TV Diary

Friday, July 29, 2022






a) "Rap Sh!t"
It's interesting to look back now at the 2015 Stereogum piece I wrote about the future of scripted television about hip hop in the wake of "Empire"'s success. Of all of the shows in development that I wrote about at the time, "Atlanta" was the only one that eventually made it on the air, and it wound up increasingly disinterested in storylines about the music industry or the life of a rapper over the course of its run. The quickly canceled "Queens" felt like a slightly more realistic take on the "Empire"-style rap soap opera, and "Dave" is kind of a more on-the-nose version of what people thought "Atlanta" was going to be. But 3 episodes in, I feel like Issa Rae's new show "Rap Sh!t" is pretty close to what I think a good comedy about aspiring rappers could be (not as good a show as "Atlanta," sure, but more on-topic). Aida Osman and KaMillion are both great leads, their 'if Rapsody tried to be a City Girl' group is inherently funny but it feels like the show isn't making rap or the current female rap zeitgeist the butt of the joke. 

b) "Everything's Trash"
"Everything's Trash" is a new Freeform sitcom starring Phoebe Robinson, who co-hosts the "2 Dope Queens" podcast and HBO series with Jessica Williams. And it's pretty much just another sitcom about a podcaster, like "Rap Sh!t" it's very much in the world of Instagram and Twitter and all these social media buzzwords, but it feels like it doesn't have much of a story beyond that and the on-the-nose dialogue makes me cringe more. 

c) "The Rehearsal"
I've never been that into "Nathan For You," or for that matter John Wilson or Joe Pera, that whole overwhelmingly mild flat effect style of dry comedy that some people adore these days. I had some hopes that "The Rehearsal" would be something different from Nathan Fielder, and in some ways it is a bigger, more ambitious and absurd show, but it also feels as close in tone to "Nathan For You" as possible, and that watching-paint-dry pace can really wear me down, especially on HBO where some of the episodes are over 40 minutes, and it sometimes feels like you're just waiting 10 minutes for that one big laugh that comes every now and again. Those big moments almost make it worth it sometimes, but I dunno, I can't say I'm in the fan club. 

d) "Keep Breathing"
Melissa Barrera was good in "Vida" and In The Heights so I was looking forward to her new Netflix series "Keep Breathing." But carrying a story that's basically about one character surviving alone in the wilderness asks a lot of an actor, and the execution here feels a little hit and miss to me. I understand why shows or movies like this often go heavy on flashbacks to give the story more settings and characters but it's so rarely done well to make the main narrative more interesting. 

e) "Paper Girls"
"Paper Girls" is based on a comic book series that predates "Stranger Things," but it's about a group of midwestern '80s middle schoolers stumbling into a crazy sci-fi situation, so it's gonna have that vibe for people. I like that it's a little darker and more noir, though, good atmosphere in the first episode and kept me intrigued about the premise. 

f) "Resident Evil"
I don't know why Netflix decided to release 2 new "Resident Evil" series 6 days apart. But the animated "Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness," which I already wrote about, is really really bad. So they maybe they released it first to make the live action "Resident Evil" look better. I never really played the games or watched the movies so I don't have much frame of reference, but I like it, pretty good action movie production values, decent cast. 

g) "SkyMed"
Aaron Ashmore and Shawn Ashmore are probably the most successful twin sibling actors that people don't necessarily realize are twins, because they've never done anything together and they've both been in a ton of supporting roles and moderately successful projects without becoming super famous, so you might just think you're seeing Iceman from X-Men every time. My wife insists she can tell the difference and prefers Aaron, but when I put on the first episode of "SkyMed," she guessed wrong that it was Shawn (I think Aaaron's beard threw her off). "SkyMed" is a decent Canadian medical drama, starring Natasha Calis from another decent Canadian medical drama, "Nurses," pleasant but I don't think I'll keep watching it. 

"Ms. Marvel" was pretty good but honestly I don't know if it was any better than this much lower budget Disney Channel show about a 13-year-old girl and her uncle who become superheroes with magic luchador masks, it's goofy but charming. 

Another entertaining Disney Channel superhero show, except it's about a family of villains. Apparently Isabella Pappas is an award-winning stage actress but she's good at this sort of campy comedic evil character, she really has a star quality. 

This new Netflix series is just the worst kind of 'animated sitcom for adults,' like "Family Guy" but much dumber with more swearing and sex jokes. I didn't realize until I put it on that it was created by the same guy as "Brickleberry," which would've let me know what to expect (and to not even try watching it). 

Like many big animated films, Kung Fu Panda has had TV spinoffs without the big-name stars from the original movie, and the Kung Fu Panda shows had the distinction of a lead voice actor, Mick Wingert, who sounded eerily similar to Jack Black. So I kind of feel bad for Wingert that Jack Black once again voiced Po for this latest series on Netflix, but I mean, it is better to hear the real thing. 

I thought this Netflix series about Thai boxing was a full-on drama but apparently it's a hybrid where the interviews are the real people in the stories, somehow I missed that. Maybe things are getting too blurry in this weird docudrama genre, or maybe I just wasn't really paying attention anyway. 

I love seeing a sort of contemporary rock critic like Jessica Hopper who's only a few years older than me get a chance to directing a cable documentary series like this Epix miniseries. I've only watched two episodes so far but it's already covered a huge amount of ground, I particularly liked Kira Roessler's segment and Chaka Khan being really frank and unfiltered about the good and bad of her career. 

I feel like anarchists have always been kind of a joke, at least the kind who identify as anarchists and try to build anarchist communities. And this HBO Max docuseries is about an annual anarchist convention and a community that's kind of driven apart by some of them getting really into cryptocurrency and trying to be, I dunno, capitalist anarchists, it's kind of hilarious. 

The D.B. Cooper mystery is enduringly fascinating for good reason, but I feel like they didn't have anything new in terms of insight or research for footage to make this Netflix show worth making or watching. 

I thought this was purely going to be about the Victoria's Secret brand being problematic but apparently the CEO was also close to Jeffrey Epstein, fucking yikes. 

Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff is like a larger-than-life figure if you've ever spent any amount of time listening to '90s/2000s New York rap so it's cool to get a better sense of the whole story in this Showtime docuseries co-directed by Nas. 

This is by far the less popular of the two What We Do In The Shadows spinoff series, but it's definitely worth watching, Officer Kyle Minogue is one of those ridiculous characters who gets funnier over the time as you see him react poorly in more and more insane situations. 

s) "Physical"
The last few years, there have been so many period pieces on television that are essentially about fictional woman trailblazers in male-dominated industries, sometimes in parallel to real life figures but not really closely based on them -- "GLOW," "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel," "Minx," even "Halt And Catch Fire" and "The Deuce" to an extent. Almost all of these shows are excellent and very good, but sometimes they can also feel like a very sanitized, idealized wish fulfillment that makes me curious of what the real women's stories from those settings were like. "Physical" feels darker and more ambitious than those other shows, and Rose Byrne gives a powerhouse performance as a woman suffering from bulimia and constantly being badgered with self-doubt and self-hate from a voice in her head, but I don't know if it's actually as good as those other shows, which tend to have a better idea of their comedic perspective and use their ensembles better. And "Physical" is one of the weakest of these shows in terms of feeling true to the period, in every episode Byrne seems to say something like "lifestyle brand" or "I feel very attacked right now" that nobody was saying in the 1980s. 

"For All Mankind" is another Apple TV+ show that seems to buckle under the weight of its own ambition. Each season leaps forward a decade or more, so in three seasons we've jumped from the '60s to the '90s, in an alternate history where America and Russia's space race never ended and we wound up colonizing the moon and getting people on Mars much quicker than anything that's happened in real life (and once again, in this version of history we have more female astronauts and a female president in the '90s, so it's also kind of a feelgood feminist fantasy). Unfortunately, that means that the only characters that are still around fro the first season have to pretend to be much older with bad wigs and some of the best characters have already passed away. Watching season 3, I find myself missing Gordo and Tracy Stevens and hating all the storylines with their creepy son Danny. 

u) "Westworld"
"Westworld" is probably the epitome of a show where ambitious doesn't necessarily mean better. The show's ratings and general place in the zeitgeist have really plummeted over the course of 4 seasons, I feel like the first season was a fairly complete storyline and some of Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy's attempts to keep shifting the reality and keep you guessing have just exhausted or confused or alienate people. Personally, I'm just annoyed that Aaron Paul is now one of the main characters on the show, but there have been some pretty cool moments in this season so far, I'm still along for the ride even if the show definitely peaked early.

v) "Evil"
Now that I've finally gotten on board with Paramount+ I've been catching up on the 2nd and 3rd seasons of "Evil," and man, what an insanely creative and bizarre show. I wish they had a bigger budget because those CBS production values really look make the special effects look like crap sometimes, but the cast and the writing are superb so I can forgive it easily. 

w) "In The Dark"
The CW canceled "In The Dark" before the 4th season started and I'm fine with this show running its course, I'm kind of over all the exhausting twists and turns of the story, but I'm still gonna watch it and hope things turn out alright for Murphy and her friends. 

A comedy on Showtime in its second season, kind of pleasant and relatable but I just never get that into it, fades into the background when I put it on. 

y) "Solar Opposites"
This show will also be the kind of inferior little brother to "Rick & Morty," but it's grown on me. I think they've realized at this point that the 'people in the wall' storylines are often more interesting than the main characters and have leaned into it a little. 

z) "Full Frontal with Samantha Bee"
For a while there, it felt like "The Daily Show" had completely changed the late night landscape and its alumni all had their own topical shows on every channel. That's still kind of the case -- John Oliver is the clear reigning host on HBO, and Michael Che is still on "SNL" and Trevor Noah is holding down the original show, and Jon Stewart has his little Apple TV+ show that nobody watched, and Stephen Colbert is on CBS, although at this point what he does has more to do with what David Letterman did in that timeslot than "The Daily Show" or "The Colbert Report." But it definitely feels like "The Daily Show" format has peaked and is on the decline to some extent, and this week Samantha Bee's 6 years unceremonious came to an end as pretty much all of TBS's original programming gets slashed after the Discover-Warner merger. It appears they won't get to do a finale episode, since the last episode aired over a month ago (which Sam Bee taped while she had Covid, which kinda adds insult to injury I guess). And it's a shame, because this show had some great moments and had remained in my weekly rotation alongside John Oliver. 

2:39 PM

Deep Album Cuts Vol. 265: The Bangles

Thursday, July 28, 2022






Chris O'Leary, best known for the excellent Bowie Songs Blog, started a new site a while back called 64 Quartets where each entry is about a different 4-piece band. There's only a handful of entries so far, and one of them was an extremely thorough and granular entry about The Bangles that really gave me a deeper appreciation for a band I hadn't given a whole lot of thought to. 

The Bangles deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Call On Me
2. Mary Street
3. Want You
4. Dover Beach
5. All About You
6. James
7. Silent Treatment
8. More Than Meets The Eye
9. Let It Go
10. In A Different Light
11. Standing In The Hallway
12. Return Post
13. September Gurls
14. Not Like You
15. Complicated Girl
16. Glitter Years
17. Bell Jar
18. Watching The Sky
19. Some Dreams Come True
20. Where Were You When I Needed You
21. Single By Choice
22. Grateful
23. Sweet And Tender Romance
24. Mesmerized
25. Talking In My Sleep

Track 1 from the "Getting Out of Hand" single (1981)
Tracks 2 and 3 from The Bangles EP (1982)
Tracks 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 from All Over The Place (1984)
Tracks 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 from Different Light (1986)
Tracks 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19 from Everything (1988)
Track 20 from Greatest Hits (1990)
Tracks 21 and 22 from Doll Revolution (2003)
Tracks 23 and 24 from Sweetheart Of The Sun (2011)
Track 25 from 3 x 4: The Bangles, The Three O'Clock, The Dream Syndicate, Rain Parade (2018)

The Bangles will always be tied to The Go-Go's in the public's mind. The two biggest all-female bands of the 1980s, and really of all time, were both from Los Angeles and both, for a time, signed to IRS Records and managed by Miles Copeland. And unfortunately, both got chewed up and spit out by the music industry so quickly that they initially broke up after just 3 albums. 

The Go-Go's came along first and had some Germs-adjacent L.A. punk cred, while The Bangles were associated with the Paisley Underground '60s psych rock revival and had beautiful harmonies and jangly guitars, so musically they were fairly different (although The Bangles did play gigs with The Descendants and Black Flag, so they weren't completely separated from the punk scene). But there was some accidental sense of torch-passing there more than any direct competition -- The Bangles released their debut album a couple months after The Go-Go's released the last album of their original run and were close to splitting up. And to their credit the bands seem pretty friendly with each other -- Susannah Hoffs co-wrote a track on the Go-Go's reunion album, Charlotte Caffey of the Go-Go's co-wrote a 2003 Bangles single, and Vicki Peterson filled in as a touring Go-Go for a while in the '90s.

The Bangles haven't been afforded quite the same level of prestige of The Go-Go's as the trailblazers who came out of the gate first (documentary, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, etc.). They were technically bigger in terms of RIAA plaques and Hot 100 stats, but it felt like they got pushed around by their label more into making records full of session players that wasn't really representative of their sound and their influences, especially when two songs from outside writers, "Walk Like An Egyptian" and "Manic Monday," became huge smashes. And the public focus on Susanna Hoffs as the breakout star of the group kind of did a disservice to how the band had 4 talented singers and songwriters, with Vicki Peterson as an equally capable frontwoman, former Runaway Michael Steele a natural rock star, and even drummer Debbi Peterson singing lead on the closest thing their first album had to a hit, "Going Down To Liverpool." So it's fun to strip away the hits and get a better sense of who The Bangles really are. 

Before the Paisley Underground scene started to come together, Susannah Hoffs played in a band called Unconscious with her childhood friend/sometime boyfriend David Roback, later of Rain Parade and then Mazzy Star. And the debut Bangles single that got them signed to IRS, "Getting Out Of Hand," had a b-side, "Call On Me," that was co-written by Roback, conceived as an answer song to Beatles deep cut "I'm Looking Through You." That single, and the group's self-titled EP, are collected on the 2014 compilation Ladies and Gentlemen...The Bangles! with other early tracks. When the Bangles broke up, Columbia released the first of many best-of compilations. And the 1984 b-side "Where Were You When I Needed You," a cover of a minor '60s hit by The Grass Roots, was one of the non-album tracks included on 1990's Greatest Hits, which went platinum. 

The Bangles' debut, All Over The Place, was the only one of their '80s albums were they were more or less left to make the record they wanted to make, and it's excellent, by far their best, but it didn't sell. Different Light and Everything have some insanely slick stuff on it, but there are still songs that showcase the Bangles well as a band - "Return Post" has a really cool outro where the band sort of moves between a swing rhythm and straight time in an impressive way. Michael Steele didn't sing lead on the band's most famous songs outside of her one verse on "Walk Like An Egyptian," but all three of her tracks on Everything are standouts (including "Complicated Girl" and "Glitter Years"). "Let It Go" is probably the prime example of all 4 members of the band writing and singing together. And the presence of a cover of Big Star's "September Gurls" on a triple platinum album like Different Light really highlights how unusual The Bangles were, the kind of nostalgic power pop record collector nerds that usually toil on the margins actually getting to the top of the charts for once. 

Somewhat inevitably, media's focus on Susanna Hoffs seemed to hasten the group's breakup, although Hoffs never really got a solo career off the ground (her self-titled 1996 abum has three songs co-written by Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse, which is fascinating to hear). And the band seemed to get along better after reuniting and making a couple independent albums without label A&Rs pushing them around to make a hit. In 2013, The Bangles played a couple of shows with three other Paisley Underground bands -- The Dream Syndicate, Rain Parade, and The Three O'Clock. And in 2018, all four bands made an album, 3 x 4, in which they covered each other's songs. The Bangles covered  Rain Parade's "Talking In My Sleep," along with The Dream Syndicate and  The Three O'Clock's songs, and The Bangles songs that the other bands cover on the album are all, naturally, early stuff from before they really hit the mainstream. Rain Parade covered "The Real World," one of David Roback's last recordings before he died in 2018. 

It's sad to think that the phenomenon of an all-female instrument-playing rock band band becoming successful and mainstream famous kind of lived very brief life through these two bands in the '80s, with The Runaways paving the way for them in the '70s. The most commercially successful all-female band since then would probably be either L7 or HAIM, although Bikini Kill and Sleater-Kinney would have them both beat in terms of overall influence and legacy. Maybe it's progress that there have been a lot more bands with men and women playing together since the '80s? I don't know, but women have definitely been keeping punk and alternative scenes alive for in recent decades, and I've seen some great bands comprised of women at the DIY level, and I don't know if they'd tell you they love The Bangles or be embarrassed by the thought of them, but The Bangles were kind of awesome. 

5:02 AM

Deep Album Cuts Vol. 264: Ted Leo/Pharmacists

Wednesday, July 27, 2022























Ted Leo is one of my favorite living songwriters, and two years ago when he turned 50, I celebrated his entire body of work with a list of his best songs for Spin. 

Ted Leo/Pharmacists deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Counting Down The Hours
2. Parallel Or Together?
3. Hearts Of Oak
4. Some Beginner's Mind
5. Lonsdale Avenue
6. Mourning In America
7. Head In The Freezer
8. Timorous Me
9. The Ballad Of The Sin Eater
10. Abner Louima V. Gov. Pete Wilson
11. Little Dawn
12. The Sword In The Stone
13. La Costa Brava
14. Used To Believe
15. Where Was My Brain
16. Paranoia (Never Enough)
17. The One Who Got Us Out
18. Loyal To My Sorrowful Country
19. A Bottle Of Buckie
20. 2nd Ave, 11A.M.
21. Biomusicology

Track 7 from tej leo (?), Rx/pharmacists (1999)
Track 10 from the Treble In Trouble EP (2000)
Tracks 2, 8 and 21and from The Tyrrany Of Distance (2001)
Tracks 3, 9 and 20 from Hearts Of Oak (2003)
Track 12 from the Tell Balgeary, Balgury Is Dead EP (2003)
Tracks 1, 11 and 17 from Shake The Sheets (2004)
Track 18 from the Sharkbite Sessions EP (2005)
Tracks 4, 13 and 19 from Living With The Living (2007)
Track 16 from the Rapid Response EP (2008)
Tracks 6 and 15 from The Brutalist Bricks (2010)
Tracks 5 and 14 from The Hanged Man (2017)

Unlike the Spin piece, I only included Ted Leo's solo work and Pharmacists records in this playlist, so no Chisel or The Both or other projects. But I wanted to touch on a variety of albums and EPs and get a bit of his wide musical range in here. Ted Leo has released some music on Bandcamp over the past year, 5 originals and covers of Stereolab and Traffic songs, that haven't made it to streaming services, so his latest work isn't represented here. But I'm really happy that he's still putting out music here or there. It bums me out that he didn't quite make it to that indie-famous level where he can really live comfortably off music and have his pick of labels, he was writing and performing at such a consistent level of excellence in the 2000s and built up a sizable fanbase, but didn't quite get to that next tier. 

I have felt vindicated over the years that a lot of my favorite Ted Leo songs that weren't singles eventually became live staples and/or fan favorites, including "Timorous Me," "Little Dawn," and "La Costa Brava." But there are others that never caught on in the same way that I love a lot -- "Some Beginner's Mind" just kicks ass, it kind of lunges around in a tempo that could be sluggish but Leo and drummer Chris Wilson put so much life into it. And I still wasn't able to cram a lot of songs I love onto the playlist, although those still at least got into the Spin list. 

5:01 AM

Deep Album Cuts Vol. 263: The Delfonics

Tuesday, July 26, 2022








Earlier this month, The Delfonics lead singer William "Poogie" Hart died at the age of 77. His brother Wilbert Hart is now the only surviving original Delfonic, and I wanted to look back at their catalog. 

The Delfonics deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. You Are Gone
2. Can You Remember
3. Losing You
4. Somebody Loves You
5. Face It Girl, It's Over
6. My New Love
7. You Can't Be Loving Him
8. Everytime I See My Baby
9. I Gave To You
10. Down Is Up, Up Is Down
11. Think About Me
12. Baby I Love You
13. Baby I Miss You
14. Delfonics Theme
15. Round & Round
16. I'm A Man
17. Too Late
18. Start All Over Again
19. Can't Go On Living
20. Your Name
21. The Phoney
22. Forever New
23. Stand Up
24. Silently

Tracks 1, 2 and 3 from La La Means I Love You (1968)
Tracks 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 from Sound Of Sexy Soul (1969)
Tracks 9, 10, 11 and 12 from The Delfonics (1970)
Tracks 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 from Tell Me This Is A Dream (1972)
Tracks 18 and 19 from Alive & Kicking (1974)
Tracks 20 and 21 from Delfonics Return (1981)
Track 22 from Forever New (1999)
Tracks 23 and 24 from Adrian Younge Presents The Delfonics (2013)

The Delfonics were a big part of the Philadelphia sound that revolutionized R&B in the '70s, recording for the Philly Groove label with producer Thom Bell, who co-wrote most of the originals on their first three albums with William Hart. They didn't have a terribly long run as hitmakers and are generally remembered for their two top 10 hits and the songs that were sampled or interpolated on other artists' hits. But The Delfonics really went for it for a few years, landing 15 songs on the Hot 100 just off of their first four albums. 

"Delfonics Theme" appeared on both their self-titled relese and Tell Me This Is A Dream, but the song had more lyrics and I think a better arrangement the second time around on the latter album. A couple of the group's later albums, Alive & Kicking and Delfonics Return, aren't on Spotify in full, although songs from them are available on compilations. Wilbert Hart released a solo album, Fonic Zone, in 2005 that's erroneously listed as a Delfonics album on the group's Wikipedia page. 

The Delfonics have been sampled by a lot of modern hip hop and R&B artists, mostly famously when their hit "Ready Or Not Here I Come" inspired classics by the Fugees, Missy Elliott, and Three 6 Mafia. But a lot of their deep cuts have been sampled too -- "I Gave To You" was sampled by Kanye West in Teyana Taylor's "Gonna Love Me," "My New Love" was sampled by Mac Miller, "Round & Round" was sampled by Boot Camp Clik, "You Can't Be Loving Him" was sampled by Skepta, "Start All Over Again" was sampled by Raekwon, and "Your Name" was sampled by Smoke DZA and Pete Rock. In 2013, the Harris brothers made one last Delfonics album together with hip hop producer Adrian Younge. And a lot of the songs from Adrian Younge Presents: The Delfonics also got turned into samples over the next few years: "Stand Up" were sampled by Royce Da 5'9" and DJ Premier, "Silently" was sampled by ScHoolboy Q, and other tracks were sampled by The Alchemist and Ghostface Killah. 

5:00 AM

Sunday, July 24, 2022

 






I'm on All Things Considered this weekend talking about Jack White's Entering Heaven Alive. 

8:01 AM

Saturday, July 23, 2022







I interviewed Infinity Knives and Brian Ennals for The Baltimore Banner about their excellent new album King Cobra. 

8:00 AM

Movie Diary

Friday, July 22, 2022






a) Cha Cha Real Smooth 
This was pretty charming, but it felt more like a calling card for writer/director/star Cooper Raiff to go on and do big things than an especially good or particularly memorable movie in and of itself. The aimless recent college grad living with his parents and falling for an older woman who has a kid, I dunno, it all felt like a hundred other indie dramedies, but Raiff and Dakota Johnson had enough chemistry that it was a pleasant little diversion with a couple poignant moments. 

b) The Northman
I think like a lot of people I was on board for this pretty much as soon as I saw that this cast and this director were doing a viking movie. And the fact that it was based on the same Scandinavian legend as Hamlet made the story a bit familiar and predictable, but also, well, satisfyingly epic and Shakespearean, they really stuck the landing. 

c) Respect 
I think part of why reasons music biopics frequently suck is that it feels like so many boxes need to get ticked for them to even be passable, and the stars rarely align for that to happen. But Respect had so much going for it: an EGOT-level actor/singer who looked and sounded the part, a sizable budget, and the approval of the subject, whose death 3 years before the movie's release primed the public to want to see their life story on film. And having a recent subpar competing TV project to compare it to, "Genius: Aretha," really set it up to be an easy win, if not the best music biopic since Ray. But Respect is merely good, with a handful of really electric scenes (like Aretha working out the "Respect" harmonies with her sisters), too little of Aretha's real, larger-than-life personality, and some of the same cheesy, muddled ideas about how to dramatize her life than "Genius" had. 

d) Old 
I like M. Night Shyamalan more than the average crank, and I will always root for him as this sort of unusual talent who hits it out of the park at times and is his own worst enemy at other times. But I kinda hated Split and Glass and was hoping for the best with him kind of returning to the kind of project that seems perfect for him on paper, even if it was adapted from a novel and he historically does best with his own ideas. Old is hard to watch, but some of that is due to some effective horror filmmaking where you feel the anxiety and fear of the characters, and some of that is due to Shyamalan's erratic choices. The premise is a little more interesting than the oft-mocked "beach that makes you old" summary and the way it unfolds produces a few good memorable moments. And I will say that I think a lot of movies fall apart when different actors have to portray a character at different ages, but they totally nailed it in Old and made it feel fairly seamless, which was a really accomplishment. All in all, it's kind of a mess that recalls The Happening more than any of his other movies, but it definitely had some pieces of a good movie in there, another more conventional horror director probably could've done something a lot better with the material. 

d) A Quiet Place Part II
I really liked A Quiet Place, and I particularly loved the ending, which kind of went out on a high note and left a little of the climactic action to the imagination. Making a sequel that picks right back up there maybe undermines that moment a little bit, but I still enjoy being in this world with these characters, even if it's frequently tense and terrifying. This did all the things a good sequel should do: a gripping flashback scene, letting the supporting players from the first movie (Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe) take a little more of the spotlight, add a good new character (Cillian Murphy, clearly a pro at surviving apocalypses after 28 Days Later), let you see the monsters in broad daylight a little more, etc. That said, when the movie ends, they've just survived a few immediate predicaments but there's no salvation or end in sight, so it just feels like they're setting up more sequels with no real arc and threatening to become a "Walking Dead" sort of endless horror survival franchise. 

f) No Time To Die
Obviously Daniel Craig is the biggest factor in how good the Craig-era Bond movies were. ut I think they also did a fantastic job with casting the other parts, especially the villains. And Rami Malek was up there with Mads Mikkelsen and Javier Bardem as one of the best recent Bond villains, even if it kind of felt like he got less screentime than them to really make an impression. There were some great action sequences this one, and it felt like the fun little Ana de Armas sequence was probably Phoebe Waller-Bridge's primary contribution to the screenplay, wouldn't have minded that being a bigger piece of the movie. 

g) The Bob's Burgers Movie
It's hard to make a feature spun off from a series feel like a real theatrical movie while the show is still airing, especially an animated feature. And "Bob's Burgers" isn't as iconic as "The Simpsons" to really still feel like as much of a spectacle, but then they're still closer to their peak after 12 seasons than "The Simpsons" was after 18 seasons when The Simpsons Movie came out. So it just feels like a pretty good extended 2-part episode with some fancier shading, but it was still pretty funny. 

h) The Sea Beast
When left his own devices, my 7-year-old will usually just watch "Spongebob" or, even more annoyingly, Minecraft YouTubers, so I usually try to get him to check out new animated films when they come out just to try something else. And I put this new Netflix feature on recently but honestly neither of us wound up being too into it, it wasn't bad but a little boring. 

i) Sing 2
My kids both liked the first Sing, but this was another one I kind of put on one day that didn't garner much interest. The additions of Bono, Halsey and Pharrell to the voice cast were fun, these aren't great movies but they're pretty cute and some of the musical performances are pretty good. 

j) The Black Godfather 
I had heard the name Clarence Avant before watching The Black Godfather, but I really didn't appreciate the scope of his career in the music industry until I saw the documentary. It seems like he was just everywhere for decades, managing everyone from Sarah Vaughn to Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis and signing Bill Withers. Lots of great interviews and stories, although it feels like they may have sanitized his image a little bit and left out anything that might've been salacious or unflattering, especially given that the movie was released by Netflix, and Avant's daughter is married to Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos. 

7:50 AM

Deep Album Cuts Vol. 262: Nicki Minaj

Thursday, July 21, 2022






Last week I did a Drake playlist, and since Drake, Nicki Minaj and Lil Wayne are doing a Young Money reunion concert in Toronto in August, I might as well do the Nicki playlist now too. 

Nicki Minaj deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Keys Under Palm Trees
2. Easy (f/ Gucci Mane and Rocko)
3. Can Anybody Hear Me?
4. Fuck Da Bullshit (with Lil Wayne, Drake, Gudda Gudda and Birdman)
5. Here I Am
6. Roman's Revenge (f/ Eminem)
7. Blazin' (f/ Kanye West)
8. Muny
9. Come On A Cone
10. Roman Holiday
11. Champion (f/ Nas, Drake and Jeezy)
12. Masquerade
13. I Endorse These Strippers (f/ Tyga and Thomas Brinx)
14. Senile (with Tyga and Lil Wayne)
15. Four Door Aventador
16. Want Some More (f/ Jeremih)
17. Favorite (f/ Jeremih)
18. Win Again
19. Coco Chanel (f/ Foxy Brown)
20. Miami
21. Come See About Me

Tracks 1, 2 and 3 from Beam Me Up Scotty (2009)
Track 4 from Young Money's We Are Young Money (2009)
Tracks 5, 6 and 7 from Pink Friday (2010)
Track 8 from Pink Friday (Deluxe Edition) (2010)
Tracks 9, 10 and 11 from Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded (2012)
Track 12 from Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded (Deluxe Edition) (2012)
Track 13 from Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded: The Re-Up (2013)
Track 14 from Young Money's Rise Of An Empire (2014)
Tracks 15, 16 and 17 from The Pinkprint (2014)
Track 18 from The Pinkprint (Deluxe Edition) (2014)
Tracks 19, 20 and 21 from Queen (2018)

The Young Money era was pretty crazy. There's really never been a time when 3 of the biggest rappers in the world where on the same label and putting music out constantly and collaborating regularly, for like a decade. You could make an argument for Aftermath in the 2000s, but Dr. Dre wasn't really releasing solo music the same time as 50 Cent. I was a huge fan of Lil Wayne who kind of found his proteges disappointing, but it's hard to argue that Drake and Nicki didn't make a profound impact on the game and make some classics. 

It's interesting to think about how much Nicki Minaj's sound and image changed over a few years, and how much she changed rap. Her breakthrough mixtape, Beam Me Up Scotty, which was re-released on streaming services last year, came out at a time when she was as much Gucci Mane's protege as Lil Wayne's -- Gucci actually has more features on the tape. But by the time Nicki released her debut album Pink Friday 19 months later, she was 100 times more famous and had evolved her delivery a lot over a huge number of features. By Roman Reloaded, her singles were getting more and more pop, but she was doubling down on her eccentricities on album tracks like "Come On A Cone" and future meme "Roman Holiday," and I find that stuff pretty entertaining. She kind of backed away from that direction on The Pinkprint, probably her best album, but I do miss the really weird unhinged Nicki a little. I like that she had Jeremih on two tracks on that album, but I can't believe that neither was a single. 

7:20 AM

Monthy Report: July 2022 Singles

Wednesday, July 20, 2022





1. Megan Thee Stallion - "Plan B"
It's kind of laughably predictable how all a modern rap star needs to do is spit on a boom bap '90s beat and suddenly a bunch of heads who usually hate their music start to give them some credit. But it was genuinely exciting when Megan Thee Stallion debuted "Plan B" at Coachella in April, rapping over the beat from Jodeci, Raekwon and Ghostface's "Freek'n You" remix (predictably, sampled by '90s R&B recycler Hitmaka aka Yung Berg). The faster BPM makes her flow a little slower than usual and hit some Biggie cadences, it's a great contrast to her other material and one of the best songs from one of the best rappers out there today. Here's my 2022 singles Spotify playlist I update every month. 

2. Kendrick Lamar - "The Heart Part 5"
Kendrick Lamar has been releasing a series of non-album tracks named "The Heart" since 2010, including installments that came out shortly before good kid, m.A.A.d city and Damn. And the latest installment, which came out a few days ahead of the long-anticipated Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers in lieu of a proper single from the album, also had one of the most memorable music videos he's ever made. I'm glad that "The Heart Part 5" was eventually added as a bonus track to the album, though, because I still think it's by far one of the best things about that good but frustrating record. I'm kind of annoyed that "Silent Hill" has become the big radio song from the record because I'm always happy to hear this instead. 

3. Harry Styles - "Late Night Talking"
"As It Was" is currently in its 10th week at #1, which means it's that kind of rare hit that is so huge and long-running that it actually becomes hard for the artist's follow-up single to move into the spotlight (I'm reminded of how The Weeknd's "In Your Eyes" struggled when "Blinding Lights" just kept going and going). And that's kind of a shame since "Late Night Talking" is a brighter, more overtly summery song, but it seems to be building momentum. 

4. Charlotte Sands - "Dress"
Last year, Charlotte Sands wrote her breakthrough hit on TikTok about admiring Harry Styles in a dress, and this summer it's had a run on pop radio right alongside his latest singles, kind of cool. Love the way there's a lot of empty space in this track with her voice and the bassline as the focal point. 

5. Ingrid Andress f/ Sam Hunt - "Wishful Drinking"
I love seeing songwriters move between Nashville and the pop and R&B worlds when it's based less on celebrity or crossing over to different radio formats and based more on shared values in good songwriting. So it's cool to see that the lead single for Ingrid Andress's upcoming 2nd album was co-written by ascendant R&B star Lucky Daye and Canadian pop balladeer JP Saxe (though thankfully the lyrics don't remind me of Saxe's last solo project). I'd love to hear the story of how this song came together. 

6. Kenny Chesney - "Everyone She Knows"
"Everyone She Knows" co-writers Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne have made hits with some of the biggest female stars in country music, so it's kind of surprising to me that Kung Fu Kenny Chesney was the person they had record this sort of empathetic portrait of a thirtysomething single woman. It works, though, Chesney has always had this sappy rom-com vibe (he is, after all, the guy who wrote one of his biggest hits after watching Jerry Maguire, and then married Renee Zellweger). And it's probably a commercially shrewd move, considering that country radio's current top 10 is all men, mostly singing about women. 

7. Bob Moses - "Love Brand New"
New York urban planning official Robert Moses died over 40 years ago, and to the extent that he's remembered now, it's mainly by people who speak of him with loathing as a symbol of America's neglect of public transit and over-reliance on cars and highways. So it's a little funny that a Canadian duo decided to name their band after him. But their third alternative radio hit, and first #1, is an irresistibly slick and catchy little car commercial-sounding piece of cinematic pop/rock. 

8. Demi Lovato - "Substance"
As an expert on rock songs by pop stars, I've always been a big fan of Demi Lovato's guitar-driven early albums. So I'm really glad they're participating in the current pop-punk revival with their upcoming album, after dipping a toe in with the Travis Barker emo version of "I Love Me" a couple years ago. The first single "Skin of My Teeth" kind of felt too much like a "Celebrity Skin" knockoff to me, but "Substance" a lot catchier and closer to what I was hoping for. The gist of the lyrics feels like one of those haughty putdowns of silly pop culture that people really do not care for these days, but I love that "Don't wanna end up in a casket, head full of maggots" refrain. 

9. Nicky Youre & Dazy - "Sunroof"
Outside of country's year-round summer vibes, so little of the music on the radio in the summer feels summery these days, especially on increasingly dour Top 40 playlists, so "Sunroof" feels like a breath of fresh air. Kind of annoying that the video has a convertible instead of a car with an actual sunroof, though. 

10. Tink f/ 2 Chainz - "Cater"
With Beyonce's new album days away, it feels appropriate that there's been a lot of nostalgia for her back catalog in the air lately -- in addition to Tink's "Cater 2 U" homage, Fivio Foreign's "What's My Name," Saucy Santana's "Booty" and Latto's "Pussy" all either sample old Beyonce/Destiny's Child hits or tracks that she sampled. And it's nice to see Tink still getting some radio play, she's still one of the most talented rapper/singers of her generation that never really made it big. 

The Worst Single of the Month: BoyWithUke - "Toxic"
I hated this recent alternative radio #1 before I even realized that this guy not only calls himself 'BoyWithUke' but also performs in a DeadMau5-style LED mask, just completely insufferable levels of gimmickry. 

7:10 AM

Tuesday, July 19, 2022


 












I ranked and wrote about every Kate Bush album for Spin.

7:00 AM

My Top 100 Singles of 1982

Monday, July 18, 2022





Here's the Spotify playlist: 

1. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five - "The Message" 
2. Dexys Midnight Runners - "Come On Eileen" 
3. The Human League - "Don't You Want Me" 
4. Marvin Gaye - "Sexual Healing" 
5. Tom Tom Club - "Genius Of Love" 
6. INXS - "Don't Change"
7. Stevie Nicks - "Edge Of Seventeen" 
8. Stevie Wonder - "Do I Do" 
9. Prince - "1999"
10. Soft Cell - "Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go?" 
11. The Gap Band – “Outstanding”
12. Duran Duran - "Hungry Like The Wolf" 
13. Toto - "Rosanna" 
14. The Who - "Eminence Front"
15. Journey – “Stone In Love”
16. Teena Marie - "Square Biz" 
17. DeBarge - "I Like It"
18. Michael McDonald - "I Keep Forgettin'"
19. Tears For Fears - "Mad World"
20. Madness - "Our House" 
21. Bruce Springsteen - "Atlantic City" 
22. The Clash - "Rock The Casbah"  
23. Men At Work - "Overkill" 
24. Iron Maiden - "Run To The Hills" 
25. Joan Jett & The Blackhearts - "I Love Rock 'n' Roll"
26. Fleetwood Mac - "Gypsy" 
27. Afrika Bambaataa & The Soulsonic Force - "Planet Rock" 
28. The Gap Band - "You Dropped A Bomb On Me" 
29. The English Beat - "Save It For Later" 
30. Van Halen - "Dancing In The Street"
31. Jackson Browne - "Somebody's Baby"
32. The Ravyns - "Raised On The Radio" 
33. Billy Idol - "White Wedding" 
34. John Mellencamp - "Jack & Diane" 
35. Genesis - "Paperlate" 
36. Laura Branigan - "Gloria"
37. Keni Burke - "Risin' To The Top"
38. .38 Special - "Caught Up In You" 
39. Vanity 6 - "Nasty Girl"
40. Squeeze - "Black Coffee In Bed" 
41. Billy Squier - "Everybody Wants You"
42. Joe Jackson - "Steppin' Out" 
43. The Sugarhill Gang - "Apache"
44. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - "You Got Lucky"
45. Alicia Myers – “I Want To Thank You”
46. Billy Joel - "Pressure" 
47. The Waitresses - "I Know What Boys Like"  
48. Bow Wow Wow - "I Want Candy"
49. Toni Basil - "Mickey"
50. Shalamar – “A Night To Remember”
51. Judas Priest - "You've Got Another Thing Comin'"
52. The Time – “777-9311”
53. Tommy Tutone - "867-5309/Jenny"
54. Peter Gabriel - "Shock The Monkey" 
55. Duran Duran - "Rio" 
56. Evelyn “Champagne” King – “Love Come Down”
57. A Flock Of Seagulls - "I Ran (So Far Away)"
58. The Clash - "Should I Stay Or Should I Go"
59. Patrice Rushen - "Forget Me Nots"
60. George Thorogood & The Destroyers - "Bad To The Bone"
61. Kim Wilde - "Kids In America" 
62. Willie Nelson - "Always On My Mind"
63. The Go-Go's - "Vacation" 
64. Prince - "Do Me, Baby"
65. Adam Ant – “Goody Two Shoes"
66. Joan Jett & The Blackhearts - "Crimson and Clover"
67. Rick James and Teena Marie - "Fire And Desire" 
68. The Dazz Band - "Let It Whip"
69. Stray Cats - "Rock This Town" 
70. ABC - "The Look Of Love (Part One)"
71. The Gap Band – “Early In The Morning”
72. Peter Gabriel - "Kiss Of Life"  
73. Split Enz - "Six Months In A Leaky Boat"
74. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - "Straight Into Darkness" 
75. Donald Fagen - "I.G.Y. (What A Beautiful World)" 
76. The Alan Parsons Project - "Eye In The Sky"
77. Phil Collins - "You Can't Hurry Love"
78. Loverboy - "Working For the Weekend"
79. Roxy Music – “More Than This”
80. The Clash - "Straight To Hell" 
81. John Mellencamp - "Hurts So Good" 
82. XTC - "Senses Working Overtime"
83. Duran Duran – “Save A Prayer”
84. The J. Geils Band - "Centerfold"
85. Jennifer Holliday - "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going"
86. Scorpions - "No One Like You"
87. Daryl Hall & John Oates - "Maneater" 
88. Luther Vandross - "Bad Boy/Having A Party"
89. Pat Benatar - "Shadows Of The Night" 
90. Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes - "Up Where We Belong"
91. Mike Post - "Theme From Magnum P.I."
92. The Weather Girls - "It's Raining Men" 
93. Joan Jett & The Blackhearts - "Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)"
94. Survivor - "Eye of the Tiger"
95. George Jones with the Oak Ridge Boys - "Same Ole Me"
96. Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show - "Baby Makes Her Blue Jeans Talk”
97. Rush - "Subdivisions" 
98. Missing Persons - "Destination Unknown"
99. The J. Geils Band - "Freeze-Frame"
100. Vangelis - "Chariots Of Fire"

As I mentioned the other day when I posted my top 1982 albums, this was the year I was born, though it took me until my 20s to hear a lot of those albums. And looking back, I first experienced a lot of the best songs of 1982 via songs that sampled them in the '90s, including "Genius of Love," "Do I Do," "Square Biz," "I Keep Forgettin'," and so on. Hilariously, Puff Daddy's "Can't Hold Me Down" annoyed me because I thought he'd ripped off Ice Cube's "Check Yo Self," because I hadn't heard "The Message" yet. 

6:00 AM

My Top 50 Albums of 1982

Friday, July 15, 2022







Here's the Spotify playlist with one deep cut from each album: 

1. Laurie Anderson - Big Science
2. Prince – 1999
3. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Long After Dark
 4. Michael Jackson - Thriller
5. Elvis Costello - Imperial Bedroom
6. The Clash - Combat Rock
 7. Bruce Springsteen – Nebraska
8. Dexys Midnight Runners – Too-Rye-Ay
9. Donald Fagen - The Nightfly
10. Kate Bush - The Dreaming
11. Duran Duran - Rio
12. John Mellencamp - American Fool
13. Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast
14. The Gap Band - The Gap Band IV
15. Roxy Music – Avalon
16. XTC - English Settlement
17. Billy Joel - The Nylon Curtain
18. Descendants - Milo Goes To College
19. Marvin Gaye – Midnight Love
20. Phil Collins - Hello, I Must Be Going!
21. Daryl Hall & John Oates - H2O
22. Warren Zevon - The Envoy
23. Peter Gabriel – Peter Gabriel 4 (Security)
24. The Waitresses - Wasn't Tomorrow Wonderful?
25. Sparks – Angst In My Pants
26. Talking Heads - The Name Of this Band Is Talking Heads
 27. The Cure – Pornography
28. Fleetwood Mac – Mirage
29. Neil Young - Trans
 30. The Time - What Time Is It?
31. R.E.M. - Chronic Town EP
32. The Fall – Hex Enduction Hour
33. Squeeze - Sweets From A Stranger
34. INXS - Shabooh Shoobah
35. X - Under The Big Black Sun
36. Rush – Signals
37. Split Enz - Time And Tide
38. Depeche Mode - A Broken Frame
39. Flipper – Album – Generic Flipper
40. Pat Benatar - Get Nervous
41. Sonic Youth - Sonic Youth EP
42. The Replacements - Stink EP
43. The Go-Go's – Vacation
44. Willie Nelson - Always On My Mind
45. Queen - Hot Space
46. Oingo Boingo - Nothing To Fear
47. Chic - Tongue In Chic
48. Michael McDonald - If That's What It Takes
49. Lionel Richie – Lionel Richie
50. The Meat Puppets - The Meat Puppets

I was born in 1982, so it's interesting to consider that I've now done these lists for every year I've been alive, and from here on out I'll be delving into the years before I existed. And it's odd to think that even as I dipped my toe into older music throughout the 1990s, it probably wasn't until the early 2000s that I heard any of these albums in full. I remember my roommate putting on his LP of Thriller, and finally hearing it in full. I remember an online friend recommending Big Science, buying 1999 and Imperial Bedroom as I worked my way through those artists' catalogs, excitedly finding a cassette of Sonic Youth at The Sound Garden back when it was out of print, being given a friend's cassette of Pornography, buying a cheap used bin CD of Hello, I Must Be Going!, and finally hearing a lot of the rest over the last decade when streaming made it a lot cheaper to fill in the gaps in my musical knowledge. Pretty good year, I don't mind having been born in it. 

12:14 PM