Flashback Countdown: What "5 Years Later" Sounds Like

Barenaked Ladies

Well, it's been 5 freakin' years of doing this podcast. There have been lots and lots of highs and maybe a low here and there. I'm not planning on stopping anytime soon so buckle up! It's the safe thing to do. You should buckle up even if I do stop sometime soon, though.

Enjoy the memories :)




Flashback Countdown #6 (1993)

***Featuring***
Barenaked Ladies
Bjork
Blind Melon
The Catherine Wheel
The Juliana Hatfield Three
New Order
Pearl Jam
Pet Shop Boys
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Smashing Pumpkins
Urge Overkill

Throwback Thursday: 1985

10. Bryan Adams - Reckless
9. Foreigner - Agent Provocateur
8. REO Speedwagon - Wheels are Turning
7. Madonna - Like a Virgin
6. Tina Turner - Private Dancer
5. Beverly Hills Cop - Soundtrack

     1. Patti LaBelle - New Attitude
     2. Shalamar - Don't Get Stopped in Beverly Hills
     3. Junior - Do You Really (Want My Love?)
     4. Rockie Robbins - Emergency
     5. Pointer Sisters - Neutron Dance
     6. Glenn Frey - The Heat Is On
     7. Danny Elfman - Gratitude
     8. Patti LaBelle - Stir It Up
     9. The System - Rock 'N Roll Me Again
   10. Harold Faltermeyer - Axel F

Last time we were on 1985, it was February and there were two songs from this soundtrack on the Top Ten. And in fact, many of the songs on that Top Ten are from albums on THIS Top Ten.

This is a fun 80's video. Harold F gets to pretend that he's in the movie and we get to see clips from the movie. Kind of a cool way to do an instrumental track.

4. Wham! - Make It Big
3. Bruce Springsteen - Born in the U.S.A.
2. Phil Collins - No Jacket Required
1. John Fogerty - Centerfield

New Podcast: Well SOMEONE Has to Have Written the Book

Robert De Long

This episode of the podcast is way better than the procrastination I injected into it. I hope you enjoy it!



Countdown #239

***Featuring*** (notice how we have a band from the first 7 letters of the alphabet without missing one this week!)

AWOLNATION
Bleachers
Cage the Elephant
Death Cab For Cutie
Elvis Costello
Florence + the Machine
George Ezra
Milky Chance
Modest Mouse
The Monotones
Robert DeLong
Walk the Moon

Top Ten Tuesday: Fetty Wap "Trap Queen"

I was watching this video the other day to prepare for writing this very thing I'm writing now. This is a song where everything about the song and video seem to be about making drugs and all of that thug life stuff, but if you notice, they're making pies in the video. At one point he even talks about putting on oven mitts and pulling a pie out of the oven. This song is better than some that have been a part of this feature and that little tongue-in-cheek humor really endears it to me.

In its own way, it's kind of a sweet love song!....Kind of...

Throwback Thursday: 1986

10. Simple Minds - Once Upon a Time
9. Starship - Knee Deep in the Hoopla
8. Ozzy Osbourne - The Ultimate Sin
7. Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms

      1. So Far Away
     2. Money For Nothing

     3. Walk of Life
     4. Your Latest Trick
     5. Why Worry
     6. Ride Across the River
     7. The Man's Too Strong
     8. One World
     9. Brothers in Arms

I used to have this album. But now I don't. I wonder what happened to it. I wonder if I lost it in the Great CD Case Loss of 2001. Hmm. Anyway, I really like this album and I know that Dire Straits aren't "cool" or whatever. But I like it!

6. Barbra Streisand - The Broadway Album
5. Mr. Mister - Welcome to the Real World
4. John Mellencamp - Scarecrow
3. Heart - Heart
2. Sade - Promise
1. Whitney Houston - Whitney Houston

Top Ten Tuesday (UK Edition): Sam Smith featuring John Legend "Lay Me Down"

So this is the current #1 on the UK Singles Chart. Literally only going by the music video, this was recorded by Legend and Smith for Red Nose Day.

A great song with two very talented gentlemen!

New Countdown: Ides of March Edition

AWOLNATION

Some changes on the countdown this week. And I think for the better. I'm always interested in how long it takes for the countdown to turnover from the beginning of the year and we are getting ever closer to that!



Countdown #238

***Featuring***
AWOLNATION
Bleachers
Cage the Elephant
Death Cab For Cutie
George Ezra
Imagine Dragons
Milky Chance
Modest Mouse
Robert DeLong
Straylight Run
Walk the Moon

Throwback Thursday: 1987

10. Huey Lewis - Fore!
9. Europe - The Final Countdown
8. Cinderella - Night Songs
7. Paul Simon - Graceland
6. The Georgia Satellites - Georgia Satellites
5. Janet Jackson - Control
4. Genesis - Invisible Touch
3. Bruce Hornsby - The Way It Is
2. Bon Jovi - Slippery When Wet
1. Beastie Boys - Licensed To Ill

     1. Rhymin & Stealin
     2. The New Style
     3. She's Crafty
     4. Posse in Effect
     5. Slow Ride
     6. Girls
     7. (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (to Party!)
     8. No Sleep till Brooklyn

     9. Paul Revere
   10. Hold It Now Hit It
   11. Brass Monkey
   12. Slow and Low
   13. Time to Get Ill

I was going to do the Bon Jovi album, but then it occurred to me that I might have done them for this year on the Hot 100 and, sure enough, there they were. So I did the #1 album. Which is also a doozie. Lots of great songs on this one. I don't own a copy. I believe I'll put it on my wishlist!

Top Ten Tuesday: Pitbull & Ne-Yo "Time Of Our Lives"

I'm really happy that this song has made the Top Ten. I'm still not completely convinced by Pitbull, but I really like Ne-Yo's hook and I really like this song in general. I think that the video really accentuates the retro feel of the song and, though I hadn't noticed it until watching the video just now, I love the breakdown a lot, too!

New Countdown: Patting Myself Firmly On the Back!

Arctic Monkeys

I did it! Here is a countdown that, if I can post it in the next 8 minutes, will be posted ON TIME, ON THE RIGHT DAY. And that's with Daylight Savings robbing an hour from me. I know. I'm impressed, too.

Enjoy!


Countdown #237

***Featuring***
Arctic Monkeys
Bleachers
Cage the Elephant
Death Cab For Cutie
Hozier
Imagine Dragons
Milky Chance
Modest Mouse
Robert DeLong
Walk the Moon

Throwback Thursday: 1988

10. George Harrison - Cloud Nine
9. John Mellencamp - The Lonesome Jubilee
8. Def Leppard - Hysteria
7. Debbie Gibson - Out of the Blue
6. David Lee Roth - Skyscraper
5. Michael Jackson - Bad
4. Tiffany - Tiffany
3. INXS - Kick

     1. Guns in the Sky
     2. New Sensation
     3. Devil Inside
     4. Need You Tonight

     5. Mediate
     6. The Loved One
     7. Wild Life
     8. Never Tear Us Apart
     9. Mystify
   10. Kick
   11. Calling All Nations
   12. Tiny Daggers

So a while back, Beck invited the bands Liars, Os Mutantes, and Annie Clark (St. Vincent) to come record covers of each song on this album in something called Record Club. This link will lead you to all the videos. And THIS link will take you to a video that someone made that stitched all of the individual videos from these sessions together.

Videos like this one:

I maybe should have done the Dirty Dancing soundtrack or Bad or maybe Hysteria, but I love this song so much and this album is kind of a mystery to me.

2. Soundtrack - Dirty Dancing
1. George Michael - Faith

Top Ten Tuesday: The Weeknd "Earned It (Fifty Shades of Grey)

This is a nice song from The Weeknd from the Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack. The video is NSFW, but the atmosphere is appropriate for the film the song is attached to.

This made me want to go listen to the three Weeknd mixtapes House of Balloons, Thursday, and Echoes of Silence. Are those still free somewhere? Or have they been taken down since the release of Trilogy which is all three for sale as one product?

Also, I should check out his album Kiss Land.

Here's the video before I digress too far!

New Countdown: Shakin' It Up

Cage the Elephant

Here we are with another countdown. Man, I love doing these things.

Enjoy!



Countdown #236

***Featuring***
Arctic Monkeys
Bleachers
Cage the Elephant
Dawes
Hozier
Imagine Dragons
Milky Chance
Modest Mouse
Robert DeLong
St. Vincent
Vance Joy
Walk the Moon

March 2015 Media Update

Last Thing I Watched: Last night I watched an episode of the TV show Mulaney called "Power Moves". This show is very very funny and I'm sad that it's not getting a second season. I feel like shows aren't getting the chance to break out of the first season roughness anymore. There's just too much content available for networks to not react to the very first response to new shows. Which is sad.

Last Thing I Read: So at some point this month, I broke my pact not to acquire any new books. Dessa is doing another session of her #Lithop internet book club. We are reading and discussing the Nicholson Baker collection The Size of Thoughts. It's very interesting to be exposed to an author I've never read before through such an eclectic collection. Last night, the last thing I read was "Mlack" which was a list of all the typos Baker made when he was writing one of his books. Instead of erasing them, he moved them to the bottom of the page. Kind of an interesting use of the word processor.

If you're interested, I'm keeping a running tally of the things I read in the book as well as linking to the Facebook discussions with the group on This Reddit Thread.

Last Thing I Listened To: On the way home from work last night, Red Hot Chili Peppers "Under the Bridge" was about halfway through when I turned on the car. It finished and the last song I heard before typing this came on. "Tom's Diner" by Suzanne Vega (the DNA remix, natch. No one plays the acapella version. It's sad but understandable.)

Things I'm Seeing On the Internet: It's so amazing and unbelievable the things that blow up on the Internet. I'm writing this a tad early, but I have every confidence that this will still be around this weekend when I write the rest of this post. I'm so excited to look back at this post and remember how huge this dress was.

The thing that is all over the Internet right now is a picture of a dress. And a debate over what color it is. And discussions about perception and image manipulation. It's super annoying because everyone is getting in on it and everyone's so certain they're right, but it's also kind of fascinating. So.

Here's the image.

And the debate is: Is the dress Gold and White or Blue and Black?

Here's a great joke about it:

And here's a link to a thread on the Ask Science Subreddit discussing the whole thing which I found very interesting.
What color is the dress? Why do some people see blue and black and some people see gold and white when looking at a single image of a dress?

Right after I wrote all that about the dress, the news broke that Leonard Nimoy had died. So people are talking a lot about him, as well. And, since it's the internet, I've seen several instances where people combine references to Nimoy and the dress. Oh, the Internet.