A Balloon-Juice reader asked me to play this music video that his wife made. I thought that could be a new fun thing around here, videos made by readers and their friends and families. Also too, this is a week, politically, so I’m for more light-hearted threads.
Music
Song of the week
This time I’m putting it up at happy hour rather than the break of dawn! —————— Jacobites, “It’ll All End Up in Tears” (1985) The Jacobites were a British band circa the mid-’80s consisting mainly of Nikki Sudden and Dave Kusworth, with support from Sudden’s brother Epic Soundtracks (great pseudonym), Mark Lemon, and others. I …
Is this just the devil in me?
Today’s record high temperatures prove conclusively that Al Gore is fat. It also makes me ask: what are the best movies about extreme heat, what are the best songs? For movies, I’ll go with the divine Body Heat and the great Do The Right Thing. For songs, I’ll go with Heat Wave and, just to …
Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Happy 93rd Birthday, Mr. Mandela! [Updated!]
Music that Inspires It’s Nelson Mandela’s 93rd birthday today, but rather than focus on Mr. Mandela himself, I thought I might introduce some of you to the South African choral stylings of Ladysmith Black Mambazo. I have been listening Ladysmith Black Mambazo since as long as I can remember. My parents are, I suppose, what …
Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Happy 93rd Birthday, Mr. Mandela! [Updated!]Post + Comments (42)
I’m a gonna raise a holler
Today, I’m debuting a new feature — Song Of The Week, courtesy of the excellent Can’t Explain blog. This one has a special place in my heart, because I vividly remember this ad for M Network (in my mind, Juice Newton was singing in the ad, but the internets tell me that’s not true). ———————————————- …
Very Late Night Open Music Thread
My apologies, kiddies. The last two weeks is a bit of a blur. I remember some of my birthday, and then I woke up ten days later next to some canal in Amsterdam, half naked, wrapped in a copy of the last edition of the News of the World and clutching a large clump of …
Tuesday Evening Open Thread
The New Yorker‘s pop music critic Goes There: Three women run the pop world right now. Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way,” Beyoncé’s “4,” and Adele’s “21” split the market into neat thirds without too much conceptual jostling. Adele’s impeccably sung collection of unperturbing soul, “21,” released in February, will almost certainly be the year’s biggest-selling …