Chuck Eddy
@chuckeddytor.bsky.social
I write about stuff (books = Stairway to Hell, Accidental Evolution of R&R, R&R Always Forgets, Terminated for Reasons of Taste.) Here's where I mostly write now:
https://chuckeddy.substack.com/
https://accidentalevolution.wordpress.com/author/edcchucky
https://chuckeddy.substack.com/
https://accidentalevolution.wordpress.com/author/edcchucky
Reposted by Chuck Eddy
My main question here was: Did anybody actually make mix tapes for high school crushes or anybody else as early as 1977?? Like, even by taping songs off the radio through the actual air? I seriously doubted they did, but welcomed evidence to the contrary. And I got a whole bunch.
How Old Are Mix Tapes?
In a 2022 episode of Mrs America (spoiler alert), the Phyllis Schlafly character opens her adolescent daughter’s mail and finds a mix cassette from a boy, which when Schlafly slides it into the tape r...
chuckeddy.substack.com
February 9, 2026 at 2:02 PM
My main question here was: Did anybody actually make mix tapes for high school crushes or anybody else as early as 1977?? Like, even by taping songs off the radio through the actual air? I seriously doubted they did, but welcomed evidence to the contrary. And I got a whole bunch.
My main question here was: Did anybody actually make mix tapes for high school crushes or anybody else as early as 1977?? Like, even by taping songs off the radio through the actual air? I seriously doubted they did, but welcomed evidence to the contrary. And I got a whole bunch.
How Old Are Mix Tapes?
In a 2022 episode of Mrs America (spoiler alert), the Phyllis Schlafly character opens her adolescent daughter’s mail and finds a mix cassette from a boy, which when Schlafly slides it into the tape r...
chuckeddy.substack.com
February 9, 2026 at 2:02 PM
My main question here was: Did anybody actually make mix tapes for high school crushes or anybody else as early as 1977?? Like, even by taping songs off the radio through the actual air? I seriously doubted they did, but welcomed evidence to the contrary. And I got a whole bunch.
Reviving this in honor of Guillaume Emmanuel "Guy-Manuel" de Homem-Christo turning 52 years old today. Doubt I really “got” the point of techno-rave (or whatever) then. Might get it even less now. But I was at least a wee bit ahead of the game in regards to these particular French-fried cyborgs.
Daft Punk review, 1997
Reviving this in honor of Guillaume Emmanuel "Guy-Manuel" de Homem-Christo (French pronunciation according to Wikipedia ɡi(jom e)manɥɛl də ɔmɛm kʁisto) turning 52 years old today.
chuckeddy.substack.com
February 8, 2026 at 2:19 PM
Reviving this in honor of Guillaume Emmanuel "Guy-Manuel" de Homem-Christo turning 52 years old today. Doubt I really “got” the point of techno-rave (or whatever) then. Might get it even less now. But I was at least a wee bit ahead of the game in regards to these particular French-fried cyborgs.
Reposted by Chuck Eddy
25 Songs, 1967-2014: Afflicted Man, Aurra, J.J. Cale, Creme Soda, Dandelion Adventure, Disco Four, Flying Lizards, Freeez, General Echo, Grass Roots, Honor Role, Lafeyette Afro-Rock Band, Men & Volts, Roogalator, Shakin' Street, Singers & Players feat. Prince Far I, United States of America, more!
Da Bottomless Pit
Blindfold Test #21
chuckeddy.substack.com
February 7, 2026 at 5:43 PM
25 Songs, 1967-2014: Afflicted Man, Aurra, J.J. Cale, Creme Soda, Dandelion Adventure, Disco Four, Flying Lizards, Freeez, General Echo, Grass Roots, Honor Role, Lafeyette Afro-Rock Band, Men & Volts, Roogalator, Shakin' Street, Singers & Players feat. Prince Far I, United States of America, more!
25 Songs, 1967-2014: Afflicted Man, Aurra, J.J. Cale, Creme Soda, Dandelion Adventure, Disco Four, Flying Lizards, Freeez, General Echo, Grass Roots, Honor Role, Lafeyette Afro-Rock Band, Men & Volts, Roogalator, Shakin' Street, Singers & Players feat. Prince Far I, United States of America, more!
Da Bottomless Pit
Blindfold Test #21
chuckeddy.substack.com
February 7, 2026 at 5:43 PM
25 Songs, 1967-2014: Afflicted Man, Aurra, J.J. Cale, Creme Soda, Dandelion Adventure, Disco Four, Flying Lizards, Freeez, General Echo, Grass Roots, Honor Role, Lafeyette Afro-Rock Band, Men & Volts, Roogalator, Shakin' Street, Singers & Players feat. Prince Far I, United States of America, more!
Reposted by Chuck Eddy
So today’s question is, why did every big new rock band that put out a debut LP in 1978 (i.e., Cars, Dire Straits, Van Halen, Toto) wind up having exactly the same career — or at least, more or less the same trajectory over their first several years? One of life's great mysteries, solved! Sort of.
1978's Rock Rookies Lived Parallel Lives
What the Cars, Dire Straits, Van Halen and Toto have in common
chuckeddy.substack.com
February 6, 2026 at 12:59 PM
So today’s question is, why did every big new rock band that put out a debut LP in 1978 (i.e., Cars, Dire Straits, Van Halen, Toto) wind up having exactly the same career — or at least, more or less the same trajectory over their first several years? One of life's great mysteries, solved! Sort of.
So today’s question is, why did every big new rock band that put out a debut LP in 1978 (i.e., Cars, Dire Straits, Van Halen, Toto) wind up having exactly the same career — or at least, more or less the same trajectory over their first several years? One of life's great mysteries, solved! Sort of.
1978's Rock Rookies Lived Parallel Lives
What the Cars, Dire Straits, Van Halen and Toto have in common
chuckeddy.substack.com
February 6, 2026 at 12:59 PM
So today’s question is, why did every big new rock band that put out a debut LP in 1978 (i.e., Cars, Dire Straits, Van Halen, Toto) wind up having exactly the same career — or at least, more or less the same trajectory over their first several years? One of life's great mysteries, solved! Sort of.
Reposted by Chuck Eddy
NEW!!! My 150 favorite albums of the year of Covid-19 and Black Lives Matter, preceded by 9700 words or so, primarily in diary form and mostly not directly about music. Sorry folks, it was that kind of year. If you’d rather just skip the essay part and proceed to the list, I absolutely understand.
150 Best Albums of 2020
As the plague year inevitably recedes into distant memory, and those with the power to do so do their best to intentionally distort even recent history, I thought I’d treat this post somewhat differen...
chuckeddy.substack.com
February 5, 2026 at 4:34 PM
NEW!!! My 150 favorite albums of the year of Covid-19 and Black Lives Matter, preceded by 9700 words or so, primarily in diary form and mostly not directly about music. Sorry folks, it was that kind of year. If you’d rather just skip the essay part and proceed to the list, I absolutely understand.
NEW!!! My 150 favorite albums of the year of Covid-19 and Black Lives Matter, preceded by 9700 words or so, primarily in diary form and mostly not directly about music. Sorry folks, it was that kind of year. If you’d rather just skip the essay part and proceed to the list, I absolutely understand.
150 Best Albums of 2020
As the plague year inevitably recedes into distant memory, and those with the power to do so do their best to intentionally distort even recent history, I thought I’d treat this post somewhat differen...
chuckeddy.substack.com
February 5, 2026 at 4:34 PM
NEW!!! My 150 favorite albums of the year of Covid-19 and Black Lives Matter, preceded by 9700 words or so, primarily in diary form and mostly not directly about music. Sorry folks, it was that kind of year. If you’d rather just skip the essay part and proceed to the list, I absolutely understand.
PAZZ & JOP PRODUCT REPORT — early February 2026
YEAH: Weed420: Esto No Es Un Show (weed420 Venezuela) 7; Yīn Yīn: Yatta! (Glitterbeat Germany) 5; Mdou Moctar: Tears of Injustice (Matador ‘25) 3; BB Trickz: 80’z (Sony Spain EP ‘25) 3; [continued here]:
YEAH: Weed420: Esto No Es Un Show (weed420 Venezuela) 7; Yīn Yīn: Yatta! (Glitterbeat Germany) 5; Mdou Moctar: Tears of Injustice (Matador ‘25) 3; BB Trickz: 80’z (Sony Spain EP ‘25) 3; [continued here]:
Pazz & Jop Product Reports, 2026
This post is a tool; it’s how I keep track of new music I hear — thus enabling me, for one thing, to put together long lists of albums I like when the year comes to an end.
chuckeddy.substack.com
February 4, 2026 at 8:50 PM
PAZZ & JOP PRODUCT REPORT — early February 2026
YEAH: Weed420: Esto No Es Un Show (weed420 Venezuela) 7; Yīn Yīn: Yatta! (Glitterbeat Germany) 5; Mdou Moctar: Tears of Injustice (Matador ‘25) 3; BB Trickz: 80’z (Sony Spain EP ‘25) 3; [continued here]:
YEAH: Weed420: Esto No Es Un Show (weed420 Venezuela) 7; Yīn Yīn: Yatta! (Glitterbeat Germany) 5; Mdou Moctar: Tears of Injustice (Matador ‘25) 3; BB Trickz: 80’z (Sony Spain EP ‘25) 3; [continued here]:
Upon first photographing all of the organisms and organism-induced substances in this post, I wasn’t sure if they were fungi or not. Some of them I’m now much more confident about than others, in either the pro or con direction. Some I still have not the first clue. If you know, please tell me!
Fungi or not Fungi
Upon first photographing all of the organisms and organism-induced substances in this post, I wasn’t sure if they were fungi or not.
chuckeddy.substack.com
February 4, 2026 at 1:51 PM
Upon first photographing all of the organisms and organism-induced substances in this post, I wasn’t sure if they were fungi or not. Some of them I’m now much more confident about than others, in either the pro or con direction. Some I still have not the first clue. If you know, please tell me!
Reposted by Chuck Eddy
Somewhere in the general vicinity of 2000 words on class, race, gender, glam, gadgetry, circuitry, circuses, eccentricity, editorializing, annoyance, and my 150 favorite albums of 1973.
150 Best Albums of 1973
Hate to be a killjoy or spoilsport, but I’ve never much cared about circuses.
chuckeddy.substack.com
February 3, 2026 at 12:57 PM
Somewhere in the general vicinity of 2000 words on class, race, gender, glam, gadgetry, circuitry, circuses, eccentricity, editorializing, annoyance, and my 150 favorite albums of 1973.
Somewhere in the general vicinity of 2000 words on class, race, gender, glam, gadgetry, circuitry, circuses, eccentricity, editorializing, annoyance, and my 150 favorite albums of 1973.
150 Best Albums of 1973
Hate to be a killjoy or spoilsport, but I’ve never much cared about circuses.
chuckeddy.substack.com
February 3, 2026 at 12:57 PM
Somewhere in the general vicinity of 2000 words on class, race, gender, glam, gadgetry, circuitry, circuses, eccentricity, editorializing, annoyance, and my 150 favorite albums of 1973.
Question #1: Did any other music critic take the Eurodancebilly comedians who created “Cotton Eye Joe” seriously in 1995? (Question #2: Did I?)
Rednex review, 1995
Question: Did any other music critic take these comedians seriously in 1995?
chuckeddy.substack.com
February 2, 2026 at 1:37 PM
Question #1: Did any other music critic take the Eurodancebilly comedians who created “Cotton Eye Joe” seriously in 1995? (Question #2: Did I?)
From a summer 2022 reunion in Maryland, I trekked with family members to D.C.’s Smithsonian National Zoo. Here are my scattered findings, along with my photos of Komodo dragons, armadillos, sloths, false gavials, meerkats, lemurs, tenrecs, hyraxes, tree anteaters, giants pandas, bisons and more.
Notes on the D.C. Zoo
On a day trip from a first-ever Eddy family reunion in Cherry Hill Park campground in College Park, Maryland, I trekked with a bunch of related people to the Smithsonian National Zoo on a drizzly Sund...
chuckeddy.substack.com
February 1, 2026 at 3:01 PM
From a summer 2022 reunion in Maryland, I trekked with family members to D.C.’s Smithsonian National Zoo. Here are my scattered findings, along with my photos of Komodo dragons, armadillos, sloths, false gavials, meerkats, lemurs, tenrecs, hyraxes, tree anteaters, giants pandas, bisons and more.
25 songs 1969-2012: Bonzo Dog Band, Brownsville Station, Chillie 3 MCs, Doop, Genesis feat. Peter Gabriel, Hawkwind, Japan, Cher Lloyd feat. Becky G, Look Blue Go Purple. McCoys, Naif Orchestra, Papaya Paranoia, Rational Youth, Screamers, Skoolboyz, Spagna, SRC, Stampeders, Unclaimed, Utopia, more.
Too Loud in Here Anyway
Blindfold Test #20
chuckeddy.substack.com
January 31, 2026 at 3:31 PM
25 songs 1969-2012: Bonzo Dog Band, Brownsville Station, Chillie 3 MCs, Doop, Genesis feat. Peter Gabriel, Hawkwind, Japan, Cher Lloyd feat. Becky G, Look Blue Go Purple. McCoys, Naif Orchestra, Papaya Paranoia, Rational Youth, Screamers, Skoolboyz, Spagna, SRC, Stampeders, Unclaimed, Utopia, more.
NY Rocker was one of the great ‘80s music periodicals. The June '81 issue with Prince on the cover revolved around racial crossover: Most memorably, blindfold tests of current music with local teenagers — a Black four-man DJ crew and a trio of white new wave fans. Should’ve been a regular feature.
Crossovered and Painless
New York Rocker in 1981: White, Black, Puerto Rican, everybody just a-freakin'
chuckeddy.substack.com
January 30, 2026 at 1:19 PM
NY Rocker was one of the great ‘80s music periodicals. The June '81 issue with Prince on the cover revolved around racial crossover: Most memorably, blindfold tests of current music with local teenagers — a Black four-man DJ crew and a trio of white new wave fans. Should’ve been a regular feature.
4500 words on folk-rock looking backwards, God vs. dirt, Titanic vs. sharks, one-hit wonders, next big things, label acquisitions, mp3 players, diminished Beasties, turntable virtuosos, fake doctors, Total Request Live, the industrial Northwest and Australia, and my 150 favorite albums of 1998.
150 Best Albums of 1998
You can often tell the years when music critics are stuck looking backwards instead of forwards by how much they gravitate toward folk-rock, or sounds in that general genteel vicinity.
chuckeddy.substack.com
January 29, 2026 at 6:06 PM
4500 words on folk-rock looking backwards, God vs. dirt, Titanic vs. sharks, one-hit wonders, next big things, label acquisitions, mp3 players, diminished Beasties, turntable virtuosos, fake doctors, Total Request Live, the industrial Northwest and Australia, and my 150 favorite albums of 1998.
3300+ words about a recovered music biz, the yummiest Top 40 since whenever, what Thriller wrought, crossing over every which way, Prince vs. Bruce, US guitars vs. UK synths, protest songs, the ominous future of leisure and fun, side effects of saving the world, and my 150 favorite albums of 1984.
150 Best Albums of 1984
“This is the age of Genesis, the beginning.
chuckeddy.substack.com
January 27, 2026 at 2:38 PM
3300+ words about a recovered music biz, the yummiest Top 40 since whenever, what Thriller wrought, crossing over every which way, Prince vs. Bruce, US guitars vs. UK synths, protest songs, the ominous future of leisure and fun, side effects of saving the world, and my 150 favorite albums of 1984.
8 albums of leisure-suited white hot-tub funk, watching harbor lights, riding crimson tides, feeling alright in the moonlight, catching glimpses of smoke from distant fires, winding down Baker Street, driving over Kanan while music turns gold, sipping piña coladas and sailing away to find serenity.
Yacht Rock Essentials
Boz Scaggs Silk Degrees (Columbia, 1976) Leisure-suited hot-tub funk from a Jann Wenner protegé and future restaurateur dancing the squeakiest-clean “dirty lowdown” around.
chuckeddy.substack.com
January 26, 2026 at 5:24 PM
8 albums of leisure-suited white hot-tub funk, watching harbor lights, riding crimson tides, feeling alright in the moonlight, catching glimpses of smoke from distant fires, winding down Baker Street, driving over Kanan while music turns gold, sipping piña coladas and sailing away to find serenity.
On sex education books in my house when I was growing up.
Birds and Bees in the 1970s
Three years ago Rob Tannenbaum asked his facebook friends (of which I am one) the following: “A question for people who are roughly the same age as me, and had parents who were desperate to avoid disc...
chuckeddy.substack.com
January 25, 2026 at 4:13 PM
On sex education books in my house when I was growing up.
25 songs 1936-'87: Egyptian Lover, Flying Lizards, Grauzone, Hampton Grease Band, Japan, Jay & Techniques, Grandpa Jones, Jonathan King as Queen Elizabeth, Kursaal Flyers, Silver Convention, Simply Saucer, T-Connection, Upsetters, + very early Grateful Dead, Meat Puppets & Steve Miller + lots more
Contents Under Pressure
Blindfold Test #19
chuckeddy.substack.com
January 24, 2026 at 6:30 PM
25 songs 1936-'87: Egyptian Lover, Flying Lizards, Grauzone, Hampton Grease Band, Japan, Jay & Techniques, Grandpa Jones, Jonathan King as Queen Elizabeth, Kursaal Flyers, Silver Convention, Simply Saucer, T-Connection, Upsetters, + very early Grateful Dead, Meat Puppets & Steve Miller + lots more
Back in the early ‘80s, I was quite a fan of a musiczine called OP — and apparently even wrote a few reviews for them. Eventually the periodical halfway evolved into Option, which had some semblance of business sense. OP, in contrast, just haphazardly threw darts at the wall. Which was way better.
Smokin' OPs
So I’m just about to stash away at the top of the closet the super-generous box of early ’80s OP magazines (the predecessor of the much more staid and seemingly market-researched Option) that Clifford...
chuckeddy.substack.com
January 23, 2026 at 1:52 PM
Back in the early ‘80s, I was quite a fan of a musiczine called OP — and apparently even wrote a few reviews for them. Eventually the periodical halfway evolved into Option, which had some semblance of business sense. OP, in contrast, just haphazardly threw darts at the wall. Which was way better.
Reposted by Chuck Eddy
2300 words on the coming art-concept-rock menace, impending progressive rock radio, soul blue-eyed and otherwise, cover songs galore, young adults finally having albums of their own, and my 150 favorite LPs of 1966-'67, four of which came from the band who may or may not have destroyed rock'n'roll.
150 Best Albums of 1966/'67
1966 and 1967, years in which I respectively turned six and seven years old, are often considered the time when rock’n’roll “grew up” and became “rock” thanks to the pointedly unrolling and perhaps th...
chuckeddy.substack.com
January 22, 2026 at 5:32 PM
2300 words on the coming art-concept-rock menace, impending progressive rock radio, soul blue-eyed and otherwise, cover songs galore, young adults finally having albums of their own, and my 150 favorite LPs of 1966-'67, four of which came from the band who may or may not have destroyed rock'n'roll.
2300 words on the coming art-concept-rock menace, impending progressive rock radio, soul blue-eyed and otherwise, cover songs galore, young adults finally having albums of their own, and my 150 favorite LPs of 1966-'67, four of which came from the band who may or may not have destroyed rock'n'roll.
150 Best Albums of 1966/'67
1966 and 1967, years in which I respectively turned six and seven years old, are often considered the time when rock’n’roll “grew up” and became “rock” thanks to the pointedly unrolling and perhaps th...
chuckeddy.substack.com
January 22, 2026 at 5:32 PM
2300 words on the coming art-concept-rock menace, impending progressive rock radio, soul blue-eyed and otherwise, cover songs galore, young adults finally having albums of their own, and my 150 favorite LPs of 1966-'67, four of which came from the band who may or may not have destroyed rock'n'roll.