Inspiration comes at you from all places. Sometimes it is the actions of another person, sometimes it is the encouraging words from a friend or loved one. And sometimes, inspiration…
Darren Robbins
2 Min Read
When you’re young, you have the whole world in front of you. There is hope, potential, and innocence in healthy supply. Of course, most of us don’t realize (or appreciate)…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Criminy, it’s already the 22nd? I’ve still got a list of power ballads a mile long. Where did the time go? Well, I promised some controversial picks, so here’s one…
Darren Robbins
1 Min Read
For me, “Help!” was the album that showed the Beatles to be outgrowing their teenybopper days (for lack of a better term) and heading very quickly toward the groundbreaking experimentation…
Jeff Vrabel
5 Min Read
What were you doing in 1986? If you were a suburban kid with access to a radio or MTV, you were experiencing the dawn of rap as a commercial force…
Jeff Giles
2 Min Read
Pseudosix – Pseudosix (2007)purchase this album (Sonic Boom) Review by Matt Keeley Pseudosix is a band out of Portland — apparently, they started as a one-piece, but grew into a…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Last Friday’s Matt Nathanson-themed Power Ballad post has got me flashing back to my introduction to his music — which, unsurprisingly, coincided with my introduction to one of the Girls…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Any month-long discussion about power balladry would be incomplete without some mention of today’s pack of melodic rockers. Night Ranger did, after all, help bring the power ballad to the…
Jason Hare
4 Min Read
Welcome back! It’s time for yet another spelunking expedition to the depths of wussitude! Karla Bonoff – Personally (download) As you know, it’s not often that we cover the Ladies…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
I’ve received a lot of wonderfully unexpected links in my time, but this one, I think, makes me happiest of all.
Jeff Giles
15 Min Read
[Jefito’s Note: She’s been a critic’s darling for most of her career, but the public at large has always been mostly unaware of Sam Phillips’ music, which is why I…
Jeff Giles
2 Min Read
Speaking of John Kalodner John Kalodner, here’s a band he entered in the American power-ballad sweepstakes at exactly the right moment. We all like to think of David Coverdale (and…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
If Led Zeppelin fans were taken aback at the increasing number of synthesizers on the final proper Zep album In Through The Out Door, a product of vocalist Robert Plant…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
(For more information on the 2 Meter Sessions, see 2 Meter Sessions: Volume One) Deus – Little ArithmeticsYoussou N’Dour – Shakin’ The TreeNeil Finn – She Will Have Her WayEels…
Jeff Giles
2 Min Read
[Jefito’s Note: This week’s Cassingle Vault comes to us courtesy of The Big Takeover’s Matthew Berlyant, whose past guest posts have included comprehensive Idiot’s Guides to Joe Jackson and Graham…
Jeff Giles
2 Min Read
Popular rock mythology says the great shift from hair metal to grunge happened the week Nevermind knocked Michael Jackson’s Dangerous out of the top spot on Billboard’s Top 200, but…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Marty Willson-Piper – All That RemainsElla Fitzgerald – Old McDonaldBob Marley – Stop That TrainSpin Doctors – Here Comes The BrideBrooks Williams – JaguarThe Smithereens – In A Lonely PlaceEric…
Darren Robbins
7 Min Read
The very first guy who helped me out when I got to Chicago in ’86 was Jim Ellison. I did not know him as “the guy in Material Issue”. I…
Darren Robbins
4 Min Read
(cover artwork for my debut CD, “Darren Robbins Steals Your Girlfriend”)Having just had my tune dropped from the Naked Gun flick, my label was momentarily stymied, as they had looked…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Get on the good foot! Shake a tailfeather! All that good shit! SHAKE IT! Bomb the Bass – Beat Dis (extended mix)
Darren Robbins
4 Min Read
There are few things I loathe as much as cell phones. In L.A., there are people who can’t go five minutes without making a call, taking a call, or texting…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
I wrote the Fall Movie Preview over at Rotten Tomatoes: Meanwhile: Maybe We Ain’t That Young Anymore delivers some live Billy Idol (1982), then shares some live Radiohead in two…
Scott Malchus
4 Min Read
To date, I have lived in two houses with basements. Budd and Eleanor’s nig house on North Park was the original basement. I grew up there, spent my college summers…
Jason Hare
10 Min Read
Hooray! CHART ATTACK! is back and this time, it’s personal. Won’t you join me in attacking yet another pop chart? This time, let’s take a look at August 16, 1986!…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Today’s Power Ballad was chosen in honor of Matt Nathanson, whose new record, Some Mad Hope, was released this week. Don’t understand what Matt Nathanson has to do with power…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
His public displays of dickishness soured me on his music long ago — and hell, who can keep up with his output anyway? — but I know we’ve got some…
Darren Robbins
4 Min Read
When my first CD was released, during the autumn of 1988, cassettes were still the prevailing format. Yet, there I was, an unknown artist signed to a CD-only label, trying…
Jeff Giles
3 Min Read
Cheryl Lynn – Start Over (1987) purchase this album (Amazon) My wife and daughter went out of town a few weeks ago, leaving me alone in the house to do…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
I never got this band. Still don’t. I mean, hey, taste is subjective and everything, but I don’t know how anyone can listen to Tom Keifer’s singing and not feel…
Michael Fortes
5 Min Read
What were you doing in 1986? If you were a suburban kid with access to a radio or MTV, you were experiencing the dawn of rap as a commercial force…