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Roger Holland
Home>Staff>Roger Holland
Roger Holland

Features

Friday, December 14 2007

The Best Country Music of 2007

Whatever your taste in music, be it Country or Western, 2007 has been something of a disappointment when compared with recent years. You have to look a little harder to find the diamonds in the Van Lear coal-mine that was the year that was, but they're there.


Wednesday, June 6 2007

Kids' DVDs: June 2007

Given that babies and young children love nothing more than repetition, repetition, and... um.... repetition, I can't understand why even the pointiest of heads would think children between the ages of six months and three years could possible need 23 different Baby Einstein DVDs.


Thursday, May 31 2007

Architecture and Morality: The Wedding Present Revisited

Pop scholars frequently undervalue The Wedding Present. If the Smiths were the undeniable figurehead for the UK's thriving independent pop scene of the 1980s, then Gedge's little-band-that-could certainly inherited that mantle.


Thursday, December 21 2006

Best Country of 2006

Goodbye to Academia, Pedantry, and even Austin: Roger Holland's favorite country albums of 2006 come from a very broad church indeed.


Wednesday, December 6 2006

Won't Somebody Please Think of the Children?

As our inner Helen Lovejoy knows full well, Christmas Is For Thee Children. So what on earth can we pick up for our kids from Wal-Mart that'll fit into an SUV laden with goodies from the Pottery Barn and beyond? Well, DVDs. Obv. And why not start with the Christmas Classics?


The L-Words: An Interview with the Cardigans [12.Nov.06]
Celtic Soul Rebel: Talking to the Dentist About Poetry [23.Oct.06]
Kids DVDS - October 2006 [11.Oct.06]
Casey Kessel [14.Sep.06]
Kids' DVDS: August 2006 [4.Aug.06]
Kids' DVDS: May/June 2006 [19.Jun.06]
Practice Makes Imperfect [17.May.06]
The Busy Boy Buys Box Sets: Billy Bragg Revisited [1.May.06]
Kids' DVDS: March 2006 [27.Apr.06]
Kids' DVDS: March 2006 [27.Mar.06]
To Everything, There Is a Season [14.Feb.06]
Kids' DVDS: February 2006 [10.Feb.06]
Kids' DVDS: January 2006 [13.Jan.06]
XXX -- Born to Lose, Live to Win [23.Dec.05]
Kids' DVDS: December 2005 [1.Dec.05]
The Cut-Out Bin #4: Dexy's Midnight Runners, Don't Stand Me Down (1985) [11.Nov.05]
Dexy's Midnight Runners, Don't Stand Me Down (1985) [11.Nov.05]
A European Superbowl? [28.Jul.05]
Carradonna: Heart as Big as Liverpool [24.May.05]
Turin's Shroud: Has the English Disease become the Italian Complaint? [2.May.05]
Who's That Girl?: Grey DeLisle on How to Be Both Bubbly and Badass [1.Jan.95]
Not the Tremblin' Kind [1.Jan.95]
Song of the Traveling Clawhammer Banjo Player [1.Jan.95]
What Goes Around Comes Around: A Conversation With Patricia Vonne [1.Jan.95]
Love is the Tender Trap [1.Jan.95]
American Teenage Rock 'n' Roll Machine [1.Jan.95]
California Man [1.Jan.95]
Hope Is the Thing With Feathers [1.Jan.95]
A Little Bit Country, A Little Bit Also Country [1.Jan.95]
A Cheap Thrill (Plus One) [1.Jan.95]
Kicking Against The Pricks!: An Interview with Half Man Half Biscuit [1.Jan.95]

Reviews

Wednesday, December 12 2007

Led Zeppelin: Mothership

More Songs About Groupies and The Lord of the Rings.


Friday, November 2 2007

The Amazing Race

This is the way the best reality show on TV returns. Not with a bang, but a whimper. I love The Amazing Race, but I'm increasingly unhappy with how its handling.


Thursday, October 18 2007

Men in Trees

Reasons to watch Men in Trees, Part One: It's not Sex and the City.


Tuesday, October 9 2007

Beauty and the Geek

If she lasts long enough to find her place between the geeks and beauties, Nicole will enjoy her very own "Why, Miss Jones, You Were Beautiful All Along" moment, and make more than one geek's day.


Wednesday, October 3 2007

Private Practice

The show's true centre of dramatic gravity can be found midway between Violet (Amy Brenneman) and Cooper (Paul Adelstein).


NCIS [2.Oct.07]
NUMB3RS [28.Sep.07]
House [25.Sep.07]
Chuck [24.Sep.07]
Emerson Lake and Palmer: Pictures at an Exhibition [12.Sep.07]
Rilo Kiley: Under the Blacklight [29.Aug.07]
The New Pornographers: Challengers [21.Aug.07]
Traveler [2.Aug.07]
Various Artists: The Rough Guide To Bellydance Cafe [31.Jul.07]
Mad Men [26.Jul.07]
The Singing Bee / Don't Forget the Lyrics [26.Jul.07]
Amy LaVere: Anchors & Anvils [14.Jun.07]
Robin Hood [5.Jun.07]
Joan Osborne: Breakfast In Bed [5.Jun.07]
Veronica Mars [29.May.07]
Miranda Lambert: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend [24.May.07]
The Amazing Race: All-Stars [14.May.07]
Elizabeth Cook: Balls [1.May.07]
Drive [30.Apr.07]
Wreckless Eric: Big Smash [9.Apr.07]
Graham Parker: Dont Tell Columbus [14.Mar.07]
The Moaners: Blackwing Yalobusha [9.Mar.07]
The Amazing Race: All-Stars [8.Mar.07]
Lucinda Williams: West [12.Feb.07]
The Dresden Files [1.Feb.07]
The Apprentice: Los Angeles [18.Jan.07]
Dierks Bentley: Long Trip Alone [19.Nov.06]
Taylor Swift: Taylor Swift [9.Nov.06]
George Strait: It Just Comes Natural [7.Nov.06]
Alan Jackson: Like Red on a Rose [18.Oct.06]
Click (2006) [16.Oct.06]
Lynyrd Skynyrd: Gold [13.Oct.06]
Mindy Smith: Long Island Shores [10.Oct.06]
The Bachelor: Rome [9.Oct.06]
Anne McCue: Koala Motel [29.Sep.06]
Greys Anatomy [28.Sep.06]
The Amazing Race [21.Sep.06]
Smokey Robinson and the Miracles: Gold [20.Sep.06]
Slumber Party: MUSIK [15.Sep.06]
Two Ton Boa: Parasiticide [13.Sep.06]
Standoff [12.Sep.06]
Million Dollar Listing [5.Sep.06]
Trace Adkins: Dangerous Man [30.Aug.06]
Led Zeppelin: The Origin of the Species [DVD] [29.Aug.06]
Danielle Peck: Danielle Peck [29.Aug.06]
Various Artists: Paupers, Peasants, Princes and Kings [3.Aug.06]
The Divine Comedy: Victory for the Comic Muse [20.Jul.06]
Tender Trap: 6 Billion People [12.Jul.06]
Julie Roberts: Men and Mascara [28.Jun.06]
NCIS: review_item_subtitle [27.Jun.06]
NCIS: The Complete First Season [5.Jun.06]
Cracker: Greenland [1.Jun.06]
Date Movie (Unrated) (2004) [29.May.06]
Black Sabbath: Greatest Hits 1970-1978 [17.May.06]
The Wedding Present: Search For Paradise [16.May.06]
Sergeant Bilko - 50th Anniversary Edition (The Phil Silvers Show) [8.May.06]
The Charlatans UK: Simpatico [3.May.06]
Teachers [27.Mar.06]
Cheerleader Nation [21.Mar.06]
Television Personalities: My Dark Places [16.Mar.06]
Tres Chicas: Bloom, Red and the Ordinary Girl [14.Mar.06]
Pansy Division: The Essential Pansy Division [10.Mar.06]
The Amazing Race - Season Nine [7.Mar.06]
Breakfast at Tiffany's (Anniversary Edition) (1961) [21.Feb.06]
Comedy Central Roast of Pamela Anderson Uncensored! [20.Feb.06]
Luke Doucet: Broken (And Other Rogue States) [10.Feb.06]
American Idol 5 [25.Jan.06]
Upstairs, Downstairs - Collector's Edition Megaset: The Complete Series Plus Thomas and Sarah [20.Jan.06]
Seven Men From Now (1956) [19.Jan.06]
Dolly Parton: Those Were the Days [13.Jan.06]
Beauty and the Geek [12.Jan.06]
Amy LaVere: This World Is Not My Home [12.Jan.06]
The Biggest Loser - Special Edition [11.Jan.06]
Rollergirls [9.Jan.06]
Lucy Kaplansky: The Tide [9.Jan.06]
Gary Allan: Tough All Over [5.Jan.06]
The Frank Sinatra Show: High Hopes - With Dean Martin and Bing Crosby [DVD] [6.Dec.05]
Various Artists: I Heard It on NPR - One World Many Voices [1.Dec.05]
Mummy the Peepshow: School Girl Pop [28.Nov.05]
Kurupt: Against Tha Grain [3.Nov.05]
The Amazing Race - The Complete First Season [1.Nov.05]
The Carter Family: 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of the Carter Family [25.Oct.05]
Gretchen Wilson: All Jacked Up [21.Oct.05]
t.A.T.u: Dangerous and Moving [7.Oct.05]
America's Next Top Model: Cycle 5 [5.Oct.05]
House [4.Oct.05]
Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie (2005) [27.Sep.05]
The Apprentice [22.Sep.05]
Bones [19.Sep.05]
Rumpole of the Bailey - Set 3, Series 5-7 [19.Sep.05]
Because of Winn-Dixie (2005) [16.Sep.05]
Pieta Brown: In the Cool [13.Sep.05]
Valiant (2005) [26.Aug.05]
Devil's Corner by Lisa Scottoline [19.Aug.05]
How Soccer Explains the World: An (Unlikely) Theory of Globalization by Franklin Foer [11.Aug.05]
Eliza Gilkyson: Paradise Hotel [11.Aug.05]
Lauren Ellis: Feels Like Family [10.Aug.05]
Carrie Newcomer: Regulars and Refugees [9.Aug.05]
Nine Pound Hammer: Mulebite Deluxe [8.Aug.05]
Erasure [31.May.05]
One For My Baby by Tony Parsons [24.May.05]
The Amazing Race - Season Nine [1.Jan.95]
Hell's Kitchen [1.Jan.95]
America's Next Top Model: Cycle 6 [1.Jan.95]
Treasure Hunters [1.Jan.95]
NCIS [1.Jan.95]
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