This is far, far too twee. I want to knock the books out of this song’s hands and then stuff it into a locker.
Your Blues is extremely Bowie. There’s always some Bowie in a Destroyer record, of course, but this one has always struck me as the most Bowie. Can it be more Bowie? The answer is none. None more Bowie.
[Read More]Canadian pop punk band Doc Hopper is really following in the footsteps of many other bands, especially Screeching Weasel here. Ask Your Mom is a really solid record, but this one (Zigs, Yaws and Zags) is just fine.
This record, the 1992 self-titled release from Lawrence, Kansas rock band Zoom, was one of my white whales for a long time. I used to play the album on my radio show pretty often, but never picked up a copy for myself. By the time I realized that I hadn’t gotten around to it, they were almost impossible to find. I just got in the habit of checking the “Z” section of every record store I went in, in the hopes that maybe a copy of this album would show up. Their followup record, Helium Octopede, was not too hard to track down, but this one eluded me. Eventually, Megan finally found a copy of it, and I was reunited. In the intervening years, the stature of the record had built up in my mind. Could it live up to those memories?
[Read More]One of the greatest bands of the 80s rock underground, Hüsker Dü took a big leap forward with this album, the sprawling double album Zen Arcade. They went from a (great) hardcore band to a band that explored the limits of what hardcore was capable of. Along with their contemporaries and label mates the Minutemen, Hüsker Dü seemed capable of just about anything. By refusing to be constrained in any one style, Hüsker Dü inspired countless future bands to keep exploring and keep moving rock forward. Zen Arcade is one of the key albums in understanding the evolution of the American rock underground.
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