I have always loved music videos. I loved the first generation of grainy promotional spots for new wave bands, I loved Michael Jackson’s choreography and Russell Mulcahey’s cinematic interventions, I loved ZZ Top and their keychain and Prince humping the floor. It was all magic to me, and it continues to be a mystery why […]
Category Archives: General News
Critics Poll XXIX — Singles, etc.
Single Of The Year Caroline Rose – “Soul No. 5” Ezra Furman – “Love You So Bad” Metric – “Now Or Never Now” Soccer Mommy – “Scorpio Rising” Kali Uchis – “Tyrant” Now, Now – “AZ” Janelle Monae – “Make Me Feel” Drake – “In My Feelings” Vince Staples – “Fun” Andrew McMahon In The […]
Critics Poll XXIX — Various Chartbusters
Most Convincing Historical Re-creation Father John Misty — God’s Favorite Customer. For once this guy served me an onion that doesn’t make me want to cry when I slice it. Of course he did it by abandoning the pretense that he’s a Randy Newman acolyte and mimicking Elton John instead. Elton, great as he is, […]
Critics Poll 27 — Results
Dateline 1991. Playing in the background: “Can I Kick It?”, the first Tribe song I ever heard. So polite, so laid-back and crowd-participatory, so jazzy and skilled, so confident, so redolent of the new New York we were trying to create. Here was my first encounter with a friendly character we’d all come to know […]
Yum ’16
I’ve always been a little suspicious of record reviewers who don’t play in bands. How can they properly evaluate an album if they’re unfamiliar with the delicate art of sticking quarter-inch cables in holes and/or screen freezes and “ProTools has unexpectedly quit” errors? Consequently, as I appear to be incapable of making toast without burning […]
Trembling Blue Stars — Alive To Every Smile
Act: Trembling Blue Stars Title: Alive To Every Smile Year: 2001 Format: Ten song LP. From: London. That’s rainy suburban London, mind you — the London where the architecture is monotonously pretty, and a double-decker bus splashes muddy water all over your trousers. Genre/style: There’s good reason to call Trembling Blue Stars a tweepop band, and […]
Critics Poll XXII — Singles
Let’s get the foregone conclusion over with first: 1. Adele — “Rolling In The Deep” (284) There was a moment in December when I thought “Video Games” would win, but that was before we found out Lana Del Rey was a Nazi war criminal or something. Just as it was in the world outside the […]
Critics Poll XXII — Albums
In “The Courage to Be,” the kickass theologian Paul Tillich argues that anxiety is fundamental to the human condition. Confronted by the inevitability of death, we’re hounded by the anxiety of impending nonbeing. Unleashed on earth without any instructions about what we’re supposed to do here, we face the anxiety of meaninglessness. And since in […]
The Myth Of The Acid No-Hitter, And Other Drug Stories
As a kid learning about baseball, Dock Ellis was, to me, just another face on a bubblegum card. Not a particularly valuable card, either, considering Ellis was doing his pitching in near-anonymity under the Arlington sun. I would have given you three of Dock for one of Amos Otis or John “The Count” Montefusco. Shortly […]
Critics Poll XX: My Ballot
I’ve always underrated Belle & Sebastian. In ’97, If You’re Feeling Sinister won this poll. I had it behind (among other things) Funcrusher Plus, Be Here Now, and the Dubstar singles collection. I’ve come to count Dear Catastrophe Waitress among the two or three best albums released this decade. It was #5 on my ’03 […]