Twostepcublog

Trust me, there’s no way you can act cool with the Captain & Tennille blaring on the car stereo. I’ve tried. Twice. Unluckily relegated to novelty status due to the popularity and timelessness of the so-sweet-it-promotes cavities “ Love Will Keep Us Together ”, the duo of Daryl Dragon and Toni Tennille , married in real life, rode the soft-rock/pop wave in the mid-70s, with a few hits, a television show, and endless guest-shots to make them a bigger presence then what people can remember them for. It seems everyone knows who the Captain & Tennille are, but besides “Love Will Keep Us Together” and Dragon’s “Captain” outfit, it’d be hard to find a majority that can say how. After a reissue of C&T’s Greatest Hits album, which left a couple omissions, Hip-O Records, the reissue label of Universal Music conglomerate, put out the Captain & Tennille: Ultimate Collection , which collects 22 tracks from both the A&M and Casablanca years. And believe me, this is all the C...

When I hit college, there were a holy quartet of bands, Depeche Mode, Erasure, the Smiths, and New Order . Suffice to say besides the Smiths the rest of the groups were going strong, though it's up in the air whether New Order are through for good (they've been done before). New Order formed from the remains of post-punk pioneers Joy Division after lead singer Ian Curtis hung himself in 1980. With guitarist Bernard Sumner taking over most of the vocal duties, and adding keyboardist Gillian Gilbert to the mix, New Order progressed to be the quintessential alternative electronic band through the 80's through the 90's. Singles is the fifth attempt to anthologize the group, and for the newcomer pretty much does the trick, containing all of their charting British singles save for a couple of (very) low-charting instrumental tracks. Sprawled out on 2 CD's with 32 songs, Singles is the best single listen you can get from the band. No extended remixes, no 8 minute long ...

You know, I'm still trying to finish up the New Order post below, but I'm late with the chart, and my OCD's taking over, so here it is. This week Maroon5 is now five weeks on the top, while Christina Aguilera (pictured above) spends a third week at #4. Young Love says goodbye to the chart (how depressing that sounds!) while Jennifer Lopez, Tim McGraw, Lionel Richie, Nelly Furtado, and Smashing Pumpkins make the biggest jumps. And away we go! This week Song/Artist (last weeks' position in parentheses) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Makes Me Wonder - Maroon5 (1) 2. U & Ur Hand - Pink (2) 3. Never Again - Kelly Clarkson (5) 4. Candyman - Christina Aguilera (4) 5. Before He Cheats - Carrie Underwood (3) 6. Ticks - Brad Paisley (6) 7. The Other Side Of The World - KT Tunstall (11) 8. Moments - Emerson Drive (10) 9. I Told You So - Keith Urban (18) 10. I Could Fall In Love With You - Erasure (15) 11. Read My Mind ...

Congratulations to Paul Potts, cellphone store manager from South Wales that's gone to win Britain's Got Talent by blowing away Simon Cowell and the audience. Proof you can do anything if you try... Video #1 original performance (Shorter "Nessun Dorma") Video #2 semifinals ("Con Te Partiro") Video #3 the Finals ("Nessum Dorma" complete) Cheers!

I saw Norbert Leo Butz for the first time onstage in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels . My friend Karl is a showtune encyclopedia, and is a good judge of theater, and he gave me Butz' pinnacle performance in The Last Five Years . Sort of like an Off-Broadway Memento , The Last Five Years traces the history of a relationship between Cathy ( Sherie Rene Scott ) and Jamie (Butz); the trick is while his narrative goes forward from meeting to end, hers is the opposite - starting the set off with " Still Hurting ", a somber, hurtful, and thus totally unexpected start to a musical. From there starts Jamie's narrative, with the a little too over-the-top uber-Jewish " Shiksa Goddess ", where he meets Cathy for the first time (though to give credit for the line "if you used to be a man...I'd say nobody's perfect"), this over a latin-styled beat. After that, we're brought down to earth to the bargaining Cathy in " See I'm Smiling ", where h...

Jen Foster is a Texan singer-songwriter who I was lucky enough to been given a copy of her album by my friend Larry (thanks, Larry). It took me a couple listens to fully appreciate how good this disc is. Admittedly at first I got caught up in the Indigo Girls -style production, and her voice is remarkably like Amy Ray, so the intricate, thoughtful lyrics didn't hit me till listen #2. Now I realize why Jen won so many awards, including being a finalist for the John Lennon songwriting award and winner of multiple Outmusic accolades. I had heard her before on the outstanding Love Rocks compilation, but her second album The Underdogs way surpasses that. Jam packed with melodic pop-folk, the CD starts out with " All This Time ", a yearning over a lover seemingly lost, and " Taking Bob Dylan ", about a love definitely lost with the tagline "You're taking Bob Dylan, tell me how does it feel?". Each of these should've found a nice home on adult to...

Hey boys and girls, it's time again for my top tunes of the week. As always, you can click on the highlighted name of the artist to go to their website for more info on them (clips, songs, etc.) This week Maroon5 makes it four weeks at the top, while Kelly Clarkson (pictured above) jumps into the top five. Big moves are made by Keith Urban, Erasure, Finger Eleven, and Tim McGraw, while Lady Sovereign leaves the list. Happy Father's Day! This Week Song/Artist (last week's position in parentheses) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Makes Me Wonder - Maroon5 (1) 2. U & Ur Hand - Pink (2) 3. Before He Cheats - Carrie Underwood (3) 4. Candyman - Christina Aguilera (4) 5. Never Again - Kelly Clarkson (10) 6. Ticks - Brad Paisley (7) 7. Read My Mind - The Killers (5) 8. The Sweet Escape - Gwen Stefani f/ Akon (6) 9. If Everyone Cared - Nickelback (9) 10. Moments - Emerson Drive (11) 11. The Other Side...

Razorlight is an London-based rock band that gets oodles of press in the UK, but pretty much nothin' in the States. And that's a shame. I mean, I know I wasn't ga-ga over the group's debut, Up All Night , but probably more due to me lumping them into a cartload of other British neo-rock bands at the time, like the Libertines, Kaiser Chiefs, etc, etc. But much to my delight, Johnny Borrell and the boys have definitely killed the sophomore curse with their self-titled CD, Razorlight . Filled with tight, melodic tunes that sometimes remind me of Madness (probably the prominent piano on a bunch of tracks), sometimes the Fab Four themselves (in Borrell's spot-on Lennon-tinged voice on " Who Needs Love? "). Most of the disc are "love songs" in a way, though you'd never know it since the leadoff track, " In The Morning ", has been accused of being about date-rape, though I listened to it and he is thinking "we", so maybe it...

Jon Stewart so caught Tony Snow in a lie, which for Tony Snow comes as often as breathing or eating his own young..This time about Alberto Gonzales (go fig)...

(Hat Tip to Jason Hare , prince du pop culture )

Fareed Zakaria, Indian-American journalist and writer for Newsweek , kicks out a poignant and learned treatise on the perils of our jingoistic and shortsighted lack of diplomacy in the current issue. More troubling than any of Bush's rhetoric is that of the Republicans who wish to succeed him. "They hate you!" says Rudy Giuliani in his new role as fearmonger in chief, relentlessly reminding audiences of all the nasty people out there. "They don't want you to be in this college!" he recently warned an audience at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta. "Or you, or you, or you," he said, reportedly jabbing his finger at students. In the first Republican debate he warned, "We are facing an enemy that is planning all over this world, and it turns out planning inside our country, to come here and kill us." On the campaign trail, Giuliani plays a man exasperated by the inability of Americans to see the danger staring them in the face. "This is r...

Trace Adkins (real name Tracy , by the way) is a country singer from Louisiana who is seemingly more well known for his height and his ponytail than for his singing. However Adkins' deep baritone is one of the best male voices in the business today. Breaking out of the box big with his debut album, Dreamin' Out Loud , with 4 top-20 hits and one #1 ("This Ain't No Thinking Thing"), things were looking good. As it turned out, Adkins churned out some quality discs, though radio never consistently caught on, giving him one (maybe two) top-10 song an album, getting caught in the slew of "new" artists of his vintage. However the tide started to shift with a change in posture, going from a suave balladeer ("Every Light In The House") to evolve into some sort of Toby Keith-lite. Coincidently (or maybe not) this coincided with his period of trouble with alcohol. What comes of this now is more of a spotty output that appears to be geared on the "ma...

There’s no treadmills this time. Jamiroquai , mostly known in the US for the video for “Virtual Insanity” where lead singer Jay Kay dances around a movable room, has been a fixture on the British dance scene for over a decade. In 2005, the collective released Dynamite , which is a seesaw between neo-electrofunk and the classic disco sound they excel with. And this album mostly proves this point – the best moments are when they go totally discofied , like in the anthemic “( Don’t) Give Hate A Chance ” and album closer “ Time Won’t Wait”, which could have been pulled from any 1979 Salsoul disc. On the other hand, the band stretches on breakbeat jams like leadoff track “ Feels Just Like It Should ” and rockish toss-off “ Black Devil Car ” with some success. There’s also some smoother moments on Dynamite , like the nostalgic “ Seven Days In Sunny June ” and moody interlude “ Talullah ”, which sounds eerily like a “Quiet Storm” takeoff on George Michael’s “Careless Whisper”. The Eurodisc...