Friday, December 22 2006
The Best Metal Albums of 2006
Begrand and Blood and Thunder look back on a metal-icious 2006: its creative resurgences, its tinges of sludge, its Japanese doom-ridden drones, and its ever-reliable Scandinavians.
Thursday, December 21 2006
How an Unremarkably Wonderful Work Is the Most Successful Jazz Album, Ever
How can it be, in fact, that Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas is perhaps the only universally adored record in jazz history -- the Sgt. Pepper's of improvised music?
Wednesday, December 20 2006
2006, Through Roots-Colored Glasses
It's the same old complaint every year, isn't it? You do what you can, you hear what you can, and you wait to see what takes root in your brain as a keeper.
Tuesday, December 19 2006
God Made Us #1
The Gipper, the heartland, and the holy spirit: Notre Dame's football highlights stretch out like one long, continuous John Mellencamp video.
Monday, December 18 2006
The 12 Days of Prozac
As a kind of red-nosed warning, or a pre-eggnog PSA, here's a look at three memorable television treats that, inadvertently, have caused more pain and suffering than a trip to Toys R Us when the Tickle Me Elmo shipment arrived.
Friday, December 15 2006
The Patent Medicine Paradigm
Take this and you'll feel better. Today's branded products work just like the patent medicines of old.
Thursday, December 14 2006
Racism Killed Rock: Part II
The subliminal suggestion is that Sly Stone was this schizo black musician who needed chemical stimulants to transform his simple R&B tunes into bonafide rock anthems. In other words, black people can't rock without getting high.
Wednesday, December 13 2006
God Smokes Cuban Cigars
Thanks to the upcoming ban on smoking in public places, smirting may take France by storm. That’s all Parisians need: another excuse to stand in the street in loving embrace.
Tuesday, December 12 2006
No! No! No!
Finally, a stand-up, face-off, clenched fists, chin in the air challenge to America's bullies.
Monday, December 11 2006
Finally, Room at the Inn
Billy Wilder's The Apartment captures the holiday season feeling of those who stand beyond the glow cast by Christmas lights.
Friday, December 8 2006
Desert Trance
These are the sort of flowers that bloom in the Sahara Desert: thumb pianos, distorted amps, muddy blues, and traditional chants.
Thursday, December 7 2006
Racism Killed Rock: Part I
I believe to my soul that a blue man can sing the whites; that when the Big Music is rocked epically by a musician who feels/claims it as birthright, he or she will render ethno-cultural-lingual-racial barriers moot every damn time.
Wednesday, December 6 2006
Who Owns What?: Engaging the Fog of Hip-Hop
How do the "artist" and "critic" reconcile each other's presence? How literally must one walk this way in order to talk that way?
Tuesday, December 5 2006
Run, Hillary! Run!
As the weakened state of the Republicans augurs well for a Democratic president in 2008, a veritable flood of candidates has joined Clinton as the race begins. She begins her run with name recognition and plenty of monetary backing, yet she is far from a shoo-in.
Monday, December 4 2006
Gerald Levert and the Black Pop Nobody Knows, but Should
To paraphrase the dead prez: Black pop is way, way bigger than Oprah, or Cosby, or LeBron James. Why, black pop is even bigger than hip-hop.
Friday, December 1 2006
It’s Gotta Be the Shoes, Money
Stephon Marbury's new fashion line positions him as the anti-Michael Jordan of the NBA.
Thursday, November 30 2006
Stumbling with Nail Clippers
It was one of the most talked about tomes upon its release. Unfortunately, our literary liaison for all things film thinks that Augusten Burrough's mesmerizing memoir was definitely defanged in the cinematic translation.
Wednesday, November 29 2006
Jock Jams
I'm getting giddy imagining Chuck Klosterman and Cam'ron having a two-minute bull session on the Who's return to relevance, or, better yet, figuring out a logical way to deal with Lil' Kim.
Tuesday, November 28 2006
The Situational Ethicist
In which our resident ethical expert contends: Ethics may complicate, but absolute ethics complicate absolutely.
Monday, November 27 2006
Dreck the Halls
For every cinematic stocking full of shiny bright goodies, there are large filmic lumps of dirty old coal.
