500. INXS, Shabooh Shoobah (1982) The members of INXS knew they were on the verge of a breakthrough when preparing to record their third album, Shabooh Shoobah. After a couple reasonably successful album releases in their homeland of Australia, the … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #500 to #498
“Can We Live?” by Tananarive Due Now that we’re almost halfway through this calendar year that epitomizes the curse of interesting times, it’s useful to remember that the the cataclysms of now have historic precursors that we can learn from. … Continue reading Outside Reading — Precedented edition
Of all the enduring figures of college rock’s heyday in the nineteen-eighties and early nineteen-nineties, no one mines their own history more effectively than Bob Mould. Across his last several albums, Mould has drawn upon most of the sounds that … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Bob Mould, “American Crisis”
#33 — Brooklyn (John Crowley, 2015) In the nineteen-fifties, a young woman from Ireland moves to the United States. Ellis (Saoirse Ronan) has few prospects and only the slenderest of connections to other Irish immigrants in the big city she … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Thirty-Three
Fast Color (Julia Hart, 2019). Black girl magic made tangible, Fast Color lightly adheres to the superhero origin story template that’s unexpectedly become a cinematic mainstay. In the film, Ruth (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) returns to her Midwestern childhood home at a … Continue reading Then Playing — Fast Color; Monty Python’s Life of Brian; Blinded By the Light
For a long time, I primarily made sense of the world through the movies. I read books and newspapers, too, but in those endeavors I mostly hovered above the surface of what might be uncomfortable, what might challenge my conceptions … Continue reading My Writers — Spike Lee
This series of posts covers my long, beloved history interacting with the medium of radio, including the music that flowed through the airwaves. Last night, I commemorated a momentous birthday, crossing over to one of those ages that can leave … Continue reading Radio Days — Then and Now: May 31, 2020
504. Icehouse, Icehouse (1981) The band Icehouse introduced themselves to the world with the song “Icehouse” off of the album Icehouse. The heavily self-referential methodology wasn’t intention or even in place at first. Hailing from Australia, the band started in … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #504 to #501
This Week Has Happened Before by Julia Craven I call it scar tissue that you walk around with, and scar tissue never allows you to fully function like you functioned. You always got to work around it. You always got … Continue reading Outside Reading — Scar Tissue edition
In deeply unsettled days such as these, there might be no better and timelier message than the proclamation of endurance found in “I Will Try,” the new track from Painted Zeros. The chief creative outlet of singer-songwriter Katie Lau, Painted … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Painted Zeros, “I Will Try”
Coffee for Two 