I think I have an unwritten rule for my blog that says if I write a post about U2, I must follow with one about R.E.M. They are infused almost as one band into my collective psyche; I followed them religiously during the mid- to late-80s. And so, a few weeks after my top 10 U2 [...]

One day, around the age of 11, I was playing around on the piano and found a chord progression that was simply mesmerizing. I played it over and over, convinced that I had found some magic formula. Here was the snippet:
sample
Of course, I never did anything with it, and later I found other songs with [...]

By 1986, the early 80s world of pop icons such as Duran Duran, Journey and Wham! were falling out of favor, and the new breed – Mr. Mister, Bon Jovi and Whitney Houston – already sounded tired and uninteresting. I had already begun searching for new material, having discovered U2, and as I entered college [...]