Blog Post

I haven’t written in a long time. Well, that’s not quite true – I churned out a dissertation and co-authored a book (Secrets And Lies In Psychotherapy, for anyone intrigued!). While I’ve been kept away from music writing, I’ve still been as steeped in songs as ever. I’ve found that my music consumption has changed shape a bit over the years: I’ll devour a few albums deeply and obsessively, and then find myself exploring individual songs. So this task was a refreshing one, as I got to comb the depths of my Spotify for what has moved me over the…

A list of favorite songs can never be more than a snapshot of a particular moment in your life. Tomorrow a song that you barely paid attention to before may hit home in a whole new way. The day after that, a song that meant so much may feel trite or overblown or somehow insufficient to the moment you’re now inhabiting. Songs are friends you keep for years, fading in and out of touch, mostly connecting and reconnecting, but sometimes disappearing into memory. This is my list today. Next month it will look different, and six months from now it…

For some people, Adam Schlesinger was the guy who wrote the title song for the outstanding, Tom Hanks-directed 1996 powerhouse film That Thing You Do!; for others, he was a songwriter behind the scenes, wracking up nominations for Broadway and television, most notably Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. For me, he was a producer, musician and co-leader of Jersey’s Fountains Of Wayne. The band were most known for 2003’s pop smash “Stacy’s Mom,” but on the album it came from, Welcome Interstate Managers, they crafted some of the best pop songs heard in the last 25 years. This is what Adam Schlesinger means…

I wasn’t going to write this piece. It’s exhausting enough right now (April 3, 2020) just trying to keep up as the world we knew three short weeks ago continues to spin wildly off its orbit, without attempting to grieve on the page for an artist whose work has given me decades of enjoyment, now dead at just 52 of COVID-19. This week has been one gut-punch after another. The trick of art, though—the kind that worms its way into people’s hearts and minds and lives, populating or punctuating moments both significant and insignificant—is that it grants a kind of…

Music tastes change, like everything else in life. As a result, it is almost impossible to pick a list of songs as my all-time favorite. So, for this exercise, I have selected tracks that I find special: either because of a particular artist, album, or because they transport me to certain memories, or because the songs have an endearing quality and they never wear off on me. With that in mind, below are 101 songs that are special to me (in no particular order). The only rule this list adheres to is that no artist/band is repeated. Finally, why “101”?…

So, I have to admit this feature was my idea. I’m trying to figure out if I regret that or not. I happened to mention to the DV Crack Staff that I had this playlist on [a certain Streaming Service That Shall Not Be Named] -- the 131 songs that were essential to my listening pleasure. My personal happiness. My musical jones. Why 131, you ask? Well, at the time, I was going through chemotherapy and I just didn’t have the brain power or energy to get it any lower. Now, I kind of like it. The number has character.…

Brainiac, one of the most underrated alt rock bands of the ‘90s, came to a premature end in 1997 when leader/frontman Tim Taylor was killed in a car accident. The band’s legacy and musical reputation only began to grow after bands like The Mars Volta and others began citing them as key influences. This excellent documentary chronicles the band’s rise through the indie underground to their peak and ascension, which came to a premature end weeks before the band was going to sign to a major. Interviewees including all surviving band members, Taylor’s family and numerous fans including Fred Armisen,…

In which reviewer Duke Egbert, returning from a nine-year writing hiatus, breaks all the rules previously set for these collections by including a live album and mashing an artist’s group and solo career together (sort of). 16. The Secret (2019)The Paul Dukas And Lou Gramm? Really? Album. A disjointed, flat effort, despite its star-spangled guest list. The only track worthy to be on a Project CD is the soaring, heartbreaking “I Can’t Get There From Here.” Sad, but true. 15. Vulture Culture (1985) The Where’s The Orchestra? Album. The widescreen, cinematic grandeur of the early CDs is completely gone by…