Alby's Latest Posts
Song of the Day 6/9: The Sundays, “Summertime”
Americans insist on regarding “summer” as the period between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox. That’s the astronomical definition of summer, but it’s not the only one. The length of the astronomical seasons varies, so meteorologists break the year into three-month segments. For record-keeping purposes, summer consists of June, July and August, which pretty […]
Song of the Day 6/7: Chuck Wood, “Seven Days Too Long”
I like soul music on Fridays as much as the next guy, but sometimes I get tired of the same old songs. So I turn to Northern Soul, the British movement born in the ’70s that kept alive obscure ’60s singles that never made the charts in the U.S. when they were released. A lot […]
Song of the Day 6/6: Jim Radford, “The Shores of Normandy”
Certain minds think alike. Mike Dinsmore posted this in the Open Thread while I was writing it up. It’s worth hearing twice. Jim Radford was a British folksinger and peace activist who was just 15 when he served as a cabin boy aboard a tugboat that took part in the D-Day flotilla 80 years ago […]
DL Open Thread Wednesday, June 5, 2024
Americans love scary stories, so it’s no surprise that American media dispenses countless articles about Trump. You rarely see his name in European newspapers, but their political leaders are frightened all the same. And, as in the United States, the constant drumbeat has a deleterious effect: As is true here, most are convinced Trump will […]
Song of the Day 6/4: Cyndi Lauper, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”
Cyndi Lauper announced her tour this fall will be her last. The now-70-year-old singer released the girl power anthem that defined her career in 1983 with a video that became an MTV landmark thanks to her sassy attitude and quirky thrift-shop wardrobe, a look Madonna swiped for her role in “Desperately Seeking Susan.” The video […]
DL Open Thread Tuesday, June 4, 2024
For years now I’ve been told that attacking Donald Trump only makes his support stronger. Yeah, sure it does, buddy. Unfortunately for that argument, post-conviction polling says the opposite is true. On the other hand, lots of evidence points to facts not mattering anymore. In a rare sign of fight, Democratic senators Sheldon Whitehouse and […]
Song of the Day 6/3: Gladstone, “A Piece of Paper”
June 1 marked the 25th anniversary of the launch of Napster, the file-sharing network that destroyed the music industry as everyone knew it. Stories marking the date mostly focus on the its negative effects on artists and record labels, but a few acknowledge why it spread so fast and so far – it was the […]
DL Open Thread Monday, June 3, 2024
Their dangerous rival just got convicted on 34 felony charges, and the reaction from Democrats is just what we’ve come to expect: They not only don’t know how to capitalize on it, they’re not even sure they should mention it. Now do you understand why they lose? Self-doubt is not something that Republicans ever have […]
Song of the Day 5/31: Nazareth, “Guilty”
Yes, that’s Scottish rockers Nazareth covering Randy Newman on their breakthrough 1975 LP, “Hair of the Dog.” The tune, from Newman’s controversial “Rednecks” album of the year before, got lots of blues covers back then, notably by Bonnie Raitt and Joe Cocker. Though Nazareth is lumped into the hard rock genre, it covered lots of […]
Song of the Day 5/29: Gotye, “Somebody That I Used to Know”
This song has been having a moment – I’ve heard it recently not only on the radio but on the supermarket muzak, and it showed up in my YouTube feed. I thought this was just the random output of an algorithm that decided the No. 1 hit of the year in 2012 was ripe for […]
DL Open Thread Wednesday, May 29, 2024
Closing arguments concluded in the Trump hush-money trial, so the speculation has begun. Few think he’ll be acquitted, but opinion seems split on whether he’ll be convicted. One person who has earned the right to opinionate about Trump is David Cay Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who has covered him, mostly from a financial perspective, […]
DL Open Thread Tuesday, May 28, 2024
Anyone who thinks that removing Benjamin Netanyahu from power would end Israel’s ongoing massacre in Gaza is overlooking an inconvenient truth: Two-thirds of the Israeli public doesn’t just support the war, they support denying humanitarian aid to its victims. There are right-wingers in Israel who make MAGAts look like hippies, like the illegal settlers in […]
Song of the Day 5/28: Iron Butterfly, “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida”
Doug Ingle, who wrote, sang and played organ on “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida,” Iron Butterfly’s iconic 1968 hit, died last week at age 78. Ingle was the last surviving member of the lineup that recorded it. The 17-minute title track took up one entire side of the band’s second album and was a lot better known back in […]
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