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2023 in Music: The 23 Best Songs of the Year
We’ve already been through the entirely objective list of the best albums of 2023 but there’s something all the most special about those individual songs which exist as perfectly formed three or four (or sometimes longer) musical experiences, telling whole stories, encapsulating the most nuanced and intense of emotions, and exploding across our senses in what […] More
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Why the Percy Jackson Films Didn’t Satisfy Fans
With the release of the Disney+ adaption of Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, let’s look back at the divisive film adaptations of the past. Swept into the major studios rush to fill the Harry Potter hole about to break the market, in 2010, Chris Columbus directed Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The […] More
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2023 in Music: The 23 Best Albums of the Year
So, was this a good or a bad year for music? Every year as I start writing these lists, I hate answering that question. My attitude has always been that if you thought any year was a bad year for music then you just weren’t looking in the right places. The best year for music […] More
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in On the Scene, Music
On Barry’s Use of “The Wizard” — Never Talking, Fuches Spreads His Magic
Prior to its release, I wondered if Barry S4E6 was entitled “The Wizard” in reference or allusion to The Wizard of Oz, and you could argue that it is. Certainly one could build a chain of resonances with what happens to Sally in the episode and how it culminates in her thematically “not being in […] More
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in Sports, Larks & Recs
On the Enduring Appeal of Around the Horn
I don’t remember when Around the Horn premiered on ESPN. According to Wikipedia, it was in 2002 and the show was originally hosted by Max Kellerman, but for me this is kind of like how Chuck Woolery was the host of Wheel of Fortune before Pat Sajak—I can hardly imagine Around the Horn without Tony […] More
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in On the Scene, Music
Gilmore Girls’ “I Will Always Love You” Scene Somehow Works
The final season of the original run of Gilmore Girls is often called the worst of the series. It’s the only season without Amy Sherman-Palladino or Daniel Palladino acting as showrunner or writer. There are plenty of other people online who have talked about what went wrong during this season, but, as they say, even […] More
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in Music
Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd? — Lana Del Rey Is Back
My first experience of Lana Del Rey was seeing the music video for “Blue Jeans.” It must have been about 2013 and it appeared on one of those channels dedicated to chart songs. I remember being captivated by the shadows in the water and by the luxury dripping from Del Rey’s vocals. I have sought […] More
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The Last of Us Effect Is Coming—and That’s Bad
Everyone knows about The Last of Us, and everyone knows it’s great. What not everyone knows about just yet—though they will—is the complicated range of effects its source text has had over the last ten years on the “AAA” video game industry and, in particular, games criticism. The HBO series has widely been hailed as […] More
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Top 10 Albums of 2022
Insofar as my musical experiences of the last 12 months will be remembered, 2022 was the year that artists I’d been trying to get into finally clicked. Artists like The Weeknd, Earl Sweatshirt and FKA Twigs took the first months of the year to take the reins and each released their best works. They were […] More
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Top 10 Songs of 2022
Following up my top 10 albums of the year list, it’s perhaps easier to single out the best individual songs of the year, as one doesn’t have to weigh entire tracklists against each other. Each of the songs on this list had just a few minutes to, in a single stroke, explore the emotions and […] More
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in Music
A Deep Dive Into “The 1975” *
A few months back, I wrote a piece about My Chemical Romance, a band I was fanatically into at various points in my adolescence. I’m fairly sure I did call them the band of my teenage years when I look back. Well, I lied. I wish MCR were the band of my teenage years, because […] More
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This [Sounds Like] a True Story: Scoring the Heightened Reality of Noah Hawley’s Fargo
Noah Hawley’s Fargo (2014– ) was not the first film or television work inspired by Joel and Ethan Coens’ classic film of the same name (Fargo, 1996). There exist as well an aborted attempt at a standard television crime series, with Edie Falco recast as the intrepid Marge Gunderson from the film, as well as […] More
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