This is another taste of how much the internet has changed things. We go back to 1986 and a movie called Band of the Hand, which I saw in theaters and happened to like (reviews are quite mixed but, you know, listen to reviews only when you can’t form your own opinion.) I’m not here to go into the film, but a particular song therein, which had a very brooding sound, enhanced
Category: Because it’s a blog
Walkabout recommends: Cannery Row
So we’re starting a new topic here, one that I’ve been meaning to get to for months, and that is, recommendations of films that I like a lot but aren’t too well known. The downside of this is, it might be a little difficult to locate a copy or streaming service that has it – but that’s not my problem.
We’re starting with Cannery Row, a 1982 film with Nick
Dittyday 9: Love Is a Battlefield
I have to admit, I often have to look up the exact capitalization of titles because I don’t understand the rules, and I don’t pretend to know why “Is” is capitalized here, but so be it. I think damn near everybody knows this song, one of the biggest hits for Pat Benatar and never deep into any eighties station’s lineup, but I’m going to urge you to listen very
You know I’m good for it
Two follow-ups for this post, both of which I came across early this morning. The first is frivolous yet still formed this trivial frustration to me for, um, a while. I mentioned in a previous post that there was this distinctive theme music to Mutual
Dittyday 8: They Might Be Giants
Oh my, oh my my my, this one’s liable to be polarizing, or it might be if I had readers anyway. This band is notorious for, if nothing else, earworms, songs that stay with you for a very long time, but I’ll readily admit this might be a bad thing if they’re really not your thing – I think they accomplish the ‘catchy’ part without necessarily getting to the ‘likeable’
Yes videos: Kinda polar opposites
The 1980s were this curious time in the pop music biz, because it became virtually necessary for bands to create a music video for anything that they wanted to become popular, which was controversial in itself – a lot of artists didn’t care for the medium, didn’t like the idea of making little movies, didn’t have good ideas, resented that the rules had changed, and so on.
Dittyday 7: Danny Elfman and Oingo Boingo
Being a pop musician is not, it appears, a stable career choice, and cataloging the various iterations involved in this one would take more effort than I’m going to expend – Wikipedia exists for this reason, but I grew up before cut-n-paste was a thing and learned how to write my own essays, so I’ll just send you over there if you want all the nitty-gritty. And I admit that I was
BIAB: You’ve been…
I don’t actually care if you’ve seen either or both of these videos before – they deserve another look if you have, and if you haven’t, I’m pleased to introduce you to them.
Okay, the chances are fairly good that you’d already heard that one I’ve known about it for a few years and I don’t even do the social media horseshit
Dittyday 6: The Motels
Just so you know, this one was brought to mind, and eventually found its way here, because of a lyrics quiz.*
The Motels are a band that barely escaped ‘one-hit wonder’ status in the early eighties, mostly by having two songs that became popular, but part of this was because these songs departed from their normal style their other work, or at least everything
Dittyday 5: Chris de Burgh
Yes, we’re still wallowing in the eighties music, and I say that up front so you can heap scorn and go back to listening to, I don’t know, some misspelled artist of some kind. There was a particular quality to music from the eighties, and I’m fully aware that I may be saying that because that’s when I first got seriously interested in music. It’s also the time when