// Category Archive for: Retrovirus

New Kids on the Block, Hangin’ Tough

By Christian Lipski

I’m cheating a little on this one, as I didn’t actually own this album. But I do definitely remember when it was released, and when it exploded into a phenomenon. I would see the video for “Please Don’t Go Girl” from time to time, back when the boy band was a relatively new concept in the U.S. (at least for those who didn’t remember the Osmonds). It wasn’t until a couple years later that I really started getting into the NKOTB, but I did dip back into their “old school” stuff when “Step By Step” came out.
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Top Five Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) Programs

By Nicole V.

One of Canada’s national treasures is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, or the CBC. Since an early age, I’ve understood its reach across the country as a public broadcaster and have even referred to it as the lifeblood of the nation, a proclamation that is perhaps a bit dramatic (not to mention very nerdy), but for as long as I can remember the CBC has been both a television and radio staple in my life. Why so beloved?
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Popshifter‘s Secret Garden of Crushes

By Less Lee Moore

Pizzazz of The Misfits

WFMU’s Beware of the Blog is a fabulous resource for discovering music, movies, and art that I would likely never know about if left to my own devices. Sometimes, however, my favorite blog entries are the first-hand accounts of the often-perverting effects of pop culture.
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From Jesus to Micky Dolenz

By Michelle Patterson

In the winter of 1986, I was in the fourth grade, and being raised in a strict Evangelical Christian household. Cable television was off limits, especially the sinful offerings on MTV. Mostly, this was HBO’s fault. HBO, in its early days, was all T & A movies and raunchy comedy specials. One could tune in at any time of the day and see a naked pair of practically any body part.
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Andrea, Lynda, Margot, and Erin

By Christian Lipski

Wonder Woman

When I was seven or eight, Annie came out on Broadway, and they published an article in one of those newsprinty school magazines that you’d get for free. The picture was of Andrea McArdle as Annie, and something just clicked in my head, and I desperately wanted her to be my girlfriend. I filled up all the blank space in the picture with little drawn hearts. I kept that picture for a long time.
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Hating The Eighties: Frank Tovey and Fad Gadget

By Emily Carney

Frank Tovey

During the first years of the 1980s, electronic music underwent a mutation into synth pop. In the United States, the new synth pop seemed to be represented by two imports from England, namely Gary Numan and the Human League. While Gary Numan specialized in overly serious songs about urban alienation (and aliens!), the Human League shifted their focus from overly serious songs about urban alienation to slick, well-produced hits about guy-girl relationships and “good times.” While both entities have been idolized by fans and musicians (particularly within the last decade), another pioneer of electronic music has been overlooked, even posthumously.

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Crush Encounters of the Pre-Pubescent Kind

By Ann Clarke

We all had crushes as kids. My crushes changed as I aged, mostly because my tastes evolved, or the crushes in question began to look horrible with age. The strange picks I will highlight below, however, only cover the years before puberty.
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Those Old Melodies: Songs Rediscovered

Intro by Less Lee Moore

Recently I was listening to The Vines’ Highly Evolved album again. My history with this album is intriguing, and proves my theory that some music needs to be fully digested before you can appreciate it.
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The Key Word is “Goofy”

By Less Lee Moore

My mom and grandma were big fans of Jerry Lewis movies, but I don’t think they had any idea that I harbored secret desires for him during my numerous viewings of Cinderfella and The Errand Boy. What was it that I so admired? In all honesty, I think it was just that he was a big goofball who made me laugh. I loathed the movies he did with Dean Martin, who I angrily dismissed as “that old drunk guy”. How dare he take screen time away from my Jerry?

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Mark Mothersbaugh’s Postcard Diaries

By Adam McIntyre

Rabbit Hole Gallery, Atlanta GA
April 18, 2008

“Would you like to attend a Mark Mothersbaugh art exhibit?” This is a rhetorical question: it should be obvious to anyone who knows me what my answer would be. Mark Mothersbaugh’s art (in the media of visual, print, and live or recorded music) is so ingrained into my perception of pop culture that I can hardly notice one without thinking of the other.
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