Month: March 2025

Picking Five MORE Songs From 1984

On By bigbadburchIn Songs By Year4 Comments

I was supposed to post this like last month or whatever. Better late than never I guess as I get the ball rolling on this long-running series again. This is the bonus post for 1984. I did part one last month in case anyone forgot, which is probably everyone since it was awhile ago.

As always – these are five (or for this year ten) of my favorite songs from a year, not necessarily my five absolute favorites. Nothing definitive here, though these are in the ballpark. Whatever the case, let’s get to it.

Prince – Purple Rain

I’ll start off with the spectacular power ballad from the seminal album and film that turned Prince into a massive superstar. This is a gorgeous song that explores coming of age and the day of judgment, which I guess will involve rain. Not sure my copy of Revelations mentions that but I digress. While Prince showcased an array of instrumental and songwriting prowess to this point, here he lets his voice get in on the action.

Bruce Springsteen – Born In The USA

The Boss wrote this to recall the hard times Vietnam War vets faced when coming back into society. The song got confused by some as a patriotic anthem, but it is most certainly not. Rather it’s a dire look at people whose lives are essentially dead ends – no jobs, no hope, no future. I don’t know how so many people got the message mixed up, I turned seven the year this came out and I understood what it was about. No matter though, it is an awesome song and one of Bruce’s shining moments.

Hall and Oates – Out Of Touch

This crazy track was the final top ten hit for the massive pop duo. It’s quite the electro-dance number replete with the smooth harmonies Hall and Oates were famous for. I’m not a “fun and dancing” kind of person but even I can jam out to some Hall and Oates. This was a great way for them to cap off their electric string of hits through the early ’80’s.

Dokken – Don’t Close Your Eyes

This quasi-ballad but super hard rocker was one of many shining stars from the amazing Tooth And Nail record. This song is the perfect marriage of Dokken’s rock attack and melodic sensibilities that would come to define the “hair metal” era.

Ratt – Back For More

This song was re-recorded from an EP released a year prior, but the Out Of The Cellar version is one of many kick ass tracks on an amazing debut album. But this song is the one that puts it all over the edge for me, it’s snarling and pounding and right in your face. Ratt’s sound and presentation would go a long way to defining the 80’s metal movement for sure.

That does it for my bonus 1984 content. It’ll be 5 songs a year from here on out, and I think with my massive procrastination this series will now run into next year. But I’d have to count too much to figure it out one way or another, I’ll know more come September.

Spinal Tap II gets release date

On By bigbadburchIn Movies3 Comments

Yesterday we got official news of the sequel to the iconic movie This Is Spinal Tap. The movie is called Spinal Tap II: The End Continues and will hit theaters September 12 of 2025. This article from Consequence Of Sound lays out a lot of the details.

This sequel, which comes 41 years after the original, features the three main actors from the original film all taking up their roles again – Christopher Guest as Nigel Tufnel, Michael McKean as David St. Hubbins and Harry Shearer as Derek Smalls. Rob Reiner is again both in the director’s chair and also resuming his on-screen role as mockumentary host Marty Di Bergi.

The first movie featured an array of special guests from both the acting and music worlds, and the new Spinal Tap will feature a few returning guests and several new ones. Coming back to the film are Fran Drescher and Paul Shaffer. Drescher is confirmed to reprise her role as “the hostess with the mostess” Bobbi Flekman, while it’s not entirely confirmed if Shaffer will be back as the useless record label rep Artie Fufkin. (I would assume he is)

We do have quite the roll call for new guests in this second film. No less than Paul McCartney and Elton John will drop by, as well as Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, Questlove, Chad Smith and Lars Ulrich. That’s a pretty titanic guest list and it’s most likely that we don’t have all the details on guest shots right now. And it sets up a funny possibility – both Chad Smith and Lars Ulrich are drummers, and Spinal Tap lore is not kind to drummers. Lars might meet the fictional end that some cynical Metallica fans have been longing for. (not me, I think he’s fine)

There are a host of other actors who will take up new roles, which is fairly obvious since this is a new story set a ways beyond the initial film. But there will sadly be a handful of both regular cast and guests who cannot make the sequel as they are no longer with us – Tony Hendra (Ian Faith) and R.J. Parnell (Mick Shrimpton) are gone, as are guests Bruno Kirby, Fred Willard and Howard Hesseman. (this is not a comprehensive list, the cast list for the first movie is pretty big)

In preparation for the new film, the original This Is Spinal Tap will get a new showing in theaters and then a digital and streaming release this summer.

Of course people are wondering if a sequel is really necessary, especially after this long, and if it will be worthwhile. There are several cynical comments about the new film, but with this being the Internet in 2025, those kind of comments are unavoidable. Plenty of others seem excited by the prospect of the new film, I among them. No, I don’t expect this to be as good as the first film or even nearly as so. That was a cultural moment that is unable to be replicated. But I do expect that the people involved can make an entertaining and amusing film that does justice to the Spinal Tap legacy. I’m not worried about that at all and I fully expect to enjoy the new film. These folks know what they’re doing and I don’t anticipate any real letdown here.

There’s not much left to do besides wait for the film. We don’t have a trailer yet, just a small teaser video included below. We just have to get through the summer so we can tap into another slab of hilarious rock and roll.

White Zombie – Black Sunshine

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week4 Comments

So obviously I’ve been gone for a bit. It was an unplanned “winter break” due to not much more than lack of motivation. I am looking to get back to posting and I’ll kick it off with this. I’ll switch up my format some with more posts about songs and less about albums as a way to get me back into the groove. It might take a bit for me to break back through but I’ll get there, someday.

Today I’m going back to the swamp of the early 1990’s and tackling what would be something of a breakthrough, in a roundabout way, for a long-running cult act. White Zombie had been at it since 1985 and had built a good underground reputation for themselves, but they were ready to take the next steps to mainstream success. They landed a major label deal with Geffen Records and recorded the album La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Volume One in 1992. The break would not be immediate – White Zombie toured their assess off with every metal band known to man and received a good bit of support from MTV. Their inclusion on the mega hit show Beavis and Butthead would help launch them into stardom, and the album would eventually sell two million copies as the band went white hot through the mid 1990’s.

Black Sunshine was the second single from the record, following Thunder Kiss ’65. The first single did nothing on the charts but would later catch on through MTV, while Black Sunshine did very modestly chart at 39 on the Mainstream Rock Chart (US). The band’s surge would see Thunder Kiss work its way up to 26 on the same chart about a year after the album’s release.

The song opens with a few car sound effects and a monstrous bass line that both anchors the song and takes center stage. We’re treated to a spoken word intro from punk legend Iggy Pop, who also appears in the video. The intro sets the table for the song’s protagonist, a Ford Mustang named Black Sunshine.

Once everyone kicks in we have a song that’s both groovy and menacing. It’s one heavy ass riff that runs along with the bass while Rob Zombie’s trademark snarl delivers a thesaurus full of lyrics that are loosely related to each other or anything else, but paint a picture of “badass car go fast.” This isn’t a song with a plot or narrative, it’s a vibe machine where everything supports the headbanging good time. Iggy Pop shows up again to deliver a spoken outro.

Everything blends together perfectly to deliver a fantastic listening experience. There are no unnecessary interludes or embellishments – everything here fits to create atmosphere and propel the song along.

Black Sunshine became a star on MTV as White Zombie crawled out of the underground and toward the top of the metal heap. Heavy metal in the early ’90’s was the loosely-gathered “alt-metal” collective of acts like Danzig and Type O Negative, and Pantera was moving to become metal’s most significant band as the acts of a decade prior were out of season. White Zombie found themselves enjoying mainstream success after many years in the underground. This would only last a few years, as Rob Zombie decided to end the band and launch his successful solo career.

When people look back on the raspy growls and groovy rhythms of White Zombie, there are few better examples than Black Sunshine. Their rise to the mainstream after years of obscurity provided a great soundtrack for the weird times of the early 1990’s.