10 Songs is a weekly list of ten songs that happen to be on my mind at the moment. The lists are usually dominated by songs played on the previous Sunday night's edition of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl. The idea was inspired by Don Valentine of the essential blog I Don't Hear A Single.
This week's edition of 10 Songs draws exclusively from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1317: The Countdown Show. These are TIRnRR's ten most-played tracks in 2025, and the individual entries are mostly drawn from previous 10 Songs features.
10. SLY AND THE FAMILY STONE: Hot Fun In The Summertime
I have previously written that Sly and the Family Stone's "Hot Fun In The Summertime" is "as inviting and idyllic as any June-July-August embrace ever committed to wax, a comforting groove that shines in the daytime and sways with the shadows of twilight." I later added, "If memory serves, a poll of Trouser Press magazine readers in the early '80s named 'Hot Fun In The Summertime' as the # 1 choice for the title of all-time top summer song. Surpassing the Beach Boys in that category would seem a daunting task. But if anyone could do it, it would have to be Sly."
It would probably be a stretch to suggest that Sly Stone wrote "Hot Fun In The Summertime" under the influence of Brian Wilson. I don't quite believe any of Sly and the Family Stone's brilliant work was shaped by Wilson's pet sounds of the soul, at least not willfully. But it would also be a stretch to insist that Wilson wasn't a possible influence; Sly Stone was aware of everything going on in pop music in the '60s, and--to paraphrase something famously uttered by someone else in the Wilson family--Sly Stone was a genius, too. "Hot Fun In The Summertime" doesn't sound like the Beach Boys. Doesn't matter. Sly and Brian sound great in the same radio show. Hot fun, fun, fun in the summertime.
9. THE NON-PROPHETS: Alibi
We're as punched as pleased to welcome the Non-Prophets back to the TIRnRR playlist. The Non-Prophets are the dba of our bud Allan Kaplon, who scored some significant airplay here with his solo album Notes On A Napkin. Our Allan returns to the collective Non-Prophets billing for "Alibi." For this track, the Non-Prophets also include Stacy Carson and Bruce Gordon (half of TIRnRR Fave Raves Pop Co-Op), it's produced by Don Dixon, and it's a match made in Heaven's boppin' li'l nightspot. We believe this particular "Alibi."
8. SUPER 8 FEATURING LISA MYCHIOLS: Pop Radio
This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio is a pop radio show. There's a new Super 8 Featuring Lisa Mychols track called "Pop Radio?" We're playin' it. It's what a good pop radio show does. "Pop Radio" is a delicious ditty which serves as manifesto for TIRnRR in all our imaginary glory, a manifesto for us and all others who crave the pleasures of hooks 'n' harmonies cascading 'cross the airwaves, where they belong.
Throughout 2025, we played "Pop Radio" with all of the manic obsession one should expect from a self-respectin' rockin' pop radio show. We're also playing some new SPARK Radio promos that Super 8 'n' Lisa concocted for us, based on the irresistible chorus of "Pop Radio." Thank you, friends!
And yeah: TURN IT UP! Pop radio is its own reward.
7. THE SPONGETONES: Nothing Really Matters When You're Young
"Nothing Really Matters When You're Young" is a song by Flashcubes guitarist Arty Lenin. It was first performed by the Flashcubes in 1979, demoed by the 'Cubes, subsequently recorded and released by Flashcubes offshoot Screen Test, and eventually redone in this brightly-lit new century for the Flashcubes' 2003 album Brilliant. The song's lyrics are among the most effective expressions of teen alienation I've ever heard, a clique-inflicted miasma buoyed and ameliorated by the transcendence of its pop. Even now, listening to it with senior-citizen ears that are more years removed from high school than the onset of Beatlemania was removed from America's entry into World War I, "Nothing Really Matters When You're Young" can still make me feel the snub and the sting of my time serving that sentence in teen purgatory. Yet I love the song. That's the power of art, the power of music.
The Flashcubes' fellow Power Pop Hall of Famers the Spongetones' new rendition of "Nothing Really Matters When You're Young" lives up to its incredible Cubic legacy. I'm stunned, I'm grateful, and I'm thrilled that Dana and I have the opportunity to play this on the radio.
2025 was the year of Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes, the various-artists blockbuster I curated for release on the mighty Big Stir Records label. As we exult in the legacy of the Flashcubes and how much their music has meant to me over a span of nearly five decades, I dig the flow and symmetry of opening a Flashcubes tribute album with the new Flashcubes track "Reminisce" (see below) and barreling our way to the Stongetones' authoritative closing statement "Nothing Really Matters When You're Young" at the end. Reminisce. Nothing Really Matters When You're Young. Look back. Reflect. And rock out with fist raised.
A great album's final track has to be as vital and compelling as a great album's first track. Mission accomplished here. It matters. It always will.
6. JOE GIDDINGS: Tonite Tonite
Early in 2025, we played "Adrenalin," an advance track from Star Collector superstar Joe Giddings' then-forthcoming new album Stories With Guitars. Great as that was, I was further blown away when I heard "Tonite Tonite," another track from the same album, kick off the February 7, 2025 edition of The Spoon podcast. Hey HEY! I've since heard the whole album, and I say it's a strong candidate for one of 2025's best. See, ya learn stuff listening to The Spoon.
5. THE FLASHCUBES: If These Hands
More than a year's work paid off with the September 12th release of Make Something Happen! Poundin' the console on behalf of Syracuse's own power pop powerhouse is technically work, and it's also a calling. Plus it's fun! Given all the fabulous covers the Flashcubes have recorded and released over the past several years, I wanted to call more attention to the wonder of the Flashcubes' own brilliant songbook. A various-artists Flashcubes tribute album seemed the best way to accomplish that, so we gathered a bunch of talented artists, matched them with a bunch of songs written or co-written by members of the Flashcubes, and sent 'em off with one simple directive:
Make something happen.
"If These Hands" was the third and final single in advance of this tribute. Back in 1978, the Flashcubes' first 45 was "Christi Girl," a ballad written by Arty Lenin. In 2025, Arty closes this portion of the Flashcubes' singles discography with this song, another lovely ballad that serves as a yearning bit of folk rock that would have sounded right at home on one of the Searchers' irresistible late '70s/early '80s albums.
In planning a Flashcubes tribute album, I was determined to include at least one new track by the Flashcubes themselves. In fact, we have a 'Cubic trinity of fresh Flashcubes offerings, one apiece written or co-written by Arty, guitarist Paul Armstrong, and bassist Gary Frenay.
We naturally talk about the songwriters, as befits an album intended as a salute to a group's original songs. Let's also throw in a bit of praise for Flashcubes drummer Tommy Allen, not just for his incomparable percussive skill, but for the sheer pop and power he brings to this material as a producer. This stuff sounds amazing, and that's due in large part to our boy Tommy.
Putting this album together was a lot of work, and there's a long, long list of people who deserve credit for making this particular something happen. Even though others did most--almost all--of the heavy lifting here, I find myself exhausted in its aftermath.
Exhausted, but proud.
If memory serves, the last original song recorded and released by the Flashcubes prior to these three new singles was "Carl (You Da Man)" for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 1 more than twenty years ago. As flattering and fulfilling as it was that this band that's been so important to me wrote and recorded a killer song about Dana and me, I could not allow that to stand as the last word in original Flashcubes recordings.
It isn't the last one anymore. "Reminisce." "The Sweet Spot." Maybe "If These Hands" will be the Flashcubes' final recording, or maybe there will be more yet to come. I hope so. Either way, man, we made something happen. It was well, well worth the work.
4. THE FLASHCUBES: The Sweet Spot
Gary Frenay co-wrote "The Sweet Spot" with the late B.D. Love, who was also known to long-time Syracuse music fans as Buddy Love. That's not the NYC pop performer of the same dba, nor is it Jerry Lewis for that matter. Our Buddy/B.D. fronted Buddy Love and the Tearjerkers and My Sin, and he was an integral part of our local scene in the new wave era.
Other than the times 'Cubes guitarist Arty Lenin sat in on drums for Buddy Love and the Tearjerkers, I believe "The Sweet Spot" is the first Flashcubes-B.D. Love collaboration. And oh, it's something sweet. We are honored to be able to honor B.D. Love's memory by including this track on Make Something Happen!
Sweet. Sweet. Sweet.
3. THE MUFFS: That's For Me
The Muffs' eponymous debut album was released in 1993, the year after the short-lived first Dana & Carl radio series We're Your Friends For Now completed its rapid Vini, Vidi, Vacuum into the abyss. By the time we returned on even more modest terms as Radio Peace in 1994, the Muffs' "Saying Goodbye" had already established itself as my favorite track of the '90s, and I'm pretty sure we played it on the very first Radio Peace. And I'm positive we played both "Saying Goodbye" and the Muffs' "Sad Tomorrow" on the inaugural edition of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio on December 27th, 1998. TIRnRR has lasted a tiny bit longer than any of our previous series.
After the pop world lost the vibrant and irresistible talent of the Muffs' Kim Shattuck in 2019, the subsequent release of the group's farewell album No Holiday became a prevailing and pervasive fixture on our playlists. The No Holiday track "On My Own" was our # 1 most-played track in 2020, the Muffs were our # 7 most-played artist in 2025, that status led by the short 'n' sharp No Holiday nugget "That's For Me." That's for Kim. Man, that's for all of us.
2. AMY RIGBY: Heart Is A Muscle
We have heard that Amy Rigby wasn't all that enthused about her song "Heart Is A Muscle," that maybe she almost chose not to record it, and that she probably wasn't sure about releasing it once she did record it.Well.
For whatever it's worth, this track from Amy's oh-so-nice 2024 album Hang In There With Me was one of TIRnRR's most-played tracks last year; by summer of 2025, it had already accrued sufficient fresh spins to guarantee a berth on this year's year-countdown show, and it kept right on a-pumpin' all the way to the # 2 spot. Gotta keep the ol' heart exercised. Terrific track, but then again, we always expect terrific stuff from Amy Rigby.
1. THE FLASHCUBES: Reminisce
"Reminisce" was written by Paul Armstrong, with lyrics that look back in wonder at the heady days of the Flashcubes' brilliance under the bright lights in the late '70s. The music struts and commands like a Flashcubes song oughta, and the chorus is just magnificent, jaw-dropping, a compelling incitement to raise the ol' fist and be there like you wuz there.
Man, I was there. "Reminisce" captures what it was like.
Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes opens with "Reminisce." It's such a great track, and it provides an irresistible introduction to a passion project that--false modesty be damned--I regard as one of THE best compilation albums released this year.
"Reminisce" is also my favorite individual new track of 2025. The song was first written in the '90s and (I think) only performed once before being filed away and mostly forgotten. (I remember it, of course, but I'm, y'know...me.)
If I understand the subsequent story correctly, in 2024 PA reconstructed the song from memory, moving what had been a somewhat perfunctory number into the magic realm of rock 'n' roll transcendence, toasting the past but raising the roof in the here and now, even adding a Ramones quote that nails a demonstration of the essential truth that what's cool once is cool forever. The present is built upon the past. We can still jump up, down, and all around to its sound.
And we will! The Flashcubes have meant an awful lot to me, and to this show. "Reminisce" is the perfect song to open an album and close out a celebration, looking back while facing front at the same damned time.
It's all I wanna do.
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I compiled a various-artists tribute album called Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes, and it's pretty damned good; you can read about it here and order it here. My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available, and you can order an autographed copy here. You can still get my previous book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones from publisher Rare Bird Books, OR an autographed copy here. If you like the books, please consider leaving a rating and/or review at the usual online resources.
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, streaming at SPARK stream and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. You can read about our history here.
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