Sister Sledge - The Sisters

Happy fifty-third birthday today (January 6th) to Kathy Sledge, the youngest and lead singer of the R&B group.

In January of 1982, the quartet of female siblings from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, released their sixth studio album The Sisters. The record reached number 69 on the US Billboard Hot 200 chart and number 17 on the US Billboard R&B chart. It also generated a pair of singles.

Blondie - Plastic Letters

Happy sixty-second birthday today (January 5th) to American guitarist Chris Stein.

Between Blondie’s self-titled debut album in 1977 and their third album Parallel Lines in the fall of 1978 (click here and here for each of those two reviews respectively) came their February 1978 sophomore release Plastic Letters. This album went to number 72 on the US Billboard Hot 200, number 9 in Germany and number 10 in the UK (the later country it had reached Platinum status).

R.E.M. - Reckoning

Happy fifty-second birthday today (January 4th) to Michael Stipe.

One year after the release of their debut album Murmur (click here for that review), the Georgia-based rock band R.E.M. was back in the studios in Charlotte, NC, to record their sophomore release. On April 9th of 1984, Reckoning hit the airwaves and record stores. The album reached number 27 on the US Billboard Hot 100, number 23 in New Zealand and number 91 in the UK.

Kimberley Locke - One Love

In 2003, American Idol was starting its second season, which happened to be the first full season of the show I actually watched. There was a lot of talent in that years top 12 including a singer from Hartsville, Tennessee, by the name of Kimberley Locke (who just happens to be celebrating her thirty-fourth birthday today - January 3rd).

Irene Cara - Anyone Can See

Irene Cara began her career at a very young age. During the 1970’s she was a regular on the PBS education series The Electric Company. She also appeared in a number of on-and-off Broadway shows and musicals. In 1980, she hit the big screen in the movie Fame for which she performed a number of songs including two that were nominated for Academy Awards (click here for my review of that motion picture‘s soundtrack).

In January of 1982, Cara released her first full length album entitled Anyone Can See. The record had a strong showing on the R&B charts and a number of singles.

Hanoi Rocks - Oriental Beat

In late 1979, the Finnish rock band Hanoi Rocks was formed by Michael Monroe and Andy McCoy. They did some early recordings at the end of 1980 with their first album released in 1981.

In January of 1982, Hanoi Rocks released their second studio album Oriental Beat which they recorded in London. The album helped to expand their audience in markets like the UK and Japan. Early music videos on MTV also helped expose them to a new audience in the United States.

Happy New Year 2012

Happy New Year and welcome to 2012.

2011 was an amazing year for my blog and I owe a lot of that you all, my readers. I went from having barely a couple hundred hits of month at the end of 2010 to over a hundred hits a day (leading to thousands of hits a month). The final three months of the year have been record breakers with each month greatly exceeding the previous one. The fact that December's number of hits nearly reached 5,600 is more than I ever could have imagined! I would love to see the traffic levels to sustain and/or continue to grow as word of mouth spreads. If you like what you are reading, please share the links with others (repost, retweet, etc.).

So, you're probably wondering what to expect here at Martin's View for the new year. I actually did a little bit of thinking about that as December 2011 was coming to a close.