Movie sequels succeed. Book sequels succeed. TV reboots do just fine. What’s the one thing in pop culture where a continuation of the story has almost never worked: stage musicals. Bring Back Birdie Bye Bye Birdie was a smash on the stage and the screen in the 1960s. A very thinly veiled adaptation of the […]
Neil Diamond is one of the most popular and successful musicians of all time. Here are some surprisingly awesome facts about the man, who recently announced that he was retiring from touring after 50 years in the music business. Diamond attended New York University on a fencing scholarship. He was part of the squad that […]
The clown prince of rock n’ roll is known primarily for his gentle, silly parodies of popular songs, most of them about food. But the man behind “Eat It” and “Like a Surgeon” can also get a little nasty. “It’s Still Billy Joel to Me” The hottest thing in rock music in 1980 was New […]
There are only so many notes in the music, which means that every now and then one popular song winds up sounding a lot like another popular song. Here’s a look at a case of copyright infringement that’s currently burning up the charts. One of the bestselling albums of 2017 was Lust for Life, the […]
Who’s the most popular musician on the radio today? Well, it’s December…so it’s Bing Crosby. His recordings of Christmas songs are perennial classics, so much so that nowadays he’s pretty much exclusively celebrated with the holiday. But in the mid-20th century, there was nobody bigger than Bing. White Christmas According to pre-computerized sales tracking systems, […]
Here’s a little bit about a bunch of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s list of acts that may be officially enshrined early next year. The Moody Blues Before they picked “The Moody Blues,” the group was called the M&B Five, named after Mitchell and Butler, the Birmingham, England, pub that sponsored them. Radiohead […]
The unlikely, common origin stories of two very different icons of American pop culture. “We’ve Only Just Begun” In 1970, California-based Crocker National Bank enlisted the help of San Francisco ad agency Hal Riney & Partners to increase the bank’s awareness with young adult customers. The agency hired the songwriting team of Roger Nichols and […]
A few stories about the late, legendary Tom Petty. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ breakthrough hit was the classic “American Girl.” While mixing the final cut in a studio late one night in 1976, Petty thought it was missing something and asked guitarist Dwight Twilley what he thought. Twilley said the song was good, but […]
Frank Sinatra was a great singer of course, but he’s also been called a great “interpreter” of famous songs. So much so that when he covered well known songs, he often made or demanded some notable changes to the lyrics. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” The holiday standard debuted in the 1944 movie musical […]
Steely Dan is one of the most innovative bands of all time, combining jazz themes with rock n’ roll and some of the darkest, funniest, and most literature lyrics ever attempted. Band member Donald Fagan credits that unique wordplay to bandmate Walter Becker, who died earlier this month at age 67. Here are some other […]
The “song of the summer”—the one that’s dominated radio and the pop charts—is “Despacito” by singer Luis Fonsi. More than a simple catchy song, it’s making history. Here’s a look at the song all the kids these days are into. “Despacito” is the first song in the musical genre called reggaeton to hit #1 in the […]
August 16 marks the 40th anniversary of Elvis Presley, the King of Rock n’ Roll. He’s one of the most famous and written about people of all time, so we hope you didn’t already know these facts about him. (And for reading it…thank ya very much.) Black Velvet Elvis was naturally blond, and used a […]
Paul McCartney was “the cute Beatle,” Ringo Starr was “the funny Beatle,” and George Harrison was “the sequel Beatle.” Continuations of stories are obviously common in movies, books, and TV shows. Not so much in the world of music, probably because modern pop and rock songs don’t tell full stories, but rather present feelings or […]
More than 30 years after the first Super Bowl broadcast, the halftime show is no longer just something to fill TV airtime while the football players rest—it’s now a spectacle unto itself. Here are some highlights.
Like many Americans, some of Elvis’s favorite toys were his guns. And when he wasn’t shooting, he liked to pretend he was a karate champ. Some details:
Remove your hat, place your hand on your heart, and reflect on these facts about different countries’ official songs.
Rock icon Chris Cornell, lead singer of Soundgarden passed away this week at age 52. Here’s some stuff you may not have known about grunge icon. He trolled metal bands. When brooding, Seattle-based “grunge” bands like Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and Nirvana came on the scene in the ‘90s, they soon displaced a lot of the […]
Did Jim Morrison really leave the land of the living in 1971…or did he just slip out of the limelight? Some facts to consider from It’s a Conspiracy! by the National Insecurity Council.
