These posts are about the songs that fell just short of crossing the key line of chart success, entering the Billboard Top 40. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 41. In March 2013, Beyoncé logged on to … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Near Misses — “Flawless” and “Daddy Lessons”
383. The Style Council, Internationalists (1985) The Style Council scored a major hit with their sophomore studio album, Our Favourite Shop. The LP debuted atop the U.K. album chart, and three of its singles made it into the Top 40. … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #383 to #381
Kelly Loeffler Just Lost Her WNBA Team to a Player She Refused to Meet by Dave Zirin Of the many humiliations suffered by Kelly Loeffler in recent months — all of which, I’m sure, she sloughed off thanks to insulation … Continue reading Outside Reading — Speak Up and Dribble edition
Annie Clark makes no secret of the creative inspiration behind the forthcoming St. Vincent album Daddy’s Home. In a quick Q&A on Twitter, she cited the work of a musical genius during inarguably his period of greatest jaw-dropping accomplishment. Since … Continue reading This Week’s Model — St. Vincent, “Pay Your Way In Pain”
I read a lot of comic books as a kid. This series of posts is about the comics I read, and, occasionally, the comics that I should have read. When I was a kid, it’s possible that the only thing … Continue reading My Misspent Youth — Marvel Age
When siblings Bill Ross IV and Turner Ross rolled their camera inside the dive bar The Roaring 20s, the story was fiction and the drinks were real. Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets was introduced to film festival attendees as a documentary, … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2020 — Number Eight
There isn’t much dispute about which showbiz bigwig inspired the largely unseen and unheard boss that hangs like a black cloud over writer-director Kitty Green’s The Assistant. It’s a credit to Green’s film that spotting the parallels to salacious, anger-inducing … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2020 — Number Nine
Mabel’s Strange Predicament (Mabel Normand, 1914). In the third film of his career, Charles Chaplin tried on a new costume. Mabel’s Strange Predicament is the first appearance of Chaplin in his famed guise as the Tramp, and it’s almost jarring … Continue reading Then Playing — Mabel’s Strange Predicament; Wanda; The Professional
386. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Junk Culture (1984) Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark were told they had overreached. The band’s fourth studio album, Dazzle Ships, was an attempt to stretch their creativity, creating challenging soundscapes that tried to bend … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #386 to #384
Birds Of Prey’s costumes changed the game for female superheroes by Caroline Siede Although I remain devoted to the Academy Awards as an important and reasonably effective — if hardly infallible — measure of what should be added to the ongoing … Continue reading Outside Reading — The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn’s Wardrobe
Coffee for Two 