We probably shouldn’t even go here. We should probably listen to the small voice inside that keeps us from playing with matches, drinking and driving, and buying short shorts. But…
J.A. Bartlett
102 Articles
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J.A. Bartlett
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Many of us have favorite stories we return to again and again. Even though we know the characters, the incidents, and how the whole thing turns out, there’s something about…
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J.A. Bartlett
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A commenter on a recent post about Bobby Goldsboro’s “Honey” suggested that in the pantheon of the World’s Worst Songs, “the fruit doesn’t hang any lower.” I beg to differ,…
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J.A. Bartlett
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If you like music and you like to write, challenge yourself with this task: Say something fresh about Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. When the album’s 40th anniversary was celebrated…
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J.A. Bartlett
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There’s a volume of Time-Life’s AM Gold series called Teen Idols of the 70s, which features many of the usual suspects: the Partridge Family, Bobby Sherman, the Osmonds, the Jackson…
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J.A. Bartlett
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As the spring of ’67 turned into the Summer of Love, two of the top acts of 1966 returned to the top of the album chart as the world waited…
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J.A. Bartlett
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The farther back we go in time, the harder it is to fairly judge what sucks, because tastes and styles change. Complicating matters is the post-modern ironic distance through which…
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J.A. Bartlett
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The original Pre-Fab Four set chart marks the original Fabs never matched.
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J.A. Bartlett
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In an episode of King of the Hill called “Reborn to Be Wild,” Hank Hill says to a Christian rock singer, “Can’t you see you’re not making Christianity better? You’re…
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J.A. Bartlett
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Billboard magazine began publishing an album chart in 1945, and it wasn’t long before a soundtrack album hit #1: Song of Norway, from a musical adaptation of the works of…
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J.A. Bartlett
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Make it stop. In the name of all that’s holy, make it stop.
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J.A. Bartlett
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The list of great Motown albums doesn’t start to fill in until 1971 or so, when Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder used their new creative freedom to make fully realized…
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J.A. Bartlett
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There’s something bad happening in Booger Woods, and it’s this song.
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J.A. Bartlett
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One of the many fascinating subtexts in the current season of Mad Men involves the seismic shift in youth culture that began in 1966, the year in which the season…
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J.A. Bartlett
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After Carrie Underwood won American Idol in 2005, she wanted to be marketed as a country singer, and she has been fabulously successful: 11 #1 country singles and three more…
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J.A. Bartlett
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The Chairman of the Board is not finished, by a long shot.
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J.A. Bartlett
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Somebody hose down the singer, and her producer too while you’re at it.
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J.A. Bartlett
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The album that contains some of the most magnificent music to come out of the 1960s, including “California Dreamin'” and “Monday Monday.”
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J.A. Bartlett
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When I’m playing Abbey Road, I almost always pass them by.
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J.A. Bartlett
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Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler had been wounded in Vietnam while serving with the Green Berets, an elite special-forces unit. While recovering, he was filmed by a TV crew singing a…
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J.A. Bartlett
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Does country music suck, or doesn’t it? Depends on who you are and what you want from it.
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J.A. Bartlett
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While the kids were buying Beatles records, their parents were buying Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.
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J.A. Bartlett
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Clever or pretentious? With Sting, it’s always a valid question.
J.A. Bartlett
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Forty years ago today, The Partridge Family hit the television airwaves. Join J.A. Bartlett for a look back at some of its best songs.
J.A. Bartlett
1 Min Read
January 20, 1988, is a Wednesday. In Arizona, a committee of the State House of Representatives continues hearings into whether Governor Evan Mecham should be impeached. Mecham is under indictment…
J.A. Bartlett
1 Min Read
November 18, 1984, is a Sunday. By Congressional resolution, it’s the first day of National Family Week. The New York Times publishes several articles about Baby Fae, the anonymous child…
J.A. Bartlett
1 Min Read
September 16, 1987, is a Wednesday. A front-page story in the New York Times details the growing plagiarism scandal surrounding Delaware Senator Joseph Biden, who is chairman of the Senate…