Category: Pop

Travelin' front cover 2

Tommy James & The Shondells — Travelin’

It’s my opinion that this is in its own way the finest Tommy James & The Shondells album. It didn’t produce any big hits (although “She” got to #23, and “Gotta Get Back to...

Something Special! front cover 2

Tommy James & The Shondells — Something Special!

It’s possible (nay: probable) that I bought all my Tommy James records in the same few months, during the spring semester of 1980, because I associate every one of these albums with an apartment...

Blaze of Glory front cover 2

Joe Jackson — Blaze of Glory

I’m not sure I can begin to express how much this album spoke to me when it came out in 1989, and how much it continues to to this day. It’s a latter-day “Quadrophenia”...

Big World front cover 0

Joe Jackson — Big World

I can’t think of an album that came out in 1986 that was more amazing, more important to me. And that was the year Elvis Costello’s “King of America” came out, so that’s saying...

Body and Soul front cover 1

Joe Jackson — Body and Soul

Just months after “Mike’s Murder,” this sensational album came out in March 1984; I have strong associations of this album with spring thaws and the smell of that cool air as the snow melts,...