Honorable Mention #4: Zwan - Mary, Star Of The Sea (2003)

This was the hardest one to omit from my final list. Zwan came to us in January, riding on a white cloud. This was Billy Corgan's chance to start over, without the weighty commercial expectations of The Smashing Pumpkins. The cover was bright, with bubble letters and a rainbow-colored seventies style graphic. There were free stickers included in the CD case. A couple of songs even had exclamation points in the titles!

Despite the mod-goth image they had, the Pumpkins always had a wide-eyed innocent side, witness Today, 1979, or Stand Inside Your Love. It was this kind of music that Zwan focused on and the optimism was evident in the sound of the guitars and the female harmonies on songs like Honestly and Heartsong.

Unfortunately, the record sold poorly, interest in an acoustic side project was minimal, and Zwan broke up this fall. All we have left is one great album to remember them by. It might be the answer to a trick trivia question someday: Name the band Billy Corgan was in before his solo career took off.

Rating: A
Fave Song: Come With Me

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Honoring the Legacy of REO Speedwagon

I suppose I should have known the saga of REO Speedwagon couldn't end with a whimper. Before I get into the latest developments, here's a brief review of what's happened so far: In September 2024 came the announcement that the band was effectively breaking up at the end of the year. Apparently, frontman Kevin Cronin ruled that bassist Bruce Hall was no longer fit to continue touring following back surgery in summer 2024. Hall felt otherwise. Here we learned that REO had essentially become a three-way partnership between Cronin, Hall, and Doughty (who retired from touring in January 2023) following the departure of original members Alan Gratzer and Gary Richrath in 1988. Doughty sided with Hall, so Cronin was outvoted 2-1. No Bruce Hall, no REO Speedwagon. In December 2024 Cronin revealed he would continue performing REO Speedwagon songs with the two musicians who replaced Doughty and Hall, as well as Brian Hitt and Dave Amato (who replaced Gratzer and Richrath), with the on...

Billy Joel: 1980 - 1977

When I decided to write about every single Billy Joel studio album I knew had a bit of a leg up in that I'd written reviews of a handful of his records already. What I didn't realize until just now was that those reviews were of albums that had been released consecutively between 1977 and 1980. As I reread those reviews - the most recent of which is 14 years old! - I found that I still stand by them. My writing style has mellowed a bit, and I no longer give grades to albums, but otherwise my opinions then are my opinions now. So here you go... Billy Joel: Glass Houses (1980) Billy Joel: 52nd Street (1978) Billy Joel: The Stranger (1977)

Billy Joel: Cold Spring Harbor (1971)

We started at the end, and now we finish at the beginning. Billy Joel's first solo album has a reputation as a sort of curiousity in his catalog. For one, it was quite hard to find for a long while, as it was initually released on a small label called Family Productions and was very spottily distributed. Another bit of intrigue was that the album was initially mastered at the wrong speed, with the main effect being Billy's vocals - which were already much higher-pitched than what we'd become used to - being pitched up to near Alvin and the Chipmunks levels. In 1983, with Billy at the height of his commerical success, the album was remixed, and given some overdubs and edits. That stands today as the "offical" version, though neither the fans nor Billy himself are happy with it. So I suppose a caveat to this entire review is that Cold Spring Harbor is not the album it was intended to be. That said, I'm going to attempt to take it at face value, using the widel...

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