I wrote about Frightened Rabbit only once. When I was regularly churning out copy for Spectrum Culture, I put in to detail the ingenuity of a track from the band’s sterling 2013 album, Pedestrian Verse, as a contribution to the … Continue reading One for Friday — Frightened Rabbit, “Oil Slick”
It seemed entirely possible that any new music from Janelle Monáe would be a long time coming. Although she had already started the process of developing her third studio album when she stepped into the job of big-time movie actress, … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — Dirty Computer
These posts are about the songs that just barely failed to cross the key line of chart success, entering the Billboard Top 40. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 41. Daryl Hall and John Oates were ludicrously … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Near Misses — “Don’t Hold Back Your Love”
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 snapping up as many Marvel mags as my … Continue reading My Misspent Youth — What If? #19 by Peter Gillis and Pat Broderick
These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art. By now, we are well past the point that television programming is a sad, forlorn cousin of … Continue reading The Art of the Sell — “You and Me and ABC”
932. Rush, Signals (1982) I think the prevailing opinion is that the nineteen-eighties demolished the prospects for classic rock bands, especially as MTV took almost complete control over determining which songs were worthy of upward chart movement. There’s some truth … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #932 to #929
I had this project, you see. After several years of operating motor vehicles equipped with outdated technology in the dashboard stereo, I finally graduated to a car that had a CD player and an input jack for an iPod. To … Continue reading From the Archive — Smells Like a Mix Tape
Since I invoked Lyle Lovett in yesterday’s album review, it seems an appropriate time to return to him in this weekly act of music-sharing. Lovett first entered into my little cohort of favored artists with the release of his second … Continue reading One for Friday — Lyle Lovett, “L.A. County”
I can’t claim to understand the vagaries of what drives country music radio, but the apparent middling affection for Kacey Musgraves is perplexing to the point of aggravation. Despite the Texas native’s place in the Universal Music Group Nashville stable … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — Golden Hour
Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. Just because. Previous entries in this series can be found by clicking on the “Laughing Matters” tag. Continue reading Laughing Matters — John Mulaney, “The Salt and Pepper Dinner”
Coffee for Two 