POP-A-LOOZA: 10 Songs

Each week, the pop culture website Pop-A-Looza shares a post from my vast 'n' captivating Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) archives. This week's shared post is my most recent edition of 10 Songs, spotlighting tracks by The Beatles, Culture Club, Dirty Looks, The Grip Weeds, Mandy Moore, the lost 1960s Motown rock group The Mynah Birds (featuring Rick James and Neil Young), The Partridge Family, Prince, Big Mama Thornton, and The Tweakers.



I began 10 Songs as a weekly fixture at Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) in January, and it's been a consistently popular feature. The idea came from Don Valentine of I Don't Hear A Single, originally suggested as an alternative to indie radio Top Tens that proliferate elsewhere. Don's intent, I think, was to solicit something more sincere and organic than a list generated and influenced by promotion, hype, and radio-biz mechanics. I can't pretend I'm immune to hoopla--I myself happen to speak fluent hype--but I am also genuinely independent. I mean, sure, I'd sell out in a heartbeat if anyone were buying, but as it stands I don't really have to answer to anyone. The blog is all mine, and the This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl program is half mine, as Dana and I split the back-and-forth programming choices equally. I can play what I want (within FCC guidelines) and write about whatever subject I fancy. No one's throwing money at me to influence what I do, because that would be a terrible investment.

So I saw Don's suggestion as an opportunity to pick ten songs off that week's This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio playlist and wail on 'em. It's been a fun exercise so far, if a bit more labor-intensive than I anticipated. Nonetheless, it's been well worth doing, and 10 Songs will continue here each week for the foreseeable future.



We only have a few links to provide as tangents to this week's shared Pop-A-Looza post. In 2017, The Grip Weeds gave us a fabulous song called "Strange Bird" for our compilation album This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4. For that collection's expanded track-by-track annotation, I wrote an individual chapter about The Grip Weeds, a chapter later included in the set's complete supplemental liner notes. The Grip Weeds' 10 Songs entry this week is their recent cover of The Monkees' "For Pete's Sake;" I've discussed The Monkees' original version in a Second Hand Sound essay about The Monkees' Headquarters and The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees LPs, and again in a piece wishing there had been a 45 single release of "For Pete's Sake"/"You Just May Be The One."




I've been getting into The Mynah Birds a lot this week, even though the legendary lost group didn't release any records during its brief 1960s lifetime, and only four individual songs have officially surfaced since then. It's really good stuff, and you can expect another Mynah Birds track on this week's TIRnRR. I haven't written anything else about The Mynah Birds, though they will be part of the Rick James chapter in my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). Meanwhile, I have a Neil Young story, and Rick James' Street Songs album was part of my Comics And LP Cover Cavalcade # 3.



What else? Prince and Big Mama Thornton also have chapters in my book, of course, but I'm not showing those publicly yet. A Virtual Ticket Stub Gallery sidebar piece on opening acts includes my memory of seeing Sheila E with Prince. The Partridge Family will eventually find their way to an entry in my Guilt-Free Pleasures series. And while I don't have any additional material for you regarding Culture Club, Dirty Looks, Mandy Moore, or The Tweakers, I have written a ton of stuff about The Beatles: feel free to go paradin' through my Fab Four archives here, or cherry-pick my 25 favorite Beatles tracks, my piece about underrating The Beatles (which segued into a coronation of "Rain" as The Greatest Record Ever Made!), my hypothetical album of the best covers The Beatles ever recorded (Leave My Kitten Alone), my declaration of loyalty to Beatle '65 and Beatles VI, and my fantasy about a 1976 Beatles reunion concert. Nothing is Beatle-proof!

But for now: 10 songs. It's this week's Boppin' Pop-A-Looza. Clap your hands. Rattle your jewelry. We're all in this together.


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This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

The many fine This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation albums are still available, each full of that rockin' pop sound you crave. A portion of all sales benefit our perpetually cash-strapped community radio project:

Volume 1: download

Volume 2: CD or download

Volume 3: download

Volume 4: CD or download

Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio:  CD or download

Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) will contain 134 essays about 134 tracks, each one of 'em THE greatest record ever made. An infinite number of records can each be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Updated initial information can be seen here: THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (Volume 1).