Well, they had eight top ten singles in Britain before "Jealous Guy" along with three others that peaked at 11 or 12.  I guess, sure, they could have all hit number one, but…

Thank you!

Yes, a million times yes, though they couldn't have been any bigger in England.

If I remember correctly, the review of Sparks' albums ended with the line "docked one star each for being responsible for Queen."

Oops!

The Wonder Stuff.

I saw them play live in a little pub in London in the mid-90s.  Awesome show, one of my best concert memories.

I'm all ears: who do you recommend? 

And it only gets better from there!

Mainstream rock critics of the "Rolling Stone" magazine mindset seemed to hate the very idea of Sparks music, mixing non-pop music genres in with pop and worse yet, being funny.  If I remember correctly, the original Rolling Stone Record Guide gave most of their albums two stars and not only criticized their music but…

"We Are Young" actually turned me off of the band.  Just don't like the song or the manic video.  When a friend put on "We're In It For The Monday" during a roadtrip, I initially thought "oh yuck," only to discover how great that record is.

Gotta go with Joel, but he was the host when I started watching it and I prefer the sleepy stoner vibe.

How does she do it?  She probably has an assistant that she makes do her errands and grunt work, for which she then takes credit.

He stabs out her eyes?

More than "Nightwatching," I liked "Rembrandt's J'Accuse" the documentary about "The Nightwatch" Greenaway made in conjunction with his fictional film.

I'm not wildly enthusiastic about Barnes & Noble, though I don't have a knee jerk hatred of them, either.  However, the closing of the Lincoln Triangle store was a major loss for that neighborhood, and even for the city.  A damned shame.

It wasn't the digital music storm so much as the cost of real estate that did Virgin in. 

"Plus, and this is a benefit that's gone unacknowledged, the competition
for space was so fierce in those places that it lead to a revolution in
book design.  In the '80's, books were utilitarian.  Now they're
gorgeous"

In "Rebel Bookseller" Andrew Laties makes a good argument that the price of books was driven up by chains like Barnes and Noble and Borders.  We may have that to thank them for, in addition to driving smaller bookstores out of business.

I'm starting to get a little tired of the preaching and the messages.  After the Afghanistan and the Joan Rivers episodes, Godfrey's line about empathy was a little too heavy-handed, a little repititious, especially when combined with Louie's various stand up routines about the ridiculousness of feeling entitled.  I'm…