"Buildings & Mountains"Republic Tigers Somewhere in the eighties, the criterion changed. The question wasn’t whether something was good, but whether it was a HIT! A hit was something catchy, instantly memorable, that someone who’d actually pick up the phone and stay on the line with a researcher could recognize and approve of in a snippet. […]

There’s a new station in L.A., it bills itself as "World Class Rock". Wow, I’m glad they told me, I was worried they were only going to play SHIT!  That’s the problem with radio stations today, they just won’t play the good stuff.  We want the hits, and they won’t give them to us.  They […]

I just read in "Paste" that Neil Diamond is not a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I remember walking to Westwood to see "One Trick Pony". When Paul Simon and his band played "Dead Rock Stars", I was stunned that they didn’t know who was dead or alive. But, as one […]

One could argue that SoundScan ruined the record business.  Oldsters might say the phony charts of yore, manipulated by the labels, were better for the health of the industry, that they allowed a record to build and grow.  But it’s more interesting to look at it from the other direction, how the first week became […]