Full Moon Fever (1989) by Tom Petty
For years, my only real experience of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers was their 1993 Greatest Hits record. That record contained the three big hits everyone knows from this solo album, though I wasn’t too concerned that these were ostensibly solo singles on a record collecting the band’s hits. I also wasn’t particularly concerned, at …
The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle (1973) by Bruce Springsteen
I have never heard a Springsteen record like this one. Maybe that’s because I just haven’t heard that many Springsteen records but I suspect or at least wonder that it’s because, at some point later on, he figured out who he was, and this version wasn’t part of that (or wasn’t normally part of that).
Copperhead Road (1988) by Steve Earle
I have a weird bone to pick about records that weren’t recorded with the same group of musicians throughout. This doesn’t necessarily apply to guest vocalists, but it does apply to guests on other instruments. I guess my argument would be that I want a record to have a consistent sound and recording with different …
Uh-Huh (1983) by John Cougar Mellencamp
A number of times in the last few years I have put on a Mellencamp album with the intention of talking about it on the podcast and come up with some reason not to talk to about, so I’ve never given any of them the full three listens I want to give any record before …
Sports (1983) by Huey Lewis and the News
Imagine recording a song denigrating no wave and new wave in New York and hair metal in Los Angeles (not that I care about the latter) and who knows what else, and celebrating the music of your youth instead – kids today! – but recording that song with terrible ’80s keyboards and a shitty heartbeat …
Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978) by Bruce Springsteen
Sometimes I feel like I go on and on about how I think Springsteen is overrated. At least a little of that is because I feel like I have to compensate for all the rock critics who told people Springsteen “saved rock and roll music from disco” or whatever the fuck. But part of that …
Melissa Etheridge (1988)
I know virtually nothing about the history of queer/LGBT performers and especially singer-songwriters in popular music. Depending upon how you feel about the queerness of David Bowie or Freddie Mercury, I may know absolutely nothing. So I don’t truly know how much of a landmark this record is, by a woman who was out, if …
Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ (1973) by Bruce Springsteen
I have a complicated relationship with Springsteen, mostly caused by watching too much Much More Music (basically Canada’s VH1) when I was an impressionable teenager. So, to evaluate Springsteen’s debut album fairly, If eel like I have to try to pretend I’ve never heard Springsteen before nor have I heard of him. That’s impossible, but …
Robbie Robertson (1987)
When I was growing up my dad had a Robbie Robertson album, I don’t remember which one. When I discovered the Band, I had a hard time reconciling the memories I had of his solo music with The Band’s music – they seem to have been made by two totally different people, or at least …
Night Moves (1976) by Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band
For much of my life I have had a hatred for “boomer nostalgia” – movies and music that lionize growing up in the ’50s and ’60s as if it was just the bees knees. I am getting to an age where I am finally able to better understand the appeal of such nostalgia – I’m …
Born to Run (1975) by Bruce Springsteen
Full disclosure: I have avoided Springsteen much of my life because I grew up with a bunch of stupid TV shows telling me “Springsteen saved Rock and Roll from Disco.” These interviewees (boomers all) were apparently ignorant of Punk Music but, also, in retrospect, maybe Disco won in the end? Anyway…