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’ read more

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. read more

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 read more

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 read more

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 read more

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 read more

Dittyday 4: Ivan Neville

It’s been a while since the last installment, but then again, I never intended to be on any kind of schedule with this. Today we’re going to hear from a singer with a lot of musical background, having been in several different bands over the years (including the wonderfully named Dumpstaphunk,) but the two songs that I’m featuring here were from his solo career, peeking read more

Dittyday 3: Gotta have the funk

I’ll be featuring three songs this fine day, and will estimate that the majority of readers, should any such creature exist, will be familiar with only one – but that particular one might be different among different readers, and I’ll explain shortly. Yet they all have their appeal and should certainly be better known. Let’s do this in reverse order, with the most recent read more

Dittyday 2: Madness and beyond

It’s time for a little more music – good music, mind you – and this fine Tuesday/Dittyday the selection is a rather largish English band called Madness. Formed in the late ’70s, peaking in the mid ’80s, they’re still performing today, albeit with a lineup that seems to change weekly.

I’m not the person to inform anyone about music styles and all that – read more

Slave to the holidays

I’ve kicked this story around for a few years, debating about posting it because it’s not at all thematic, regardless of the various themes, and I’m never really sure if anyone would care. But then again I do detailed closeups of creepy things, so what the hell. Plus, it’s Provide Unwanted and Disregarded Insight Into Yourself Day, so what better time to read more

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