My Top 10 Songs of All Time by David Bash   Without any ado, and with no reservations whatsoever…   10. Chalkhills and Children-XTC (1989): The first of two “last song on their album” in my Top 10. Andy Partridge and company had recently tackled that “Beach Boys influenced thing” on their Dukes of Stratosphear guise with “Pale and Precious”, and while I think that one is great as well, I love this...

  Hi Everyone, Here are my lists of favorite albums of 2013. As is my usual custom, I’ve broken this down into several categories, as I’m just not comfortable ranking unlike entities on one list.   Contemporary Categories   Those marked with an * are LP-only releases, those with a **are download-only.   I. Top 100 Albums   As always, I listened to a lot of albums this year, and there were significantly more...

The Greatest Thing: 20 Must-Hear Elvis Costello Tracks by John M. Borack and Olivia Frain   As co-producers of the upcoming tribute collection Beyond Belief: A Tribute to Elvis Costello, we are obviously dyed-in-the-wool Costello fanatics. Many a day has been spent burning up the phone lines discussing and spinning Elvis discs, with each of us interjecting a “Listen to this lyric!” or a “How does he DO that?” as...

Hi Everyone, Here are my lists of favorite albums of 2012. As is my usual custom, I’ve broken this down into several categories, as I’m just not comfortable ranking unlike entities on one list.   Contemporary Categories   Those marked with an * are LP-only releases and those marked with an ** are download-only releases.  I’m hoping I didn’t forget to include some of the download-onlies: my filing system for them isn’t...

Roll Up for the Magical Mystery Tour (again) By Aaron Kupferberg www.powerpopaholic.com   On September 1967 The Beatles embarked on making their third film, with help from Richard Lester who directed A Hard Day’s Night (1964) and Help! (1965). The band was in uncharted waters after the death of long time manager Brian Epstein, and to prevent additional tax levies by the the government the band formed Apple Corps.  “Magical...