Posts by Alby

This pop earworm hit No. 1 in America late in 1975, earning the band, which marketed the Edinburgh quintet as tartan-clad teen idols despite the band having been around for…

Was this tune from Steely Dan's debut LP, "Can't Buy a Thrill," about Richard the Lionhearted or Richard Nixon? The album cover claimed the song contained "no political significance." The…

No, I didn't watch the "debate." Open up your eyes, folks -- we're fighting on the same side. In their early days gigging around Philadelphia, years before they signed a…

Yesterday Trump pardoned every white-collar criminal he's seen on TV, from Michael Milken and Eddie DeBartolo to Rod Blagojevich and Bernard Kerik and, I'm pretty sure, Doctor Loveless from "The…

In the late '60s and into the '70s, Mt. Pleasant High School would annually book a national-level band for a concert. Fifty years ago tonight the school played host to…

Hey, it's Presidents Day, so who better to play at the party? PUSA, like virtually all '90s alt-rock bands, made a splash with its debut in 1995, then quickly faded…

The lyrics make this sound like a religious song, and in a way it is, but it didn't spring from any Christian tradition. Strawbs got together in England in 1964…

Brexit has revived talk of Scottish independence, a topic that always reminds me of this song in which Scottish twins Charlie and Craig Reid proclaimed their support for cutting ties…

Today's tune is in honor of Mike Bloomberg's policing policy which, considering this song was recorded in 1968, shows that mini-Mike wasn't an innovator but a reactionary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2pGBv9Ly6A Of course,…

Ray Stevens is best known for his prodigious output of comic songs, a few of which were actually worth a chuckle. He also had a big hit with "Everything Is…

Not even Bernie Sanders goes so far as to call for redistribution of land -- it took a bunch of Canadian hayseeds from the plains of Manitoba to do that.…

I have no idea why this song popped into my head the other day, because I don't think I've heard it in years. Obscure even for a one-hit wonder, Alive…