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Natterings: Sorry This One Isn’t Funny

“So much time to make up Everywhere you turn Time…

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Natterings: My Personal Favorite Storytelling Songs

Time for a history lesson. Once upon a time nice…

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Natterings: Why Critics Suck And Are Mostly Wrong, Part I

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Natterings: The Best Damn Country Song Ever

[Natterings is a very occasional and occasionally funny look at…

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The Year That Was: 1999

By the end of the '90s, frothy pop music, R&B…

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The Year That Was: 1963

At the end of the '50s and beginning of the…

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The Year That Was: 1978

Nineteen seventy-eight. Disco. Punk. Arena rock. Grease. You had to…

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The Year That Was: 1974

Nineteen seventy-three and 1975 were two excellent years for rock…

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The Year That Was: 1988

The year 1994 comes close, but 1988 was the true…

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The Year That Was: 1977

Quite simply, there is no year as chaotic in rock…

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The Year That Was: 1979

Signs of exhaustion were creeping in to the latter half…

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The Year That Was: 1981

Nineteen eighty-one was really the year that "arena rock" as…

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The Year That Was: 1975

History probably remembers 1975 for the disco singles, the weenie…

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The Year That Was: 1971

A fiery burst of creativity and attitude in 1971 resulted…

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The Year That Was: 1976

One would think that 1976 was a pretty bad year…

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The Year That Was: 1970

The experimental, anything-goes nature of the last four years of…

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The Year That Was: 1968

Following the colorful explosion of sound and experimentation in 1967,…

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The Year That Was: 1972

During the latter half of the 1960s, what was good…

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The Year That Was: 1996

A fascinating year for music, 1996 was really when the…

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The Year That Was: 1965

A stellar year for rock, 1965 saw some of the…

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The Year That Was: 1980

Ah, 1980, the arrival of new wave, the taming of…

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The Year That Was: 1995

Coming off the high of 1994, 1995 was bound to…

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The Year That Was: 1994

Not only was this the greatest single year for music…

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The Year That Was: 1985

Some music critics have cited 1985 as the worst musical…

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The Year That Was: 1989

1989 seems to be one of those "lost years" in…

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The Year That Was: 1967

One of the legendary years in rock music history, 1967…

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The Year That Was: 1990

1990 was one of those transition years, the period where…

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The Year That Was: 1984

A year of change for many artists, 1984 boasted a…

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The Year That Was: 1986

The first class of the Rock And Roll Hall Of…

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The Year That Was: 1969

What was the greatest year for music? 1956 and the…

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Michael R. Smith’s 50 Years Of Debut Albums

What's new? What's hot? These are questions we've been asking…

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The Year That Was: 1998

If the disaster musical year of 1997 proved anything, it…

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The Year That Was: 1993

Well into the grunge and alternative movement, 1993 was the…

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The Year That Was: 1966

This was the year that rock and pop music rose…

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The Year That Was: 1964

The times, they were a' changing. Bob Dylan articulated it…

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The Year That Was: 1984

A year of change for many artists, 1984 boasted a…

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The Year That Was: 1997

A major shift occured in music in 1997. Just like…

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The Year That Was: 1983

I have been looking forward to writing this Year That…

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The Year That Was: 1992

Listeners had barely caught their breath from the zeitgeist-changing musical…

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Benjamin Ray’s The Year That Was

Over a half century into the era of rock and…

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The Year That Was: 1987

This was the Year Of The Last Gasp for many…

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Jason Warburg’s Deluxe Edition

In an era when the big labels—those few still in…

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Sean McCarthy’s Top 100 Of The 2000s (Part V)

In the '90s, we saw hair metal and boy bands…

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Sean McCarthy’s Top 100 Of The 2000s (Part IV)

In the '90s, we saw hair metal and boy bands…

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Sean McCarthy’s Top 100 Of The 2000s (Part III)

In the '90s, we saw hair metal and boy bands…

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Sean McCarthy’s Top 100 Of The 2000s (Part II)

In the '90s, we saw hair metal and boy bands…

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Sean McCarthy’s Top 100 Of The 2000s

In November 2009, Sean McCarthy set out to tackle reviewing…

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Sean McCarthy’s Top 100 Of The 2000s (Part I)

Numbers 100 Through 81

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Mixtape Mondays: Fly Away, Far Away

I’m gearing up to head back to school, which means…

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Mixtape Mondays: Remembering First Love

First love: it’s one of those things, like death and…

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Mixtape Mondays: The Black Book Mixtape

Flicking through my iPod the other day, the landslide of…

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Mixtape Mondays: Songs To Stalk To

The Police’s “Every Breath You Take” is a shining example…

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Mixtape Mondays: The Mick’s Tape

In light of the oncoming train of St. Patrick’s Day…

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Mixtape Mondays: Walking In A Winter Wasteland

Winter's got its good qualities. Viewed in a positive light,…

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Keeping Up (with Darren Paltrowitz)

Contributing Writer Darren Paltrowitz, whose previous syndicated column Moving In…

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Michael R. Smith’s History Of Dance Music

From Summer To Spears - 1977-2007

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Mixtape Mondays: Mama Mixtape

Indoctrinating My Son To The Power Of Rock

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Mixtape Mondays: Rough Gems

Deep Cuts From Rock’s Most Legendary Albums

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Mixtape Mondays: Ocean Waves

Adrift Under The Sun

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Paul Hanson’s 30-30 Vision

Paul Hanson was present at the creation… almost. Paul wasn’t…

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Michael R. Smith’s Pop 100

1966-2006

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The Year That Was: 1973

1973 was a big year for milestones and touchstones.Bruce Springsteen…

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The Year That Was: 1982

Thriller Conquers the World as Rock Comes to a Halt

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The Year That Was: 1991

Alternative Breaks Out

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The Years That Were: 1969/1994

1969 and 1994. Two watershed years in music history.One marked…

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2003: The Year That Was

Clear Channel, the Internet and the continued specialization of radio…

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