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Dr. Hook – “Better Love Next Time”
Every element of "Better Love Next Time" amounts to pure fluff, studio-engineered soft-rock dressed up in a polyester leisure suit.
Richard Challen
Feb 28, 20204 min read
641 views
5 comments
Foreigner – “Head Games”
"Head Games" is sneakily subversive, and that weirdness never once gets in the way of its elemental arena rock stomp.
Richard Challen
Feb 26, 20204 min read
655 views
4 comments
Eagles – “The Long Run”
"The Long Run” is competence without passion, hooks without heart. It sounds like a million bucks and leaves zero lasting impact.
Richard Challen
Feb 24, 20203 min read
773 views
10 comments
Smokey Robinson – “Cruisin’”
Smokey Robinson scored his first solo Top 10 at a time when a large swath of the public—and his own label—had written him off completely.
Richard Challen
Feb 21, 20204 min read
873 views
4 comments
Little River Band – “Cool Change”
"Cool Change"is a piece of pleasant and competent soft-rock that goes down easy and dissipates immediately upon fadeout.
Richard Challen
Feb 19, 20203 min read
1,855 views
9 comments
Cliff Richard – “We Don’t Talk Anymore”
For one brief, twenty-four month stretch, Richard took a chintzy, harmless pop ditty and parlayed it into some modicum of Stateside success.
Richard Challen
Feb 17, 20205 min read
647 views
8 comments
Kool & The Gang – “Ladies’ Night”
“Ladies’ Night” is the sound of a veteran group recalibrating their entire aesthetic in an unabashedly craven bid for commercial acceptance.
Richard Challen
Feb 14, 20204 min read
606 views
4 comments
Kenny Rogers – “Coward Of The County”
"Coward Of The County" presents gang rape, cold-blooded murder, and triple homicide as a redemption arc. And that’s all kinds of messed up.
Richard Challen
Feb 12, 20206 min read
914 views
6 comments
Captain & Tennille – “Do That To Me One More Time”
Considering the source, “Do That To Me One More Time” might as well be the musical equivalent of walking in on your parents mid-coitus.
Richard Challen
Feb 10, 20205 min read
1,212 views
6 comments
Stevie Wonder – “Send One Your Love”
A gorgeous wisp of a song also functions as a disarming, straightforward entry into the most head-scratchingly odd release of his career.
Richard Challen
Feb 7, 20204 min read
583 views
9 comments
Michael Jackson – “Rock With You”
Every second explodes with unabashed joy, deepened only by the knowledge that Michael Jackson would never sound so free on record again.
Richard Challen
Feb 4, 20207 min read
1,702 views
7 comments
Rupert Holmes – “Escape (The Piña Colada Song)”
But "Escape” doesn’t take a side at all. In Rupert Holmes’ beyond-massive #1 hit, infidelity never leads to pain. It leads to a punchline.
Richard Challen
Feb 1, 20206 min read
1,179 views
9 comments
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