3 Minutes, 49 Seconds

Once upon a time one of my favorite things to do on this blog was to unveil my end-of-the-year top ten. It started off as a complicated affair with multiple categories. As time went on it simplified, later becoming not a top ten but a modest list of albums I was happy to have spent my money on. As my attention moved away from the blog, I stopped the tradition altogether. I haven't posted - or even made - a year-end list since 2012. I also used to post the artwork and tracklist for my annual year-end mix, and I have also been remiss in that for the past six years. So, in an attempt to make up for lost time, here's are some freshly-prepared year-end lists and a cataloging of the mixes I made each year. 2013 Jimmy Eat World - Damage Pearl Jam -  Lightning Bolt Tegan and Sara - Heartthrob Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City mix: 1) Jimmy Eat World - "I Will Steal You Back" 2) Ra Ra Riot - "That Much" 3) Divine Fits - "Chained to Lov...

Summer ends Monday, and thus ends my summer of REO Speedwagon. As follows are a few stray and summary thoughts about the band. -Despite their tumultuous history, the band have a very clean discography. Everyone who's gotten obsessive about a group knows the pain and pleasure of hunting down that rare soundtrack appearance, b-side, or solo album. Outside of The Goonies , REO didn't do original songs to soundtracks, and they have no non-album b-sides. They also didn't do solo albums or side projects. And though they clearly had the talent for it, they didn't produce or write for other artists or even really do guest appearances. Kevin Cronin did exactly one solo song, on the soundtrack for the 1989 film Sing . He sang backup on Survivor's 1983 album Caught in the Game , and on one song on Richard Marx's 1989 Repeat Offender album. Gary Richrath co-wrote a song on a Darlene Love album. In 1983 Alan Gratzer played with Eddie Van Halen on Queen guitarist Brian Ma...

Ric Ocasek passed away yesterday, and my heart sank when I saw the news. Don't know what you got 'til its gone and all that, but it's difficult to anticipate whose passing is going to affect you and how, and thinking about it too much is ghoulish anyway. The bottom line is that Ric Ocasek has had an outsize impact on the development of my music fandom, and I hadn't truly reflected on that fact until today. Like my fellow Gen-Xers, I grew up hearing Cars songs as part of the tapestry of everyday life. "Magic" at the waterpark, "Moving in Stereo" in Fast Times at Ridgemont High , "Drive" on a car ride at night (how perfect!), "You Might Think" and "Just What I Needed" at the mall or mini-golf course. I knew all the songs but couldn't name the band. Freshman year of college I conducted an intensive self-education in pop music that started with greatest hits albums by "important" bands. During a rare trip...

Where We Left Off: REO Speedwagon's 1996 album Building the Bridge was their first album not to chart since 1972's  R.E.O./T.W.O. . But their appeal as a live concert draw continued to grow, especially as nostalgia for the 1970s and 1980s built. * While it wasn't quite as long as the wait for Chinese Democracy , REO Speedwagon fans endured an egregious 11 years between Building the Bridge and a new album. All they had to tide them over were two songs on the 1999 Epic compilation The Ballads : "Just For You" (written by Kevin Cronin with Jim Peterik from Survivor) and "Til the River Runs Dry" (by Cronin and singer-songwriter Jimmy Scott). It seems the band had considered themselves retired from recording after the tepid reception to Building a Bridge , but according to Cronin, a 2000 tour with Styx - specifically seeing a new generation of fans singing along with the old songs - lit a fire under the band to start working up new material again. Th...

Where We Left Off: REO Speedwagon, like so many '80s arena rock giants, got chopped up by the early 1990s alternative buzzsaw. Their 1990 album  The Earth, a Small Man, His Dog, and a Chicken  was their worst-performing release in more than a decade. After sticking with the band for two rollercoaster decades, Epic dropped them. * With no label, REO Speedwagon essentially started over in the early 1990s. After a hiatus during which guitarist Dave Amato toured with Cher and Richie Sambora, the band began taking gigs wherever they could get them. They went back to playing clubs and fairs, trying to win fans one show at a time the way they had in the early 1970s. It wasn't easy, and there were times when the future of the band was in serious doubt, but eventually it started to work. Granted, they weren't so much adding new fans as they were reminding older ones they were still around. As singer Kevin Cronin put it in a 1996 interview with the  Orange County Register ...