What's Going On?

I could try to tell you how it is I came to have so many records, tapes, CDs, and books about music in my house. I could tell you how I discovered Classic Top 40 radio at age 10, and how I became a DJ because I couldn't imagine anything better than playing that music every day. I could tell you how the record charts became the calendar of my life, and how down to this very day, certain songs transform me into the person I was when they were hits so long ago. I could even tell you how long it took me to come up with a title for this blog that captures all of that.

But the fact is, I've tried to tell all that before, in scattered chapters for a book that now lies moldering on my hard drive, and I could never get it across--not so it felt on the page like it felt in real life. And now I'm pretty sure I'll never write that book. This blog is intended to stand in its place.

In the past several weeks, I have found myself devoting more space than usual on my other blog, the Daily Aneurysm, to musical topics, from a Ray Charles obit to the history of the Starland Vocal Band, and I've been surprised by how invigorating it is to write about that stuff, and how much fun those pieces were to write. But they don't really fit on a blog whose primary purpose is to analyze and comment on current events. So I have created what you're reading now: "The Hits Just Keep On Comin'," a blog dedicated to music, radio, and the way it all comes together.

I was about to say that if the Daily Aneurysm is the front page, then this blog is the entertainment section, except it's not. Perhaps it's a history book. We'll do a lot of looking back (and listening) in this space. Some of what we get into will likely be so personal that I'll be the only one who could conceivably be interested in it. But I suspect that some of what we get into here will interest you too, whether you're a regular Aneurysm reader or you discover this blog independent of the other one.

(Marvin Gaye, Tamla Records #54207, chart peak #2, April 10, 1971)