What kind of crazy f____d up world do we live in where Howard Stern gets a better tribute than the Beatles? One in which Adam Levine does a spot-on rendition of “Purple Rain” and establishes his rock and roll bona fides overnight. I was planning on hearing this on the replay, but my flight was […]

Once upon a time, Top Forty was truly the best of the best. How else to explain the ascension of this track by a Canadian folkie to the top of the Hot 100? It wasn’t the first time Gordon Lightfoot had chart success. He broke through three years earlier with “If You Could Read My […]

My favorite Carole King song is “Goin’ Back.” It didn’t used to be. It used to be “So Far Away.” And then it was “The First Day In August.” But a few years ago I heard “Goin’ Back” from her initial stiff solo album “Writer” and I was hooked. And when I needed to hear […]

“It turns out that for all their diversity, the strikingly successful groups in America today share three traits that, together, propel success. The first is a superiority complex – a deep-seated belief in their exceptionality. The second appears to be the opposite – insecurity, a feeling that you or what you’ve done is not good […]