"Just wanna sing, 'Do you love me, baby?'"

One of the latest social media things is to 'challenge' someone to talk about their Top 10 favorite albums over a period of ten days. I was recently challenged by a friend for this, and of course it's right up my alley. Here, then, is the first of my Top 10 favorite albums of all-time.

10. ELO / Alone in the Universe (2015)

What will be the most recent album on the list is the latest work by Jeff Lynne, here acting as his old, successful band ELO (Electric Light Orchestra). Alone in the Universe wastes none of its time. Its songs are just as long as they need to be, and are melodic, melancholy, and hopeful. The songs feature chord changes that you can predict (I don't mean that as a slam), and it even manages to make a bitter song sound beautiful (Dirty to the Bone).

Alone in the Universe was a pleasant surprise from an ageing rock artist. Here's hoping he has more stuff like to share with us in future.

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Yesterday's Restaurants

The local newspaper has a feature from one of Champaign-Urbana's most legendary restaurateur's, John Katsinas, on what his favorite area restaurants were that have now since closed (or will soon be closing). It's a nice little read, and has made me stop and think about the restaurants that have come and gone that have left an indelible (and edible) impression on me throughout the years. Here we go....

Watching The Hours

A Twitter friend named Paula has asked for folks to submit ideas for a blog-a-thon about what we think will be the classic films of the future. In other words, what relatively recent movies (namely, from the 21st century), do we think will be considered classics in the decades to come, possibly airing on such venerable stations as Turner Classic Movies ? While a number of films come to mind for such a category, one in particular stood out from the rest, and thus is my entry for Paula's blog-a-thon.

She's Madonna

Today we're going to talk about something very important. We're going to talk about Madonna. "Madge," as she's affectionately known around the gay scene, has been making music for over thirty years. I grew up with her songs, many of them pop classics. In recent years, it can be arguably said that her popularity has waned a bit. During the past decade, Madonna has put out seventeen singles. Of those, three have charted in the US Top 40. Ten Failed to chart at all on the Billboard Hot 100. We now have at least one possibility offered as to why Madge's chart power is waning: Ageism. At least, that's what Diplo (just, Diplo), a producer of some of the tracks off her latest album, thinks . I know it's difficult to be objective about something you've worked on -- whether you were the producer or the artist -- but, as a listener/fan, I have to say that Madonna's most recent work has simply not been that good. Still, we'll hear what

Left to my own devices

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