Movie Diary

Friday, June 30, 2017






















a) Okja
Snowpiercer is one of my favorite dystopian sci-fi movies, or really just one of my favorite movies in general, of the past few years, and I was really excited to see Bong Joon-ho's follow-up. They did a good job of immersing you in this only mildly heightened reality, mixing a sweet story about the bond between a girl and an animal with this really dark, funny, thoughtful satire of commerce and media and animal rights activism. I was kinda braced for it to be darker or stranger than it was but they kinda resolved the story nicely without getting to optimistic. I'm also amused that Tilda Swinton plays two twins in this movie, when she just Winklevossed in Hail, Caesar! last year. 

b) Wonder Woman
In these times of superhero saturation, this was a rare movie to anticipate as something different, not just because it was a female hero but because it was a major character that had never gotten her own movie before, and one that demanded a lighter tone than the mall goth gloom of D.C.'s other recent movies. So it was hard not to get caught up rooting for it and enjoying every surface level charm. As someone who always disliked him in nu-StarTrek, the big surprise of this movie was that I found Chris Pine likable, although I was also glad that Gal Gadot rose to the occasion and achieved this delicate balance of being kind of this serious warrior queen but also being able to handle the comic relief. The way they kind of grafted the comic book universe on to 20th century history was interesting, I think they handled it about as well as the first Captain America, which I think I liked more than a lot of people, and the villain reveal was really well done.

c) The Girl With All the Gifts
Just when I think we've done every variation on the zombie apocalypse possible, something like this comes along that puts its own interesting spin on the premise. Sennia Nanua really gives an amazing performance for a child actor.

d) The Free World
This is one of those movies where two people coming from tragic circumstances come together and fall in love, which can be a pretty romantic kind of story, but The Free World reminded me of Monster's Ball in the way it just piled on the misery and just reveled in it and never really let the characters be people you can relate to. Also I kinda hated how one character's conversion to Islam became this kind of cheap plot device in the end of the movie.

e) Sausage Party
On one hand, I respect that Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have used their Hollywood clout to make a really wide variety of comedies that toy with different genres instead of, like, making a dozen variations on Super Bad. But a lot of the more brazenly experimental movies like This Is The End and Sausage Party, though they were financial and critical successes, really just feel like bloated sketches that get annoying really quickly. I just wish they had more follow through to execute these things well instead of coming off like the product of one stoned brainstorming session.

f) Nine Lives
I had to watch the Kevin Spacey cat movie just out of morbid curiosity. It's so weird that after a decade of losing his ability to star in big movies, Spacey climbed his way back with "House Of Cards" and...did this. Alec Baldwin's turn in The Boss Baby felt like a similarly goofy gambit, but that movie did a decent job of entertaining both kids and adults, where this feels like it appeals to neither.

gZoolander 2
When the first Zoolander came out, the premise seemed kind of corny and dated and I thought Ben Stiller was overexposed and past his peak. So I was pleasantly surprised when the movie turned out to be a hilarious minor classic. And with that in mind, I wanted to give the way too late sequel a chance to win me over. And in terms of a fairly by the numbers sequel, I thought it was actually pretty funny, even if I never need to see it again, I thought it pretty much hit the right notes way better than, say, Anchorman 2.

h) East Side Sushi
A charming little movie about a latina chef who takes a job at a sushi restaurant and butts heads with the owner. A little bland and forgettable, but pleasant, and made me want to eat sushi.

i) Attack The Block
I never heard of this movie until it got John Boyega cast in the new Star Wars movies, and it's a pretty impressive little debut feature with a relatively low budget for a sci-fi movie. I found it a little underwhelming, though. If a horror comedy isn't that funny, it just feels like a horror movie where the stakes are too low to get any big scares. 

Thursday, June 29, 2017



















I contributed a few blurbs to this Rolling Stone list of the most anticipated rap albums for the rest of 2017

Wednesday, June 28, 2017
























I reviewed the new Vince Staples album Big Fish Theory for Pigeons And Planes

Deep Album Cuts Vol. 94: Mobb Deep

Friday, June 23, 2017
























On Tuesday, shortly after the news hit that Prodigy had died, I contributed to a Rolling Stone list of his best tracks. But I also wanted to jump back and dig a little more into Mobb Deep's impressive catalog.

Mobb Deep deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Hold Down The Fort
2. Eye For A Eye (Your Beef Is Mines) f/ Nas and Raekwon
3. Up North Trip
4. Drink Away The Pain (Situations) f/ Q-Tip
5. Trife Life
6. Give Up The Goods (Just Step) f/ Big Noyd
7. Still Shinin'
8. Extortion f/ Method Man
9. Apostle's Warning
10. What's Ya Poison f/ Cormega
11. The Realest f/ Kool G Rap
12. Thug Muzik
13. Where Ya From f/ 8Ball
14. Clap
15. Nothing Like Home f/ Littles
16. Win Or Lose
17. We Up
18. Smoke It
19. Pearly Gates f/ 50 Cent

Track 1 from Juvenile Hell (1993)
Tracks 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 from The Infamous (1995)
Tracks 7, 8 and 9 from Hell On Earth (1996)
Tracks 10, 11, 12 and 13 from Murda Muzik (1999)
Tracks 14 and 15 from Infamy (2001)
Tracks 16 and 17 from Amerikaz Nightmare (2004)
Tracks 18 and 19 from Blood Money (2006)

Honorable mention to the group's 8th and final album, The Infamous Mobb Deep, which isn't available on streaming services. I actually interviewed Prodigy in 2014 shortly before that album was released, and I also went one of their in store promotional appearances for Blood Money in 2006 and interviewed Havoc. And it's been interesting this week to revisit the Blood Money standout "Pearl Gates" and Prodigy's hilarious, profane, oddly poignant verse where he threatens Jesus ("I'ma beat him like the movie"). They still censor that verse even on the explicit version of the album, which is so stupid, but I've heard it uncensored on the radio this week, which made me smile.

Mobb Deep sold millions of records despite only some very sparing concessions to radio, and even their biggest hits are often as grimy and bleak as their album tracks. And "Eye For A Eye" and "The Realest" feel like definitive Mobb Deep songs even though they were never singles. I love Havoc's ear for samples, like the way "Nothing Like Home" flipped the Lenny Williams sample a couple years before Twista and Kanye had a hit with it. And this week digging into Juvenile Hell, I realized that Havoc used the drums from Little Feat's "Fool Yourself" (a.k.a. the "Bonita Applebaum" break) on "Hold Down The Fort" years before he more famously used them on "G.O.D. Pt. III." And it's interesting to hear a deep cut like "Clap" that puts a different spin on the very unique drum kit from the same album's lead single, "The Learning (Burn)."

Previous playlists in the Deep Album Cuts series:
Vol. 1: Brandy
Vol. 2: Whitney Houston
Vol. 3: Madonna
Vol. 4: My Chemical Romance
Vol. 5: Brad Paisley
Vol. 6: George Jones
Vol. 7: The Doors
Vol. 8: Jay-Z
Vol. 9: Robin Thicke
Vol. 10: R. Kelly
Vol. 11: Fall Out Boy
Vol. 12: TLC
Vol. 13: Pink
Vol. 14: Queen
Vol. 15: Steely Dan
Vol. 16: Trick Daddy
Vol. 17: Paramore
Vol. 18: Elton John
Vol. 19: Missy Elliott
Vol. 20: Mariah Carey
Vol. 21: The Pretenders
Vol. 22: "Weird Al" Yankovic
Vol. 23: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Vol. 24: Foo Fighters
Vol. 25: Counting Crows
Vol. 26: T.I.
Vol. 27: Jackson Browne
Vol. 28: Usher
Vol. 29: Mary J. Blige
Vol. 30: The Black Crowes
Vol. 31: Ne-Yo
Vol. 32: Blink-182
Vol. 33: One Direction
Vol. 34: Kelly Clarkson
Vol. 35: The B-52's
Vol. 36: Ludacris
Vol. 37: They Might Be Giants
Vol. 38: T-Pain
Vol. 39: Snoop Dogg
Vol. 40: Ciara
Vol. 41: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Vol. 42: Dwight Yoakam
Vol. 43: Demi Lovato
Vol. 44: Prince
Vol. 45: Duran Duran
Vol. 46: Rihanna
Vol. 47: Janet Jackson
Vol. 48: Sara Bareilles
Vol. 49: Motley Crue
Vol. 50: The Who
Vol. 51: Coldplay
Vol. 52: Alicia Keys
Vol. 53: Stone Temple Pilots
Vol. 54: David Bowie
Vol. 55: The Eagles
Vol. 56: The Beatles
Vol. 57: Beyonce
Vol. 58: Beanie Sigel
Vol. 59: A Tribe Called Quest
Vol. 60: Cheap Trick
Vol. 61: Guns N' Roses
Vol. 62: The Posies
Vol. 63: The Time
Vol. 64: Gucci Mane
Vol. 65: Violent Femmes
Vol. 66: Red Hot Chili Peppers
Vol. 67: Maxwell
Vol. 68: Parliament-Funkadelic
Vol. 69: Chevelle
Vol. 70: Ray Parker Jr. and Raydio
Vol. 71: Fantasia
Vol. 72: Heart
Vol. 73: Pitbull
Vol. 74: Nas
Vol. 75: Monica
Vol. 76: The Cars
Vol. 77: 112
Vol. 78: 2Pac
Vol. 79: Nelly
Vol. 80: Meat Loaf
Vol. 81: AC/DC
Vol. 82: Bruce Springsteen
Vol. 83: Pearl Jam
Vol. 84: Green Day
Vol. 85: George Michael and Wham!
Vol. 86: New Edition
Vol. 87: Chuck Berry
Vol. 88: Electric Light Orchestra
Vol. 89: Chic
Vol. 90: Journey
Vol. 91: Yes
Vol. 92: Soundgarden
Vol. 93: The Allman Brothers Band

Monthly Report: June 2017 Singles

Thursday, June 22, 2017























1. Shawn Mendes - "There's Nothing Holdin' Me Back"  
I've been pretty persistently grouchy about Shawn Mendes's ascendance to teen idol status, which has even outlived the site that made him famous, Vine. But this song really grabbed me with its unlikely fusion of a trendy trop house club beat and a kind of "Jessie's Girl" sort of power pop riff. And it sorta fascinates me how Teddy Geiger, who had one top 40 hit a decade ago, has sort of transitioned from being a minor teen pop star to being the svengali who wrote and/or produced most of Mendes's hits. Here's the 2017 singles playlist I update every month.

2. Carly Pearce - "Every Little Thing" 
I just wrote in this space last month about Maren Morris pointing out how hostile country radio is these days to ballads by women. So I was pleasantly surprised soon after to start hearing this song, which is still climbing the charts and I think might get pretty big (and is in fact produced by busbee, who did Morris's whole album).

3. Thomas Rhett f/ Maren Morris - "Craving You"
This song is big and uptempo and a bit different from Morris's album and even a bit more bombastic than Rhett's stuff usually is, but it works well with both of their voices.

4. Cheat Codes f/ Demi Lovato - "No Promises"
This song really gets stuck in my head a lot, I'm kind of surprised it hasn't gotten big quicker, although I think it still might get there. I haven't generally been big on Demi Lovato leaning in an EDM direction but her voice works well with this track, and the main Cheat Codes guy has a pretty pleasant voice too.

5. Bleachers - "Don't Take The Money"
I don't like the new Bleachers album nearly as much as the second, and am generally leaning toward enjoying Jack Antonoff's work as a producer/songwriter more. But this song jams pretty hard, it just took longer to grow on me than "I Wanna Get Better."

6. Mary J. Blige - "U + Me (Love Lesson)" 
This song probably works best in the context of the album, where it flows seamlessly into the next track "Indestructible" as a pretty powerful suite.

7. J. Cole - "Neighbors" 
Once upon a time I was a half hearted J. Cole apologist, but his albums have gotten progressively blander over time and the quality of his singles has taken an even sharper downward turn. This is my favorite single he's released since "Power Trip," though. The fact that it came from a real incident of Cole's neighbors calling the cops on him, and that I started hearing on the radio the week that LeBron James's house got vandalized, really just underlines the raw, ugly sense of how much racism can still follow these guys around even when they have incredibly successful careers and move into rich neighborhoods. Cole sounds like he's reacting to it all five minutes after it happened, the disgust and disappointment is so immediate and palpable in his voice.

8. Rascal Flatts - "Yours If You Want It"
Rascal Flatts are, on some basic level, more viscerally repulsive than almost any other pop country act, they're like a weird sexy Smashmouth. That said, they have some songs I like, "These Days" is a classic to me and I'm enjoying this new one.

9. Brothers Osborne - "It Ain't My Fault"
Pawn Shop has been out for 17 months and just this week finally got its second Hot 100 hit with its most uptempo shitkicking song. I'm really happy to see one of my favorite country albums in recent memory, from a Maryland group no less, has some real legs.

10. Lady Gaga - "The Cure"  
There's something really remarkable about how Lady Gaga managed all the trappings of a major comeback, Super Bowl and all, without any kind of real success of public embrace of her last album beyond the most perfunctory reception. But I was still a little surprised that after just 2 fairly lousy singles from Joanne, she quickly moved on to a new non-album single, when I thought the album still had some decent potential hits. And after the effort to rush out a new song and retain some momentum, "The Cure" was still a flop just like her other recent singles. But it's a decent song, I feel like she's at least trying to turn incrementally toward something pop radio might embrace.

Worst Single of the Month: Miley Cyrus - "Malibu" 
This is a lot less ubiquitous than the Bangerz era stuff, and is missing some of the elements that made that record so unbearable to me, but it's still pretty awful. I feel like there's a really good interesting vocalist hidden somewhere in Miley's voice but she manages to just make the most annoying possible choices with it.

Tuesday, June 20, 2017




















R.I.P. Prodigy of Mobb Deep, who passed away today. I contributed to a Rolling Stone piece about some of his essential tracks today, but I also interviewed Prodigy back in 2014, and I'm sad about the loss of such an influential MC, I really enjoyed the album he put out this year. 

Sunday, June 18, 2017







Today's my first Father's Day without my own dad, who passed away in May. When my brother and I held a memorial service for him in Baltimore a few weeks ago, I made a playlist of some of Dad's favorite music to play during the event, and I recently shared the playlist on The Dowsers. I also wrote a longer piece about Dad here on Narrowcast last month

Some other recent Dowsers playlists I did: Stargate and Jack Antonoff

Sunday, June 11, 2017








A few months ago, I released my band Western Blot's album Muscle Memory, and Michael Bartolomeo of Triangle Films agreed to direct a video for my favorite track on the album, "Dull Dark Side." Mike and I have been friends since college, we played together in a band called Zuul and I acted in one of his early short films Cabbage Head, so we've always looked for more projects to collaborate on, and I'm really thrilled with how this turned out. I just gave him the song and let him mastermind the entire visual element and story of the video, and I didn't see more than a couple photos from the set until this week, so finally getting this video was like opening up a Christmas present. 

As I wrote a while back, "Dull Dark Side" contains the oldest recordings on my album, including stuff I put on a 4-track in my friend Scott Street's apartment in the summer of 2001. And I eventually took the track to my friend Mat Leffler-Schulman's studio and added more instrumentation, wrote some lyrics, and asked Kathleen Wilson of Thee Lexington Arrows to sing it. So I feel like the release of this video is the end of an incredibly long 16-year journey for this song, and I'm as proud of it as anything I've ever been involved in. 

TV Diary

Friday, June 09, 2017



















a) "I'm Dying Up Here"
It's pretty unfortunate that "'I'm Dying Up Here,' executive produced by Jim Carrey" promo is everywhere at the exact moment that Jim Carrey is going on trial for the death of his girlfriend. The show is promising, though, it looks and feels like a lot of other period piece shows and films about the '70s, but the L.A. comedy scene is a different enough setting that hasn't been done time and time again already. I feel like this is an especially good vehicle for Ari Graynor, but I wish Sarah Hay's role wasn't so small, considering that in her first acting role two years ago she carried the miniseries "Flesh & Bone" really impressively. The second episode wasn't as strong as the first, though, I hope they can keep up some momentum.

b) "The Jim Jeffries Show"
Now that weekly shows in the style of "The Daily Show" are a hot commodity, Comedy Central is trying to stuff one into their schedule. Jim Jeffries even got a dry run with a segment on "The Daily Show" itself. I've generally been kinda take it or leave it about Jeffries in the past and wasn't sure this format was a good fit for him, but he kinda made it his own in the first episode, I could see this working even if he's not hitting the ground running like people with experience in the format like John Oliver and Samantha Bee.

c) "Daytime Divas"
I like a good TV show about backstage politics in television production. But VH1's new show, loosely based on a Star Jones memoir and revolving around a "The View" type show called "The Lunch," feels a little forced in its wacky personality clashes and soapy plots, I don't know if they really have a handle on how to make a show like this funny, which shouldn't be that hard, honestly.

d) "Still Star-Crossed"
This show has the very rich premise of basically starting at the end of Romeo & Juliet and sticking around to see what happens between the Montagues and Capulets after they died. But I dunno, it feels like ABC and Shondaland just stuck the idea into the same meat grinder all their other shows come out of and made it as generic as possible.

e) "World Of Dance"
I'm not big on reality competitions, or dance, but I kind of like the format and the enthusiasm of this show, it feels like they're really out to celebrate the diversity of dancing throughout different cultures and find different kinds of people to showcase. Not something I'd watch regularly either way, though.

f) "Beat Shazam"
I feel like with all the stuff Jamie Foxx has going on, he should have something better to do with his time than host a game show. But he is a good host for a show about identifying songs, he's clearly having fun with it. I think I'm just too much of a music person to not be bored by it, though, I get almost every question right faster than the contestants do. I'd like to go on the show and win a lot of money, but I don't care much for watching it.

g) "Dark Angel"
I'm amused that this British miniseries that PBS featured on "Masterpiece Theater" has the same title as the cheesy James Cameron cyberpunk show on FOX that introduced Jessica Alba to the world. I like that it's about Britain's first female serial, though, she had dozens of suspected victims so I kinda feel like they missed a good opportunity for it to be an ongoing series.

h) "The Keepers"
I never finished "Making A Murderer" and have a pretty limited appetite for these 'true crime' documentary series that are getting to be a big deal now. But this one is a pretty intriguing story hat takes place in 1960s Baltimore. I love that after this nun and teacher was murdered, some of the girls she taught still get together over 40 years later to research and try to solve the mystery.

i) "Downward Dog"
I like to see networks try playful high concept sitcoms, but I was wary of this talking dog show, especially after ABC's other recent experiment, "Imaginary Mary," was a total misfire. But this show is really very sweet and clever and well done. Allison Tohlman was very charming on the first season of "Fargo" and Lucas Neff was very charming on "Raising Hope" (and now looks completely different in an entertaining woke hippie way), and this is not the project I would've chosen for them but it really works and they have good onscreen chemistry.

j) "Flaked"
Netflix has 3 different series that star Will Arnett, and that they've renewed all of them, which I've been fond of pointing out after Netflix cancelled more ambitious shows like "The Get Down." To be fair, people do like "Bojack Horseman" and "Arrested Development," but I've never heard of anyone defending "Flaked" and I hope I never do. The fact that it went from 8 episodes in the first season to 6 in the second season even feels like an admission that there's just not much of a show here.

k) "Angie Tribeca"
TBS airing 3 seasons of this show in the space of 18 months is a bit much, but it's fun, I'm glad to have it back again. I worried initially that it was a little too much of a Zucker Bros. homage, but it feels at this point like the show has its own joke pacing and its own reference points.

l) "Stitchers"
My favorite little summer sci-fi series on Freeform is back. But season 3 picked up on the kind of serious note that season 2 ended on, I kinda hope it gets back to a looser, more playful tone.

m) "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt"
There's a "30 Rock"-sized hole in my life and having a new season of "Kimmy Schmidt" come right on the heels of "Great News" has really helped fill it. I thought I had started to get a little blase about this show in the second season, but I watched like half this season in one morning and laughed out loud so many times. I've especially enjoyed the Josh Charles arc.

n) "The Leftovers"
I liked "The Leftovers" a lot in the first season and just felt like they started doing way too much, in terms of introducing strange unexplained plot points, in the second season. The third season mostly ramped that up but I enjoyed a little more, perhaps because I knew this was the end and they couldn't lead me down too much of a blind alley this late in the game. And I kind of like how in the end it really centered on Kevin and Nora, it wasn't perfect but it was a better finale than I expected.

o) "People Just Do Nothing"
This British series just came to Netflix in the U.S., and it's some kind of Spinal Tap mockumentary about garage and drum'n'bass pirate radio DJs. And maybe I'm just a little too far removed from the culture being satirized to get all of the jokes, but the characters kind of just seem like the kind of boneheads that I assume those people are in real life so I dunno, it's just not that funny to me. You could tell me it's a straight up documentary and I might believe you.

p) "Silicon Valley"
I liked the episode where Dinesh became CEO and fucked everything up, I kinda wish they did more things like that to kind of mix up the dynamics of the group to comic effect, honestly they could've milked that scenario for a lot longer. I wouldn't say this show can't be good without TJ Miller but I definitely think they'll have their work cut out for them. In this age of Juicero and weekly Uber controversies, this show will probably never run out of things to satirize.

q) "Twin Peaks"
I'm the kind of person who thinks Eraserhead is David Lynch's crowning achievement and "Twin Peaks" was just an intermittently entertaining little experiment, and in general I cast a lot of suspicion towards all of these revivals of old cult TV shows. Still, we're talking about a major filmmaker, who hadn't made a feature film in over a decade and who I'd assumed may never make another film, coming back to direct 18 hours of television. And the memorably odd, imaginative things I've seen in the first 3 episodes are at least a lot more worth the effort than, say, that new season of "The X-Files," and I particularly liked the odd little chapter about the girl bringing the guy coffee in the first episode. But some of the visual effects kind of cross the line from inventive and handmade to just kind of cheap and shitty-looking, and I really just don't care enough about "Twin Peaks" mythology to try and figure out what the hell is going on.

Deep Album Cuts Vol. 93: The Allman Brothers Band

Monday, June 05, 2017
























A couple weekends ago, while I was hanging out at my brother's hotel after we held a memorial for our father, I glanced up at a TV and saw on the news that Gregg Allman had died. It didn't hit me as hard as Chris Cornell's death a few weeks ago, but it still strikes me that we lost two iconic rock vocalists in the same month, both guys who seemed to be born with these perfectly weathered romantic badass howls. The Allman Brothers Band survived the loss of two founding members (Duane Allman and Berry Oakley, both in motorcycle crashes a year apart) early into its run, and Gregg Allman continued to lead a talented group of musicians, on and off, for the next few decades, until their final tour in 2014. What I hadn't realized is that one of the other constant members throughout the band's career, drummer Butch Trucks, also passed away in January.

The Allman Brothers Band were always on my list of bands I'd wanted to explore deeply; I love a lot of southern rock and electric blues, and they're the only band that does twin guitar leads as famously as my beloved Thin Lizzy. What surprised me, though, was the band's use of two drummers, and how the way Butch Trucks and Jaimoe play together has more to do with James Brown than, say, the Dead. So it was fun to dig into the Allmans' catalog, even if I was spurred to it by some sad news.

The Allman Brothers Band Deep Album Cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Southbound
2. Don't Want You No More
3. It's Not My Cross To Bear
4. In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed
5. Little Martha
6. Can't Lose What You Never Had
7. Dreams
8. Blue Sky
9. Leavin'
10. Just Ain't Easy
11. So Long
12. Please Call Home
13. Statesboro Blues (live)
14. Hot 'Lanta (live)
15. Trouble No More (live)
16. Wasted Words (live)

Tracks 2, 3 and 7 from The Allman Brothers Band (1969)
Track 12 from Idlewild South (1970)
Tracks 13 and 14 from At Fillmore East (1971)
Tracks 5, 8 and 15 from Eat A Peach (1972)
Track 1 from Brothers And Sisters (1973)
Track 6 from Win, Lose Or Draw (1975)
Track 16 from Wipe The Windows, Check The Oil, Dollar Gas (1976)
Track 10 from Enlightened Rogues (1979)
Track 11 from Reach For The Sky (1980)
Track 9 from Brothers Of The Road (1981)

Ordinarily in these playlists I tend to avoid live albums or use them sparingly. But in this case they were just a huge part of the Allmans' legacy. Their classic era from the late '60s to the early '80s that I covered here included two live albums (At Fillmore East, one of the most acclaimed live albums of all time, and Wipe The Windows) as well as Eat A Peach, one of their top selling albums, which was half studio and half live recordings.

A lot of Allman Brothers Band tracks that were never released as singles became AOR radio favorites. And while one of those, "Whipping Post," is simply too famous for me to include as a deep cut, I did include other progressive radio staples like "In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed," "Blue Sky," and "Can't Lose What You Never Had." "Southbound," "Trouble No More," "Statesboro Blues," and the incredible 1-2 punch of "Don't Want You No More" and "It's Not My Cross To Bear" that kicked off their first album are among the most frequently played songs in the Allmans' countless concerts. The band performed "Leavin'" and "Southbound" on Saturday Night Live in 1982 (as their last live performance for breaking up for most of the '80s), even though neither song had ever been released as a single, and the latter was at that point nearly a decade old.

I recently saw an interview with Gregg Allman where he talks about Duane bringing him in to meet the band and play them some of his songs. And "Dreams" was the one that the band instantly liked, the one they all played along with that cemented him as a member of the band. And it's really cool to listen to the song with that in mind and just picturing this classic band gelling around that song. The band's repertoire was a mix of covers and originals written by several key members of the band, but Gregg Allman had a lot of great moments as a writer, including "Please Call Home," "Wasted Words," and "Just Ain't Easy."

Previous playlists in the Deep Album Cuts series:
Vol. 1: Brandy
Vol. 2: Whitney Houston
Vol. 3: Madonna
Vol. 4: My Chemical Romance
Vol. 5: Brad Paisley
Vol. 6: George Jones
Vol. 7: The Doors
Vol. 8: Jay-Z
Vol. 9: Robin Thicke
Vol. 10: R. Kelly
Vol. 11: Fall Out Boy
Vol. 12: TLC
Vol. 13: Pink
Vol. 14: Queen
Vol. 15: Steely Dan
Vol. 16: Trick Daddy
Vol. 17: Paramore
Vol. 18: Elton John
Vol. 19: Missy Elliott
Vol. 20: Mariah Carey
Vol. 21: The Pretenders
Vol. 22: "Weird Al" Yankovic
Vol. 23: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Vol. 24: Foo Fighters
Vol. 25: Counting Crows
Vol. 26: T.I.
Vol. 27: Jackson Browne
Vol. 28: Usher
Vol. 29: Mary J. Blige
Vol. 30: The Black Crowes
Vol. 31: Ne-Yo
Vol. 32: Blink-182
Vol. 33: One Direction
Vol. 34: Kelly Clarkson
Vol. 35: The B-52's
Vol. 36: Ludacris
Vol. 37: They Might Be Giants
Vol. 38: T-Pain
Vol. 39: Snoop Dogg
Vol. 40: Ciara
Vol. 41: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Vol. 42: Dwight Yoakam
Vol. 43: Demi Lovato
Vol. 44: Prince
Vol. 45: Duran Duran
Vol. 46: Rihanna
Vol. 47: Janet Jackson
Vol. 48: Sara Bareilles
Vol. 49: Motley Crue
Vol. 50: The Who
Vol. 51: Coldplay
Vol. 52: Alicia Keys
Vol. 53: Stone Temple Pilots
Vol. 54: David Bowie
Vol. 55: The Eagles
Vol. 56: The Beatles
Vol. 57: Beyonce
Vol. 58: Beanie Sigel
Vol. 59: A Tribe Called Quest
Vol. 60: Cheap Trick
Vol. 61: Guns N' Roses
Vol. 62: The Posies
Vol. 63: The Time
Vol. 64: Gucci Mane
Vol. 65: Violent Femmes
Vol. 66: Red Hot Chili Peppers
Vol. 67: Maxwell
Vol. 68: Parliament-Funkadelic
Vol. 69: Chevelle
Vol. 70: Ray Parker Jr. and Raydio
Vol. 71: Fantasia
Vol. 72: Heart
Vol. 73: Pitbull
Vol. 74: Nas
Vol. 75: Monica
Vol. 76: The Cars
Vol. 77: 112
Vol. 78: 2Pac
Vol. 79: Nelly
Vol. 80: Meat Loaf
Vol. 81: AC/DC
Vol. 82: Bruce Springsteen
Vol. 83: Pearl Jam
Vol. 84: Green Day
Vol. 85: George Michael and Wham!
Vol. 86: New Edition
Vol. 87: Chuck Berry
Vol. 88: Electric Light Orchestra
Vol. 89: Chic
Vol. 90: Journey
Vol. 91: Yes
Vol. 92: Soundgarden

Saturday, June 03, 2017

















The latest installment of my Noisey column The Unstreamables is about the 1995 debut album by The Geraldine Fibbers, Lost Somewhere Between The Earth And My Home, a great record that was recently reissued on vinyl but still remains unavailable on streaming services. 

Monthly Report: May 2017 Albums

Friday, June 02, 2017






























1. Paramore - After Laughter
It's a little weird to say that one of the best rock bands in the world right now is essentially a singer who's been signed to a major label since she was 14 and a revolving door of band members who participate as contracted employees. But Paramore has been consistently great for 10 years, and I'm happy that Zac Farro is back on board, I always loved his drumming on Riot! and I get the sense from his solo project that he's a big part of the aesthetic direction on this album. Their last album, Paramore, was one of my favorite albums of the decade, and I loved its sprawl and variety. But After Laughter feels like a deliberately, shrewdly scaled-down followup, 20 minutes shorter and with a much more focused aesthetic. It's taken a little more time for me to hunker down and get on its wavelength, but I'm really enjoying it, "Fake Happy" and "Rose-Colored Boy" are early favorites. While most 21st century acts use glossy '80s sounds for shiny happy pop records, After Laughter really gets to the heart of how the bright and tight sound of new wave was usually employed in the service of really nervous, anxious music with dark emotions at the core. Here's the 2017 albums Spotify playlist I add records to as I listen to them.

2. Harry Styles - Harry Styles
As someone who thinks One Direction's Four is a masterpiece and that Harry Styles sang (and even wrote) as impressively with the group as he does on his solo debut, I'm a bit exasperated by how predictably people that never gave the band's music a chance are falling over themselves to embrace the "surprising" "mature" solo album. It's good, though, I think the vocals and the production are carrying the songs a bit, but "Ever Since New York" in particular is pretty great.

3. Big Walnuts Yonder - Big Walnuts Yonder
Mike Watt and Nels Cline are two of my favorite living musicians, and it's always especially exciting when they make a record together. This group also includes Greg Saunier of Deerhoof and Nick Reinhart of Tera Melos, and it's a pretty fun, relaxed record, Reinhart sings the more melodic tracks and there's some Watt spiels and some knotty instrumental sections, really just feels like some guys who are all really good at their instruments giving each other space to get weird and creative.

4. various artists - The Bob's Burgers Music Album
After 7 seasons on the air, "Bob's Burgers" finally has a soundtrack album, and they really just kind of went nuts and threw everything they could into it, 112 tracks over nearly 2 hours, all those weird little songs over the ending credits and memorable moments like the hybrid Die Hard / Working Girl musical and Fred Armisen singing "Sex Sex Sex Sex Sex." A lot of the music on the show is made by Chris Maxwell, whose old band Skeleton Key I just wrote about, so it's fun to have a record of that side of his work.

5. T-Pain & Lil Wayne - T-Wayne
It's been about a decade since T-Pain completely changed the sound of popular music, and Lil Wayne assisted by being the first major rapper to adopt his use of AutoTune and put his own spin on it. So for T-Pain to finally leak 8 tracks of the duo album they started but never finished way back then is kind of like a weird little bit of pop archaeology. I actually included in a list of 13 unreleased Wayne projects that I wrote over five years ago. And it's fascinating to hear now since both guys were near the peak of their abilities when they made these songs and haven't been at that level in a long time, but it's notable that T-Pain outraps Wayne (without AutoTune) for much of the album. "Waist Of A Wasp" sounds like it could've been a hit then and like it still might become one now. Also I'm kid of glad that this project has reclaimed the name T-Wayne after that lame "Nasty Freestyle" guy ran with it. Listen to it on DatPiff.

6. Gucci Mane - Droptopwop
Droptopwop is the 4th full length project Gucci Mane has released in the year since he got out of jail, which is actually not even that many by his old standard. But even as much as I hate some of his recent superstar-assisted singles like "Both" and "Make Love," I have to admit that Gucci's been pretty great on guest verses lately, and a 10 track project with a producer at the top of his game like Metro Boomin was a smart move. "Met Gala" is one of those great little rare moments where you hear Gucci try a flow you haven't heard him do a hundred times before.

7. Logic - Everybody
For the last four or five years, I've been kind of watching Logic's career blossom from afar, and sometimes it really irritated me that this really earnest kid from Gaithersburg was getting bigger than almost any other rapper from Maryland. But I got asked to interview him for Rolling Stone the day his latest album came out, and in the course of listening to the album and then discussing it with him, I kinda felt like I came to a better understanding of who he is and how he got here and what he's good at. "Everybody," which sounds to me like an almost deliberate rewrite of Kendrick Lamar's "Alright," really grates on me, but "Ink Blot" and "America" and "Confess" are pretty strong, and the album's whole hippie positivity vibe is pretty endearing.

8. Don Bryant - Don't Give Up On Love
Don Bryant is one of those old Memphis soul guys, wrote hits for his wife Ann Peebles and other Hi Records in the '60s and '70s, and started making his own albums in the '90s. So many younger artists try to get this sound these days but a lot of retro soul can really just sound forced and cheesy to me, so I appreciate being able to hear someone from that actual generation preserve its traditions and write some pretty strong new songs in that style.

9. Snoop Dogg - Neva Left
Snoop has a stronger discography than he usually gets credit for, and the more recent albums that have had fewer commercial pressures have usually been pretty relaxed and enjoyable. Neva Left has a 1992 photo of young Snoop on the cover and opens with tracks that sample early '90s Wu Tang and A Tribe Called Quest, but it pretty quickly abandons any pretense of a theme and becomes a grab bag of all the different kind of Snoop songs and collaborations you'd expect (contemporary guys like K Camp, other '90s guys like Redman and Method Man, a weed song with Wiz, a reggae track) and odds and ends like a remix of his BadBadNotGood track and, oddly, a remix of his 1996 version of Biz Markie's "Vapors." Fun record, though, very little of it isn't enjoyable.

10. Little Steven - Soulfire
I sometimes do the lyric teleprompter for concerts at the Kennedy Center, and a few weeks ago I worked on their John Lennon tribute, which had a lot of really great performers, including Steven Van Zandt. It was fun to watch him in rehearsal, going over details of arrangements and giving band members instructions, it was like having a little window into what an E Street Band soundcheck is probably like. His new record is fun, lots of big booming horn arrangements, some new recordings of songs he'd written for other artists, my favorite performance is "Saint Valentine's Day."

Worst Album of the Month: Bryson Tiller - True To Self
Bryson Tiller's first album, with the irksome title TRAPSOUL, was a serious sleeper hit, going platinum with the help of no big guests and only one track by a known producer. It really struck me as a guy who can barely sing intoning vapid Instagram captions over trendy post-Drake productions, but the amount of buzz he had was undeniable and I wanted to give him a chance that maybe he'd come into his own musically on his second album. This one is probably even worse, though, it's 19 tracks and just goes on forever.