We’ve arrived at my favorite season on the blog — my six-week dive into last year’s movies. While I’m a huge music fan, enough to write this blog for 17+ years, my true love is cinema.
Over the next month and a half I’ll tackle 2025’s movie slate from a few different angles. First, I’ll highlight some of my favorite musical moments onscreen, then I’ll name my personal nominees in the top awards categories, and finally I’ll dig into some of my favorite 2025 films and offer up my top ten list.
The week of Feb. 1, 1986, found Dionne Warwick & Friends hanging on to the #1 spot for the third straight week with ‘That’s What Friends are For.’
Behind it at #2, where it would spend two weeks, is one of the most glaring examples of trying to make lightning strike twice — Survivor’s ‘Burning Heart.’
Throwing back to the week of January 31, 1976, we find Ohio Players stop the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘Love Rollercoaster,’ enjoying its first and only week at #1.
The R&B/funk band had made it to #1 a year earlier with ‘Fire.’ After this hit, they would never again reach the top ten, though later in 1976 they would hit #18 with ‘Who’d She Coo?’
Concluding a look at notable albums of 1996…
Regular readers know I struggle to enjoy most rap music. I’m not proud of that fact, knowing the musical, cultural, and societal relevance of the genre, but my ears like what they like.
One of the few exceptions is OutKast, the Atlanta-based duo who rank among the most acclaimed and successful hip-hop acts in history. I have enjoyed everything I’ve heard from them, including the two albums I know quite well — 2000’s Stankonia and 2004’s Album of the Year-winning Speakerboxxx/The Love Below.
Continuing a look at notable albums of 1996…
For U.S. listeners, the Swedish alt-rock band The Cardigans are a one-hit wonder. That hit was ‘Lovefool,’ a jaunty battle cry for desperate jilted lovers everywhere.
‘Lovefool’ reached the U.S. charts thanks to its inclusion on the soundtrack of Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet and earned critical praise as well as commercial success. But it first appeared on the band’s third album, titled First Band on the Moon.
Meet Me In Montauk 