Sunday, June 30, 2024
I wrote a Baltimore Banner piece about D.King, one of the best kept secrets in Baltimore hip hop, finally prepping his debut album 20 years after he was signed by Jay-Z as a teenager.
Movie Diary
Friday, June 28, 2024
a) Inside Out 2
I remember being very skeptical of Inside Out before it was released and mocking the premise for resembling "Herman's Head," and then I watched it and went OK, fine, it's a pretty good movie. I haven't rewatched it much over the years but I regard it as a solid middle-of-the-pack Pixar movie, and my 9-year-old was excited to see the sequel, so we went last week. And I liked it, it may be one of the only Pixar sequels on the same level as the original, even if it has a lower bar to clear than Toy Story 2, I feel like the story got to me emotionally a little more, they definitely nailed the feeling of that awkward "middle school going into high school" moment of adolescence.
Nicole Kidman plays a middle-aged mom who has an affair with a younger movie star in A Family Affair, and it's overall pretty similar to The Idea Of You, a movie I watched recently where Anne Hathaway plays a middle-aged mom who has an affair with a younger pop star. I was a little impressed with Kidman in Being The Ricardos, but I don't think comedy is her natural element and she just feels out of place in a light romcom like this (one of the rare roles where she gets to play an Australian, though! Good for her!). The scenes Zac Efron and Joey King have together are really the only ones that are funny. Efron's character reminds me of Adam Sandler in Funny People, where a real movie star plays a ficitonal movie star and they struggle a little to make the character's fake movies seem dumber than the actor's real movies. The subplot with the put-upon best friend played by Liza Koshy wound up being one of my favorite parts of the movie, though, felt like an abrupt reality check in the middle of the usual romcom cliches.
c) Monkey Man
Actors, even famous and successful ones, are sort of at the mercy of a lot of other people to create good roles and cast them. So I'm interested in the Hollywood tradition of actors who move into directing and/or writing, and Dev Patel seems to have made Monkey Man primarily to make himself an action movie lead when people didn't see him as a candidate for those kinds of roles. He also only directed Monkey Man himself after unsuccessfully courting Neill Blomkamp to do it, so I don't think it's too harsh to say that it's better as a star vehicle than as a directorial debut. I feel like the movie's weirdly paced at times and has a kind of outdated teal-and-orange look to it, but once the action picks up, it's a pretty exciting and well put together film. And it was refreshing to see something with more visceral emotion and cultural specificity than the average revenge thriller.
d) Unfrosted
Jerry Seinfeld is not an especially versatile talent. He found a voice as a standup and then spent several decades just plugging that voice into different projects, and one of them just happened to be one of the greatest sitcoms of all time. Since Seinfeld has "Seinfeld" money and doesn't need to work another day in his life, most of his later projects are unchallenging by design: documentaries about standup, "Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee," an animated movie about a bee who talks like Jerry Seinfeld, etc. Jerry Seinfeld's directorial debut feels wildly ambitious in the sense that I didn't think he could be bothered to make a period piece satire that is a little wackier and more concept-driven than anything the "show about nothing" guy has ever attempted. He doesn't really pull it off, but it goes by quickly and loudly and I didn't really mind it. Feels like a missed opportunity, though, that he made a whole movie about Pop Tarts that co-starred Jim Gaffigan but they never brought it full circle with a Hot Pockets joke.
Another directorial debut from an actor, sort of an accidental running theme here, although Jesse Eisenberg does not act in When You Finish Saving The World. I'm not someone who needs an exciting plot to enjoy a movie. But as a slice-of-life movie about a few weeks in the life of a relatively ordinary family, this felt a little too dry and uneventful. I could love a movie like this if I enjoy spending time with the characters, if they were funny, but it was just a little dour, I identified with the father character Jay O. Sanders played who was kind of annoyed by everybody else in the movie.
Trigger Warning is a funny stupid title for an action movie where lots of people shoot guns, but hey, it could've been worse, it could've been an actual movie making fun of trigger warnings. Jessica Alba was sort of positioned to be an action star early in her career with "Dark Angel" and Fantastic Four and it never really took, and she's not entirely plausible here as a badass special forces officer who takes on a gang and crooked cops in a small town. I thought it was a decent little action movie, though, at least until it ran out of steam toward the end.
Gene Wilder wrote a memoir and recorded the audiobook version a few years before he died, so the new documentary Remembering Gene Wilder has the advantage of being about to use Wilder himself as the narrator. A lot of the movie sort of goes back and forth between Wilder tell a story about a Mel Brooks movie and Brooks adding his own side of the story. It works really well, although it makes me nervous that it'll inspire someone to do an AI deepfake of some other dead celebrity's voice in a documentary. Mostly, though, lovely movie about a wonderful person, worth a watch for any fan of Wilder's movies.
Celine Dion has been through some hard times, her husband and brother both died in the same week in 2016, and then a few years ago she was diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder (I wish it wasn't called 'Stiff-person syndrome,' which sounds kind of silly for something so awful serious). So this documentary is pretty heartbreaking, just watching this powerhouse singer who you're used to seeing so talented and successful, suddenly struggling with this terrible thing and coming to terms with losing her ability to sing much sooner than she'd ever anticipated. The contrast between the archival footage of her performing or being silly and funny on TV and her struggling to continue her Vegas residency is just so sad. But I'm glad she was willing to be vulnerable enough to make this movie, it's also a great celebration of her career and her personality and her resilience.
Every generation has at least a couple hugely popular bands that make straightforward meat-and-potatoes rock but don't get much respect as artists. I see Nickelback as a perfectly okay band in that tradition, but I don't think Grand Funk Railroad ever had to deal with the kind of internet age invective that gets thrown at Nickelback. A documentary about the band hinging on the angle that Nickelback gets a lot of hate feels a little dramatic and self-pitying, but by the end of movie, just hearing about how people yell at Chad Kroeger on the street and the band members' children get bullied at school over Nickelback, I did feel sympathy for them, they're just some nice normal Canadian dudes who wrote some good power ballads. They have a sense of humor about it to a point and the whole movie isn't too whiny about it, I think it's overall a pretty good humanizing movie.
This Paramount+ doc does a pretty good job of looking at the whole thorny issue of song lyrics being used against musicians in a court of law. It's a really important topic and I'm really worried about this situation getting worse over the next few years and they really explore it from different angles and in different situations well.
Tuesday, June 25, 2024
I wrote a cranky Baltimore Banner column complaining that two Maryland classic rock stations have ceased observing 'Twofer Tuesday' in the past year or so.
Monthly Report: June 2024 Singles
Monday, June 24, 2024
1. Bryan Martin - "We Ride"
Something I dig about country music is that it's one place where grizzled guys over 30 can become stars. And compared to dudes like Chris Stapleton or Jelly Roll, who put in a lot of years in the music industry before they hit it big, Bryan Martin has a particularly hardscrabble biography: an oil rig worker, bull rider and football player who got addicted to painkillers, enlisted in the army, and attempted suicide before "We Ride" became a sleeper hit from an album he released in 2023. Here's the 2024 singles Spotify playlist that I update every month.
2. SZA - "Saturn"
I often find SZA's success more exciting than the music itself, in the sense that it's just cool to see a Black woman becoming a superstar on her own terms after a decade of the industry trying to turn a lot of women into the next Beyonce or Rihanna without either succeeding or allowing them to be their own individuals. And after the protracted saga of SZA waiting years to release SOS and not even getting to choose what songs were on it, it feels like she's finally getting more flexibility to release whatever she want. Right now it's unclear whether "Saturn" is from a deluxe version of SOS or an entire new album called Lana. But it seems like she has a lot of unreleased songs ready to go, and "Saturn" is doing great on pop radio without really feeling like a pop move.
3. The Marias - "Run Your Mouth"
I'd never really heard The Marias before "Run Your Mouth" other than the song they did with Bad Bunny, but I really dig this song. The whole Submarine album is solid but otherwise pretty mellow, "Run Your Mouth" really stands out, glad to see it getting some alternative radio spins.
4. Beyonce f/ Miley Cyrus - "II Most Wanted"
I rolled my eyes so hard when the Cowboy Carter tracklist was announced and Miley Cyrus and Post Malone were among the features. But fuck it, Beyonce and Miley's voices sound great together on this song, I was actually disappointed that it's already started to fade from top 40 radio after being a minor hit for a few weeks.
5. GloRilla f/ Megan Thee Stallion - "Wanna Be"
I love seeing Megan and Glo team up for their recent tour and this song, and it looks like they have another song together on Meg's new album, looking forward to that, they're really leading the charge for women in southern rap these days along with Latto.
6. Joywave - "Scared"
My friend Robbie is a huge Joywave fan -- like, it probably would be more accurate than not to say he is Joywave's biggest fan in the world. So when they release new albums I usually check them out based on his enthusiasm, and I like Permanent Pleasure, but especially "Scared," I think it's my favorite single they've released to date.
7. Djo - "End of Beginning"
I recently wrote a Billboard piece about pop music synchs in television, and unsurprisingly we ranked "Stranger Things" pretty highly for its ability to put old songs like "Running Up That Hill" on the charts. And I have to imagine the show's popularity played a role in actor Joe Keery's musical side project blowing up on TikTok and now pop radio, at this point I wouldn't be surprised if Maya Hawke's album ends up with a hit single too.
8. NLE Choppa - "Slut Me Out 2"
NLE Choppa had a couple singles and an album on my year-end lists in 2023, I really thought he was starting to become an interesting rapper and potentially a major star last year. But it feels like a lot of people just started to notice he exists after heaping disdain on his Nelly-sampling single "It's Getting Hot," and then started to change their tune when the sequel to 2022 hit "Slut Me Out" went viral. "Slut Me Out 2" is a completely different song, I kind of wish it had a different title, but it feels like his over-the-top horny schtick has kind of turned a corner from being embarrassing to kind of hilarious and entertaining and, well, relatable.
9. Green Day - "Dilemma"
Billie Joe Armstrong has been throwing winsome '50s pop melodies into his songs for a long time now, but I feel like Saviors does a particularly good job of sneaking them into conventionally bombastic Green Day rockers on "Dilemma" and "Bobby Sox." I also enjoy that, like Nelly's "Dilemma," this doesn't use the word 'dilemma' in the chorus.
10. Beartooth - "I Was Alive"
For most of the 21st century, the dominant sound of hard rock radio has been a bland slush of post-grunge and nu-metal. In the last few years, metalcore has emerged as the sound of the moment, although a lot of its top bands kind of sound like a slightly different kind of bland slush. Occasionally, though, a really catchy song emerges out of the metalcore soup, and this year it's been "I Was Alive."
The Worst Single of the Month: Bryson Tiller - "Whatever She Wants"
Bryson Tiller's biggest solo hit since the breakout success of Trapsoul nearly a decade ago was originally released on a Soundcloud mixtape. And unfortunately it sounds like a Soundcloud loosie that was recorded in a tin can, I find this whole trebly wheeze of a song irritating.
Saturday, June 22, 2024
A Ghost Is Born is 20 years old today, and I ranked every Wilco album for Spin. I also recently ranked every Bon Jovi album and every Stone Temple Pilots album.
TV Diary
Wednesday, June 19, 2024 .png)
I would say that so far Apple TV+ has a pretty high batting average with high concept sci-fi and horror stuff, comedies, and soapy dramedies, and a lower batting average with serious adult legal dramas or crime dramas. I like "Presumed Innocent" so far, I haven't read the novel or seen the Harrison Ford movie so I don't know where teh story is going, but I'm on the edge of my seat with each episode. I really liked the HBO miniseries "The Night Of" and this features a similar story and similar tone with Bill Camp in a similar supporting role, so it almost feels like a second season of that. I always have mixed feelings about Jake Gyllenhaal as an actor, though, and there are some scenes in this show where Ruth Negga is just giving an incredibly real, visceral performance and Gyllenhaal is just standing there getting totally outclassed. He's well cast here, though, he just has that presence where he's equally plausible as a murderer or just a shitty person who's been wrongfully accused. Also, great casting with Chase Infiniti, who plays their daughter and looks exactly like if Negga and Gyllenhaal had a kid together. Renate Reinsve from The Worst Person In the World plays the murder victim, and she's beautiful so I'm not surprised Hollywood is trying to work her into big productions, but it feels forced that they made her play an American, her accent is really strong in the little bits of dialogue she has in flashbacks.
b) "Clipped"
It sounds like an obvious joke, HBO made a show about the Lakers so then Hulu makes a show about the Clippers. But "Clipped" is dealing with a much more recent story, the 2014 Donald Sterling controversy, so it's less of a stylized period piece, and it feels like they're having fun with the absurdity of the situation while also respecting that it was a moment of racial reckoning for the NBA. There's some haphazard inaccuracies, though, like when someone makes a "black square in Instagram" reference, something people didn't start doing until 2020). Also, does Doc Rivers really try to meditate the same amount of time every day that David Lynch does? Cleopatra Coleman from "The Last Man on Earth" is insanely hot, I'm happy she's got a big substantial role like this, but V. Stiviano is really a unique figure, the "silly rabbit" interview was such a bizarrely funny moment. I can't imagine they're going to pull that off in the show, they already totally failed at making the "Sir, the question was, is this your handwriting?" scene land.
I'm a fan of Leslye Headland's previous work (Sleeping With Other People, Bachelorette, "Russian Doll") and can appreciate the logic of Disney hiring people who usually make dialogue-driven contemporary comedy and drama and not sci-fi or action to make a Star Wars series. I don't know if it's really worked in "The Acolyte," though,
d) "Fantasmas"
"Los Espookys" was such a wonderfully original show, I was bummed that it got canceled, but it seems like Julio Torres is still getting to do a lot of other cool stuff. His new HBO show is a little more surreal, a little less pointedly comedic, but really cool and imaginative.
e) "Queenie"
This Hulu series is based on a novel about a woman of Jamaican descent in London, good cast, interesting character-driven examination of the intersection of those cultures.
A Hulu drama about Karl Lagerfeld's early career in the '70s. I would say that maybe I don't like it because I'm not particularly interested in fashion history, but I thought "The New Look" was really good so maybe it's the execution.
g) "Trying"
This British show on Apple TV+ is really sweet and charming. And I'm kind of glad that after a couple of seasons about a couple trying to have children, they were able to successfully adopt two siblings and it's a completely different show that shows their daily trials and tribulations but their story already essentially has a happy ending. They did a 'time jump' ahead 6 years for this season, which I really disliked when another British show about parenthood, "Breeders," did it last year, but I think it works here. The episode with Jim Broadbent was really good. Also, I don't know if Esther Smith just changed her hair or something but wow, she looks great this season.
h) "Evil"
One of the best shows on TV is wrapping up with its 4th and abbreviated 5th season this summer, and I've enjoyed catching up on the season 3 episodes I hadn't seen yet. They retain this balancing act of never fully confirming whether the supernatural stuff is real or in somebody's head, I kind of hope they keep that up all through the end of the series. Also, I love the recurring use of Laurie Anderson's "Born, Never Asked" in season 3 and 4 episodes.
A Korean show on Netflix that's about an asteroid hurtling toward Earth but it's more about the human scale drama. I think it's not bad but it seems to have gotten pretty negative reviews.
Hijacking airlines seems like something that happened a lot in the '70s that doesn't happen anymore, like I've never heard of the 1973 hijacking that happened in Columbia and the story is absolutely insane.
A Korean show on Netflix about a family with superpowers, but once again, it's not at all about action scenes like it would be if an American show had this premise, it's more of a romance thing. Interesting to see how "genre television" differs in other countries, although maybe if they had a bigger effects budget there'd be more typical superhero stuff.
A Korean show that's a bit more exciting, about a guy who accidentally kills a serial killer, which sets off a whole crazy chain of events.
Another Korean show where a normal person, a college professor, gets pulled into a crazy occult storyline after an uncle dies and leaves her some property that's a burial ground.
An Indian period piece show, I think it takes place in the '40s, really impressive production values, pretty good show.
o) "Anthracite"
An interesting French show, about someone in the current day investigating a death cult from the '90s.
p) "Crooks"
A German miniseries about a safecracker who'se forced to participate in a heist, pretty formulaic but I enjoy a good heist story.
A nice heartwarming Brazilian show about a young girl who's raised by an indigenous family but decides to find her real family.
r) "The Signal"
This German series has a premise that reminds me a lot of Apple TV+'s recent series "Constellation," both are about strange things happening with astronauts after they come back to Earth. I haven't finished either series yet so it's hard to say which is better or whether they're really about the same things, but I like "The Signal" so far.
A live action adaptation of a manga about body snatcher aliens, pretty cool gross visual effects.
t) "Akuma Kun"
An animated adaptation of a manga, about a kid who summons demons to...create a better world where everybody is happy? I don't know, I don't understand this kind of thing but I like how weird it is.
A reality show about wealthy people living in Korea, not all of them Korean, but it feels like they kind of want to tap into the Crazy Rich Asians zeitgeist without using the word "crazy."
I don't know if I should feel disappointed to see Patton Oswalt hosting a game show, but I don't know, I don't think I do, it seems like a fun little side gig, he's good at it. This is one of those shows that makes me feel smart because the questions are so easy and they constantly show you how many people don't know the answer.
I didn't have high expectations for this Paramount+ docuseries exec produced by Eminem and LeBron James about music piracy in the early 2000s. But it ended up being pretty interesting, mainly because they talked to a lot of the people who worked in a North Carolina CD pressing plant who were leaking albums, as well as people who ran early MP3 piracy networks, it was cool to get their perspective and hear about how they did it, whereas the pop stars and label executives have already told their sides of the story many times. Method Man is good at a lot of things, but he's not a good documentary narrator, that wasn't a great choice.
This docuseries was produced ahead of the 30th anniversary of Nicole Brown Simpson's murder, and I feel like it was an overdue attempt to shift the focus to the victim and away from her far more famous murderer, which was one of the many injustices of the media coverage of that entire affair. Of course, O.J. Simpson's own death a couple months ago means that people are still talking way more about him, which is kind of sad.
Apparently this Netflix docuseries was made to teach the history of Nazi Germany to Gen Z, which...I hope it's effective, I guess, I didn't think it was particularly good or worth watching, but I didn't see any major flaws in its approach, which I guess is okay since I'm not the target audience.
My kid found this show on Netflix and watched it constantly for a while, I think its animation style is hideous, but I guess he thinks it's funny.
The 2024 Remix Report Card Vol. 2
Monday, June 17, 2024 
Here's Vol. 1 and here's the Spotify playlist:
"Act III: On God? (Remix)" by 4batz featuring Kanye West
Kanye West verses are generally dogshit these days, but especially hearing him bark at an ex on an R&B song, repulsive stuff.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: F
"Bitch Duh (Remix)" by Dreezy featuring BIA, KenTheMan and Lakeyah
Dreezy is such an underrated artist, she can do a lot of things well and "Bitch Duh" feels like her doing the kind of disrespectful banger that you'd expect from other artists, so it works well for a posse cut remix. BIA's verse, which feels a little flimsy at only 8 bars (compared to 12 bars from Lakeyah and KenTheMan), has a couple Cardi B subliminals, and we'll get into Cardi's response later in the column.
Best Verse: KenTheMan
Overall Grade: B-
"Bulletproof (Remix)" by Nate Smith featuring Avril Lavigne
Nate Smith sings "shots, shots, shots" in a sort of LMFAO cadence on "Bulletproof" so I kind of wish the remix was with DJ Redfoo. Avril's voice does not sound good on this, just feels like a random pairing as far as cross-genre collaborations go.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: D
"Can't Get Enough (Dutty Remix)" by Jennifer Lopez featuring Sean Paul
I already covered the other remix with Latto in my last column, but "Can't Get Enough" interpolates Sean Paul and Sasha's classic "I'm Still In Love With You" so I'm glad she was able to get Sean Paul on an additional remix. The back-and-forth thing they do on the chorus is so good that it feels like that should've been the original record, and then it gets even better when the original track gets sampled on Sean Paul's verse.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B+
"Fisherr (Remix)" by Cash Cobain featuring Ice Spice and Bay Swag
This remix was treated as a big deal when it dropped, an established artist co-signing a rising artist, but it has yet to get more streams than the original "Fisherr." That's a good flow for Ice Spice, though, she should do more work with Cash Cobain for her album.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B
"FTCU (Sleezemix)" by Nicki Minaj featuring Travis Scott, Chris Brown and Sexyy Red
It kinda cracked me up the way the whole sound of the track changed when Travis Scott's verse started, a little synth line comes in and he's got all his vocal reverb, it's so dramatic. But I find the original "FTCU" kind of boring and barebones, so I appreciate some bells and whistles. Chris Brown's verse has bad vibes even by his standards, just unpleasant. I like how Nicki jumps in and does a few bars in the middle of Sexyy Red's verse, I wish more remixes felt like a real collaboration like that.
Best Verse: Travis Scott
Overall Grade: C+
"Like That (Remix)" by Future & Metro Boomin featuring Kanye West and Ty Dolla Sign
By far the worst chapter in the whole Drake/Kendrick saga of 2024 was Kanye trying to force his way into the middle of it, although he was at least justifiably ignored by everybody else. It also has some Future bars that are apparently from a leaked early version of "Like That," I'm just gonna put it on Metro being corny for co-signing this remix. The washed MAGA rapper can get two F's in one column, I think that's a Remix Report Card first.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: F
"Made For Me (Remix)" by Muni Long featuring Mariah Carey
Mariah's harmonies on the chorus are the best part of this remix, her verse doesn't sound great. I don't know, maybe I'm unfair to Mariah because every singer's voice changes when they get older, but it's just harder to appreciate those changes when it's someone who used to have an amazing range and crystal clear tone when they were younger. But she's also just doing a bunch of fancy triplet patterns instead of singing Muni Long's great melody from the original, it's frustrating to listen to.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C
"Put That On Everythang (Legends Remix)" by Pookie F'n Rude featuring Suga Free, Warren G, E-40 and Hash Hearted
I love west coast unity, it's always fun to hear some of the '90s vets jump on a record by a newer artist like Long Beach rapper Pookie F'n Rude. It's fun to hear Warren G comfortable on a contemporary track and E-40 always rips a feature, but Suga Free's opening line is just hilarious.
Best Verse: Suga Free
Overall Grade: B+
"Sunday Service (Remix)" by Latto featuring Megan Thee Stallion and Flo Milli
I really like this record and for a minute it felt like it was getting lost in the shuffle, so seeing it get a big remix with two rappers that I love is awesome. Meg switches her flow every 4 bars, killer verse.
Best Verse: Megan Thee Stallion
Overall Grade: A+
"Swag It! (Remix)" by Chow Lee featuring Flo Milli
"Swag It!" was produced by Cash Cobain and is very much in the same lane as "Fisherr," but it's kind of is a shit song, like "they call me Mr. Vagina...not 'cause I'm pussy but I know that pussy like inside and outside" may not even be worst thing Chow Lee says. Flo Milli can do no wrong in my eyes but this track doesn't really feel like a natural fit for her.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C
"Texas Hold 'Em (Pony Up Remix)" by Beyonce
I put this on with low expectations, like I thought she was gonna sample Ginuwine the same way she sampled Twista on the "Cuff It" remix. But no, this is awesome, it's just the original song for the first half, and then it turns into a whole different track with some new Beyonce vocals. Khirye Tyler and Beyonce's longtime engineer Stuart White are the only 2 producers credited on the remix that didn't also produce the original, so I assume this is primarily their handiwork. "Texas Hold 'Em" did the best on pop radio, followed by R&B radio, followed by country radio. And I think R&B radio might have embraced the song a little more if this remix got a bigger push or came out sooner.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: A-
"The 360 Remix" by Charli XCX featuring Robyn and Yung Lean
This remix is so funny, like why is Charli going back-and-forth and bar-for-bar with two Swedes like Jada and Styles. They don't really have separate verses but Charli L-O-X has the best flow and the fewest embarrassing lines.
Best Verse: Charli XCX
Overall Grade: C
"Touchin' (Remix)" by Honey Bxby featuring Busta Rhymes
"Touchin' (Remix)" by Honey Bxby featuring Capella Grey
"Touchin' (Remix)" by Honey Bxby featuring Kaliii
I remember once observing that "Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See" was one of the most iconic '90s rap songs that had never really been sampled a lot. And then this year we've had two songs sampling it competing for spins on R&B radio. Offset and Don Toliver's "Worth It" was the bigger hit, but I prefer "Touchin'" and Honey Bxby was the one who got Busta on a remix. I'm a huge Busta Rhymes fan and appreciate his incredible longevity, but it's weird hearing him rap on a '97 Busta beat in that constipated flow he's used a lot since the mid-2000s. The Capella Grey remix has a really cool chopped up intro, but Kaliii had the best verse. There's also a "Touchin'" remix with a new beat by Ron Browz that's pretty good.
Best Verse: Kaliii
Overall Grade: B-
"U N D R E S S (Remix)" by Jack Freeman featuring Jagged Edge
I feel like it's become cool to hate on Jagged Edge, they didn't have vocals on the same level as a lot of the other male R&B groups of their era, but they had some great songs. So I like hearing them on Houston singer's Jack Freeman's single, which has a bit of a '90s vibe. Or maybe it's just one of the Casey brothers singing a verse, it doesn't really sound like all of Jagged Edge is on here, but whatever.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B
"Wanna Be (Remix)" by GloRilla featuring Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion
I hate the way women in rap have kind of divided into these Nicki vs. Cardi civil war factions, but I will admit that I listen to a lot more music from the Cardi/Meg/Latto/Glo/Flo side of things and have enjoyed hearing them on songs together lately. Cardi subs BIA in response to the "Bitch Duh" remix and I had no idea they were dissing each other until BIA did her response track, I feel like she should've just left it alone because Cardi kinda cooked her on here. Also, it's hilarious how after the outro where GloRilla says "go Meg" and Megan says "get 'em Glo," Cardi jumps on there and says "go me."
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B+
"Where The Fun N****s At? (Remix)" by Asian Doll featuring Gloss Up
Gloss Up has released three great projects in 2023 and 2024, really one of my favorite rappers right now, but her verse on this is just okay, not something I would point to as an example of her talent.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C+
Movie Diary
Tuesday, June 11, 2024 
a) Hit Man
It feels like a lot of people are invested in the idea that more movies should be released in theaters and they would all make money, despite all evidence to the contrary. But Hit Man definitely feels like one of those movies that could've played well in theaters if Netflix hadn't snapped it up after it got great reviews at festivals. Glen Powell and Adria Arjona have been good in several things before but this feels like it could make major stars out of both of them and they have great chemistry, and I enjoyed the slightly unpredictable little twists and turns the story took. It's a little odd that two Texans, Glen Powell and Richard Linklater, adapted a Texas Monthly article about a Houston man and the resulting movie takes places in New Orleans, but they made good use of the setting, and I'm just happy anytime a movie is set outside New York or L.A. in a very casual way like that.
I have a low opinion of most modern American Godzilla movies, partly because they never seem to know how to balance the monster action with the human actors. Considering that Godzilla Minus One won a visual effects Oscar on a $10 million budget, I went in expecting the action scenes to be great, which they are, but I was pleasantly surprised that the human drama is genuinely emotionally affecting.
c) Night Swim
A recent Blumhouse horror movie I hadn't heard anything about and decided to blindly check out, about a cursed pool that kills people or whatever. Considering how real the fear of drowning is for most people, it should be pretty easy to make a genuinely scary movie out of this premise. But I dunno, it never really came together, Wyatt Russell and Kerry Condon felt overqualified to carry this subpar movie.
d) Madame Web
At least I knew that I was getting into a bad movie with this one. As far as infamously bad Marvel movies, though, I dunno, at least it was better than Morbius. You can do worse than centering your poorly conceived comic book movie on four extremely attractive women, I guess.
Paramount+ has gone heavy on music documentaries, and this is one of the better ones I've seen lately. Cyndi Lauper recently announced a farewell tour before she retires from performing, which isn't covered in Let The Canary Sing, but it still feels like a pretty complete overview of her career. I've always had a fondness for Cyndi Lauper and her music but this movie really did a great job of articulating what's special about her as a singer, as a songwriter, as a public figure, as an activist and advocate, it's really a wonderful movie and I teared up a few times watching it.
CNN has a 'FlashDocs' unit that does little one hour documentaries on current events, and I watched this recent one on Beyonce's Cowboy Carter. Considering that Beyonce rarely does interviews anymore and probably isn't doing her own doc about this album, I thought this was pretty well done and put the album in a proper context, and I always enjoy seeing my esteemed colleague Chris Molanphy on TV. I thought it was interesting how Rhiannon Giddens, who plays on "Texas Hold 'Em," was very frank in her interview about how she wasn't that thrilled with Beyonce's performances with The Chicks at the 2016 CMAs and kind of felt like it overshadowed Charley Pride's performance and Giddens performing with Eric Church that night, I like that they were willing to show that perspective in addition to mainly praising Beyonce's venture into the country world.
A recent animated feature co-directed and co-written by Jared Hess of Napoleon Dynamite fame. A cute little movie about a pony who pretends to be a unicorn, my son really liked it. My wife was slightly vexed by the way humans and animals can talk to and understand each other in this movie but animals still have the same pet/livestock role in society that they do in our world, which I agree is a little weird when you think about it, but I just kind of bought into it for the sake of the story.
Monthly Report: May 2024 Albums
Monday, June 10, 2024
1. Vince Staples - Dark Times
A few months ago, "The Vince Staples Show" debuted on Netflix, and I was a little less enthusiastic about it than everybody else, mainly because I think he's a great rapper at his creative pinnacle right now and I don't want his focus pulled too much towards other projects like a moderately good but not mind-blowing TV show. But he just released another amazing album and got a season 2 renewal from Netflix in the space of a week, so it feels like everybody won here, hopefully he gets to keep exploring multiple mediums successfully. Much is made of the fact that Staples is a naturally funny and charismatic guy who doesn't necessarily make fun music, but I like that he leans into it with Dark Times even down to the title. "Government Cheese" is one of the more emotionally affecting songs he's ever made, "Freeman" is really good and thought-provoking too. It's interesting to hear a guy who has never chased radio hits make a nostalgic song about radio's role in his childhood like "'Radio,'" but there is some stuff on this album that I would love to hear on the radio, especially "Etouffee." Here's the 2024 albums Spotify playlist2024 albums Spotify playlist that I'm constantly updating with new releases.
2. Willow - Empathogen
I already wrote a bit about this album for Spin's best albums of 2024 so far but this is my shit, I love how deep Willow Smith went into weird time signatures and jazz chords and unpredictable syncopation. The way her voice and the bassline dart around each other on "'I Know That Face.'" is so cool, I'm so impressed with the craft that went into this album. It kind of reminds me of one of my favorite albums of the last 10 years, Emily's D+Evolution by Esperanza Spalding, the way it feels like jazz songs performed as a high energy rock record.
3. Rachel Chinouriri - What A Devastating Turn of Events
UK singer/songwriter Rachel Chinouriri has had some viral success on Soundcloud and TikTok but I hadn't really encountered her music before and just went into her debut album with no preconceived notions. And man I love the sound of this record, she really fuses a lot of things together in an interesting way, it made sense when I saw that she drew on a lot of Britpop influences for the album. "My Everything" is probably my favorite track, love the weird guitar tone on there, but "Dumb Bitch Juice" is also a really catchy song with a hilarious title.
4. Billie Eilish - Hit Me Hard And Soft
"Birds of a Feather" blew me away immediately, I think it's probably my favorite song Billie Eilish has made to date. It was also the only song that went up higher on the Hot 100 in its second week, so I feel like it's gonna be a hit, although I hope it doesn't push "Lunch" to the side too quickly, that's a great song too. It feels like Billie and Finneas started with this very distinctive signature sound and now they're slowly, subtly expanding it in these very deliberate and interesting ways and have yet to take a step in a direction that felt wrong or forced. I loved the sprawl and variety of Happier Than Ever but this album works really well as a more concise counterpoint.
5. Dua Lipa - Radical Optimism
I don't really know or care much about Kevin Parker's work with Tame Impala or Danny L Harle's work with Caroline Polachek and PC Music, so I rolled my eyes a little at Dua Lipa's apparent bid for indie cred in making an album with them. And it doesn't seem to have worked anyway, given the reviews Radical Optimism has gotten. But I like this record, it feels like she just made another disco album with a slightly different sonic palette and still has a great sense of how her voice works best and what she wants to say with it, "Anything For Love" is such a pretty, appealingly brief song. People who never listened to or appreciate her first album have been bending over backwards to call it a flop but I think she's 3 for 3 with these albums and look forward to whatever she does next. I do miss Future Nostalgia's focus on prominent basslines, but at least "Whatcha Doing" has a really good one.
6. The Lemon Twigs - A Dream Is All We Know
I love that the D'Addario brothers have released back-to-back albums for the first time in 2023 and 2024, it feels like the jump from 4AD to Captured Tracks has worked out well for them and they're on a roll. This feels like their most '60s album after leaning more on '70s influences on previous albums, it's very Beatles/Beach Boys (Sean Ono Lennon co-produced one track, but it's the most Beach Boys one, "In The Eyes Of The Girl"). "A Dream Is All I Know" is probably my favorite track so far.
7. Rapsody - Please Don't Cry
I think Laila's Wisdom is still Rapsody's high water mark but I'm always happy to hear some new raps from her, great bars on "Marlanna" and "Stand Tall." I think more people would be Rapsody fans if they knew she could do stuff like "Back In My Bag," that should've been a single. I feel like she goes a little too heavy on samples/interpolations of classic records on here, though, some rap albums just feel like they're trying to siphon goodwill from old songs people are nostalgic for.
8. Little Feat - Sam's Place
For most of its history, Little Feat has had three members writing songs and singing lead, but since the 2019 death of guitarist Paul Barrere, there's just one left, founding pianist Bill Payne. So perhaps it was just the right time to make an album showcasing the charismatic percussionist Sam Clayton, who's always taken an occasional vocal spotlight here or there. Sam's Place opens with one original song, "Milkman," but is mostly comprised of Clayton singing songs written by guys like Willie Dixon and Muddy Waters. For a very blues-influenced band, Little Feat never did a whole lot of blues covers, so it's a lot of fun to hear them just let loose on these songs, and Bonnie Raitt does a great duet with Clayton on "Long Distance Call."
9. various artists - Long Distance Love - A Sweet Relief Tribute To Lowell George
The same day Little Feat's new album was released, we also got this nice big 25-track tribute to Little Feat founder Lowell George. Elvis Costello, a vocal Little Feat fan for decades, finally covers them with a nice rendition of "Long Distance Love," but I think my favorite cover on the album is Ben Harper's "Roll Um Easy." Joachim Cooder's reimagining of "Cold, Cold, Cold" is also really interesting, and Lady Blackbird does a good rendition of an underrated favorite of mine, "Be One Now." I didn't even realize Lowell George co-wrote Jackson Browne's "Love Needs A Heart" but Madison Cunningham does a beautiful cover of it. Lowell George's daughter Inara George sings three of his songs, including her band The Bird And The Bee's take on "Teenage Nervous Breakdown."
10. Willie Nelson - The Border
I draw so much inspiration from the fact that Willie Nelson has written 300 songs over the last 70 years and is still writing more, including 4 new compositions on The Border along with a couple Rodney Crowell covers and songs from other writers. I particularly love hearing Willie sing with Mickey Raphael on harmonica on "Once Upon A Yesterday" and "Kiss Me When You're Through," it feels like his second voice to me.
The Worst Album of the Month: 21 Lil Harold - Sick of Myself
I used to think 21 Savage was one of the worst rappers out, but he grew on me. So I suppose it's possible his soundalike sidekick 21 Lil Harold will make music I enjoy eventually, but I kind of doubt it, he's just too bland. He gets some pretty good production on Sick of Myself, but "Sundown" and "Too Many" should've gone to rappers that know what to do with them. And his name just looks hilarious, too many prefixes all leading up to...Harold.
Thursday, June 06, 2024
I contributed a 2,000 word profile of the brilliant Baltimore-based pedal steel guitarist Susan Alcorn to the first issue of Rantipole, a new music zine. You can order the issue here and get the 116-page physical issue mailed to you, with a digital PDF version e-mailed to you right away, a pretty cool independent project worth supporting.
Wednesday, June 05, 2024
I ranked and wrote about every Talking Heads album for Spin.
I also wrote about Future & Metro Boomin, Mary Timony and Willow for Spin's list of the best albums of 2024 so far.
TV Diary
Tuesday, June 04, 2024 
"The Big Cigar" stars Andre Holland and Black Panther leader Huey P. Newton -- I imagine if this project had come along when he was a little younger, exec producer/director Don Cheadle would be playing Newton, but I really like Holland, he's great in this role. The series focuses Newton's friendship with Hollywood producer Bert Schneider, which is an interesting angle, I didn't know about any of this aspect of his life.
b) "Eric"
There was a show called "Happy!" on SyFy a few years ago where Christopher Meloni played a father looking for their missing child with the help of their kid's imaginary friend, played as a surreal dark comedy. "Eric" has a very similar premise, with Benedict Cumberpatch as a puppeteer who starts to see visions of a puppet his son designed after he disappears, but it's all played much more serious as a psychological period piece prestige drama, I really don't like it.
My wife has read Blake Crouch's novel Dark Matter and so far she's seemed to approve of the Apple TV+ adaptation. I do wonder if it works better as a book, though, onscreen it feels a little like, yes, a guy switches places with himself in a parallel universe where he has a different life, I've seen a lot of this stuff before. But being married to Jennifer Connelly in one universe, and then winding up in another universe and going off to find alt universe Jennifer Connelly, that I found relatable.
d) "Bodkin"
I have kind of a low opinion of the true crime podcast industry, so I am fine with multiple TV comedies lampooning it, with "Only Murders In The Building" and "Based On A True Story" and now "Bodkin," the more the merrier. "Bodkin" features Will Forte as a goofy American podcaster who teams up with a serious Irish journalist to do a podcast about mysterious disappearances in a small town in Ireland, which sounds like a broad premise but Forte dials it back nicely and it's a good dry comedy with some dramatic tension.
A Holocaust love story, still very sad and hard to watch at times but with some nice moments of light and humanity. I honestly did not even recognize Harvey Keitel in this, I watched an entire episode not knowing it was him, he really disappeared into the role. He and Melanie Lynskey both play Australians, and I wonder what it's like for someone from New Zealand to play Australian, like does she just use her regular voice or is she very consciously adjusting her accent?
f) "Geek Girl"
A cute little Netflix comedy about a teenager who sort of falls into being a model after being a geeky outcast at school, pretty formulaic but charming nonetheless.
g) "Shardlake"
A mystery series set in a Tudor era monastery, haven't found it especially gripping so far but a good cast, good production values.
h) "Tires"
This Netflix sitcom features an assortment of problematic white comedians with unflattering mustaches: Shane Gillis (cancel culture poster boy fired from "SNL" for saying slurs on a podcast), Stavros Halkias (from the hipster racism podcast Cum Town), and Andrew Schulz (Charlamagne The God's even more embarrassing sidekick). It's a pretty shitty show.
This show's whole concept is still a little strange and hard to embrace, but it feels mostly like an excuse for a sweet ensemble show about a small town and it has a cast good enough to pull that off, I just adore Gabrielle Dennis.
The first season of "We Are Lady Parts" was 3 years ago, so I kind of forgot the show existed for a while until Sarah Kameela Impey appeared in an episode of the otherwise mediocre "Dinner With The Parents" recently and I realized that "Lady Parts" was finally coming back for a second season. I really enjoy this show, it feels very true to a lot of aspects of playing in a punk band even though it's got the distinct perspective of being about Muslim women in London.
k) "Bridgerton"
Season 3 of "Bridgerton" is based on the only book in the series that my wife has read, so even though we didn't ever finish season 2 we've been watching this one. Still not totally my kind of thing, but I like the sort of irreverent modernized version of a period drama they do and Nicola Coughlan is great.
This Netflix sci-fi show is about seven giant holes opening up in Japan that people think are portals to a divine realm, which is an interesting premise. But of course, the name of the show is "Seven Orifices" and they constantly use the word "orifice" and it's just very uncomfortable and hard to take totally seriously.
A pretty entertaining Korean show on Netflix about a radio announcer who suddenly develops a disorder where he speaks without thinking and is unable to filter or censor himself.
n) "The 8 Show"
This is another Netflix show from Korea about a deadly dystopian game show, I think it's probably just as good a show as "Squid Game" but it definitely hasn't struck the same chord, at least in America.
Another Korean Netflix show, a pleasant romantic dramedy about young adults who aren't sure what to do with their lives, feels like the equivalent to a CW soap opera.
p) "Kubra"
This Turkish drama on Netflix is about a guy who uses a religious texting app and finds that he seems to be texting with God himself, which is a fantastic premise, I feel like if this was done in America it would be kind of corny or played for laughs but there's a cool thriller tone to this show.
A dark anime anthology series based on Brothers Grimm stories, which is a decent idea. But I was recently reminded that Netflix had another animated series "A Tale Dark & Grimm" in 2021 because my son started watching it again, a more kid-friendly but I think overall better take on the concept.
A Netflix docuseries about a Spanish chef who was convicted of murder. Interesting story, but again, I hate the true crime industry, "Cooking Up Murder" is such a hacky title.
s) "Ren Faire"
This docuseries is about the leadership fight over the Texas Renaissance Festival, I feel like someone at HBO said "hey, a succession power struggle? those do really well for us, let's go!" We've gone to the Maryland ren faire a few times so I thought it'd be a fun watch, but the comparisons to "Tiger King" are apt, I don't really care for these documentaries about obnoxious guys with "big personalities" and big egos.
I only went to Lollapalooza one time (in 1996, the Metallica year, which is fairly depicted as a divisive turning point in the festival's history). But this 3-part Paramount+ docuseries really feels like a fond walk through my '90s alt-rock memories. I already knew a lot of the stories but some of them were new to me and there was some awesome footage, I especially appreciate that they dedicated the whole first episode to the 1991 tour in great detail.
Another awesome recent music docuseries, I'm glad they did this now while there are still a decent number of important Stax people still alive to talk, although obviously a lot of them have already passed.
v) "Camden"
This music docuseries focuses on Camden Town, which I guess is a part of London with a lot of venues and where a lot of famous musicians have gotten their start -- my American perspective was I imagine it's kind of to London as the Lower East Side or Williamsburg is to New York or something. Some cool stuff in here, I like that they go through all these different types of music, from Coldplay to Dua Lipa to Soul II Soul. Some of the ways they put together narratives make me roll my eyes, though, like the 'Rebels and Misfits' episode that parallels the stories of The Clash, Oasis, The Libertines and YUNGBLUD, which kind of gets more and more depressing as it goes on.
w) "The GOAT"
This is kind of a meta reality show competition full of people from other reality shows, similar to last year's "House of Villains." I feel like it's embarrassing that I sometimes find Daniel Tosh funny, but he's the right person to host a stupid show like this, he's just emanates so much loathing for himself and the show he's hosting.
A slick reality show (or "docusoap") about rich people in the Caymans, totally just put this on as background noise one day.
Major league baseball always seems vaguely like a clusterfuck of big personalities and crimes and scandals to me, so I watched this without really getting any sense that the early '90s Yankees was some especially crazy time, but I could be wrong.
Still a pretty fun little show, I like that they're not too committed to the show having the same feel or format from episode to episode or season to season, it's a little loose and improvisatory. I enjoyed when Ryan Reynolds did the silly song for Rob McElhenney's birthday instructing everyone on how to pronounce 'McElhenney.'
Monday, June 03, 2024
I spoke to J. Robbins for a Baltimore Banner piece about his Baltimore studio Magpie Cage, his history with Jawbox and the D.C. rock scene, and his latest solo album Basilisk. I also spoke to members of Ponytail, War On Women, and Manners Manners about some of the records Robbins has produced in Baltimore.
(photo by Eric Thompson)
Sunday, June 02, 2024
I have a big piece on Billboard that Andrew Unterberger and I have worked on for the past year, talking to people who license music for television, and coming up with a list of the 20 most valuable TV shows right now in the music synch world.