poptransmission

Author: DSquared

  • 50 Years Ago: Best Albums of 1974

    We’ve gone back to 1984, 1994, and 2004 in previous posts this year. Let’s do one more of these decade anniversaries. 1974. High school junior year for me. An impressive and broad-ranging year of music. Hard rock, soft rock, country rock, prog rock, glam rock, and combinations of these styles. Reggae, too. Nostalgia weighs heavily…

  • The Old Man Season Two: Bridges & Lithgow Team Up for a Rescue Mission

    The Old Man is back for season two, airing new episodes Thursday nights at 10:00 p.m., PST on FX and streaming on Hulu the next day. (Episode Four is September 26th.) Following is the preview/review of the first season I previously published (with minor updates) and a teaser for season two. Enjoy the show. Season…

  • Little Stevie Doc: So Much More Than a Sidekick

    Thirty-five years as guitarist for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. Lead role in The Sopranos as consigliere and strip club owner, Silvio Dante. These two roles of a lifetime are what most people know about Steven Van Zandt. While I was aware of his “other” music and social justice activism, I had no idea how…

  • Faye: HBO’s Absorbing Doc on the Legendary “Difficult” Actress

    As the day breaks on March 29, 1977, Faye Dunaway is poolside at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Surrounded by the day’s newspapers announcing her Best Actress Oscar for Network, the photo screams “Is That All There Is?” It’s this iconic only-in-Hollywood moment that introduces HBO’s documentary, Faye. To tell her story, documentary filmmaker Laurent Bouzereau…

  • Best of 2004: Top 10 Albums From 20 Years Ago

    It’s always fun for a musical look back across the decades. I have remembered 1994 (Through a 30-Year Lense: Best Albums of 1994:) and 1984 (1984: Top Ten Albums From 40 Years Ago) so far this year. But I’ve never gone back 20 years, so here’s the album highlights from 2004: 10. Contraband by Velvet…

  • A Quiet Place: Day One Goes for Silence Over Mayhem

    A Quiet Place: Day One has a unique protagonist for an apocalyptic movie. Lupita Nyong’o (Black Panther, Us) radiates pain and despair as Samira (“Sam”), a terminally ill cancer patient living in a hospice home outside New York City. She agrees to go on a group outing to a local theater in the city only…

  • Todd Rundgren Live in Concert: A Collage of Sound

    Musician, songwriter, singer, and record producer. A pioneer in electronics, internet music, and video technology. Some of the most endearing and enduring pop ballads of the 1970s. 27 solo albums and nine with the Utopia band. A member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Todd Rundgren, what a career! Despite this pedigree, I’ve…

  • Unfrosted: Seinfeld’s Zany Origin Story of the Pop Tart

    In his directorial debut, Jerry Seinfeld takes on the cereal wars of the 1960s. The epic battle between Kellogg’s and Post to create a toaster breakfast pastry that will addict children to a new form of morning ritual. A Manhattan Project for cereal, if you will. In 1963, Kellogg’s is king and Post the also-ran.…

  • 3 Body Problem: Netflix’s Intriguing New Sci-Fi Series

    Ye Wenjie, a Chinese astrophysicist, gets arrested after witnessing her father’s death during the Chinese Revolution. Due to her scientific background, she is sent to a secret hilltop military base striving to make first contact with aliens. Her decision to assist the extraterrestrials in migrating to Earth leads a group of scientists in the present…

  • A Gentleman in Moscow: A Wonderful Rendition of the Best-Selling Book

    In 1922, a Russian Count is sentenced to house arrest at the Hotel Metropol Moscow, one of thousands of former aristocrats rounded up in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution. Most were killed or sent to die in Siberia. Thanks to one fortuitous circumstance, the Count avoids such harsh punishment. Instead, he must move from…

  • Through a 30-Year Lense: Best Albums of 1994:

    Time for another journey back in time. Here’s some memorable musical moments from 1994: Here’s my favorite albums of 1994: 10. Neil Young – Sleeps with Angels: While his classic rock brothers were receding in the public conscious, Neil Young was on a roll in the early ’90s – Freedom, Ragged Glory, and Harvest Moon.…

  • Kingdom: Planet of the Apes Starts a New Epic

    “I’m back home. We finally really did it. You maniacs, you blew it up. God Damn you, God Damn you all to hell.” George Taylor’s (Charlton Heston) anguish in 1968 concluded the first chapter of The Planet of the Apes. The planet with talking apes as the intelligent dominant species was Earth all along. Based…