479. Roxy Music, Flesh + Blood (1980) After Roxy Music returned from an extended hiatus to make the 1979 album Manifesto, they found themselves making significant adjustments intended to insinuate their music into the marketplace. Songs from the album were … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #479 to #477
Why Men Won’t Apologize by Jessica Valenti The Poison of Male Incivility by Rebecca Traister Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Delivers a Lesson in Decency on the House Floor by David Remnick This week, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez faced the same condescending verbal abuse that … Continue reading Outside Reading — A Point of Personal Privilege edition
“I can’t believe the worst kinds of people achieve/ Everything they want/ But it takes medication to get me off.” In her new song, Lydia Loveless does a damn fine job of encapsulating what it’s like to live in the … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Lydia Loveless, “Love is Not Enough”
#24 — Moneyball (Bennett Miller, 2011) Baseball thrives and withers on its sense of tradition. The national pastime and the grand old game, baseball has a professional legacy that no other sport can match. The Chicago Cubs, for example, played … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Twenty-Four
Charlie’s Angels (Elizabeth Banks, 2019). Elizabeth Banks does her level best to scrape away the barnacles of patriarchal chauvinism that cling to the light-action property that launched in the nineteen-seventies as the tale of “three little girls who went to … Continue reading Then Playing — Charlie’s Angels; Invasion of the Body Snatchers; Last Christmas
Well, the title is just about perfect, isn’t it? For their third full-length effort, Haim swing their broadswords straight at the identity shorthand that gets laid upon their music, defining their craft less by the sounds assembled and more by … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — Women in Music Pt. III
The Alphabet Murders (Frank Tashlin, 1965). The primary curiosity of this adaptation of an Agatha Christie mystery is the oddity of Tony Randall being positioned as the U.S. answer to Peter Sellers. The Alphabet Murders was released one year after … Continue reading The Playing — The Alphabet Murders; The Man from Laramie; Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind
482. Negativland, Escape from Noise (1987) Richard Lyons and Mike Hosler had been operating together as Negativland for nearly ten years when they and their collaborators delivered the album Escape from Noise. The group’s first outing for SST Records, a … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #482 to #480
John Lewis Was a Mighty American Soul by Charles P. Pierce I’m sure there are other obituaries and remembrances that sagely, somberly convey the greatness of John Lewis. But today, I want the piece that laces the reverence with commensurate … Continue reading Outside Reading — Good Trouble edition
“And soon I’ll the neon shining moon/ And I’ll break you up just like the stars/ I’ll be the Earth without disease/ And you the human inside of me,” Shamir sings at the opening of “I Wonder,” his new single. … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Shamir, “I Wonder”
