Deep Album Cuts Vol. 408: Built To Spill

Wednesday, June 24, 2026

 




I started working on this two years ago when I ranked every Built To Spill album for Spin, and I decided to circle back and finish the playlist. 
 
Built To Spill deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Built To Spill
2. Reasons
3. Twin Falls
4. Some
5. One Thing (with Caustic Resin)
6. Sick and Wrong
7. Out of Site
8. Made-Up Dreams
9. Sidewalk
10. Else
11. The Plan (live)
12. You Are
13. Traces
14. Just A Habit
15. Pat
16. So
17. Fake Records of Rock & Roll
18. Spiderweb

Track 1 from Ultimate Alternative Wavers (1993)
Tracks 2, 3, and 4 from There's Nothing Wrong With Love (1994)
Track 5 from Built To Spill Caustic Resin EP (1995)
Track 6 from The Normal Years (1996)
Tracks 7 and 8 from Perfect From Now On (1997)
Tracks 9 and 10 from Keep It Like A Secret (1999)
Track 11 from Live (2000)
Track 12 from Ancient Melodies of the Future (2001)
Tracks 13 and 14 from You In Reverse (2006)
Track 15from There Is No Enemy (2009)
Track 16 from Untethered Moon (2015)
Track 17 from Built To Spill Plays The Songs of Daniel Johnston (2020)
Track 18 from When The Wind Forgets Your Name (2022)

Built To Spill's first album was one of the last ones I checked out, so it was funny to realize that they had a song called "Built To Spill" that gave a context to the band's odd name all along. My earliest exposure to the band was seeing the "Untrustable" video on "120 Minutes" and then hearing the Ben Folds Five cover of "Twin Falls," and that's still one of my favorite Built To Spill songs.

My friend Susie put their cover of Heavenly's "By The Way" from the BTS/Marine Research split 7" on a mixtape for me and that was really got me into Built To Spill. I wish that cover was on streaming services so I could include it here, I love it. I think there should be an expanded reissue of The Normal Years or sequel compilation with that and other non-album tracks. That motivated me to pick up a cheap used copy of Keep It Like A Secret and really become a fan, "Else" is one of my favorite songs ever. The one time I saw BTS live they played Perfect From Now On in its entirety, which was pretty cool, but I couldn't help wishing it was Secret they were playing. 

I feel like Built To Spill is one of those bands where I don't think all their albums are solid front-to-back but there's great songs on all of them, so it was fun to cherry pick, although I definitely prefer the era with Scott Plouf, great drummer. I recently tweeted a snarky comment about how Built To Spill should have a platinum album or two like two bands that definitely wouldn't exist without their influence, Modest Mouse and Death Cab For Cutie. Still it's pretty impressive that Built To Spill were on Warner Bros. for something like 19 years without ever having much commercial success, even longer than Sonic Youth's major label tenure (16 years). Flaming Lips have them both beat by far, though, they've been with Warners since 1992. 

5:02 AM

Deep Album Cuts Vol. 407: N.E.R.D.

Tuesday, June 23, 2026


 














N.E.R.D. can be hit-and-miss for me, so I really wanted to have a playlist that focused on my favorite songs of their. 
 
N.E.R.D. deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Am I High f/ Malice
2. Run To The Sun
3. Brain
4. Truth or Dare f/ Kelis and Pusha T
5. Bobby James
6. Loser f/ Clipse
7. Don't Worry About It
8. Fly Or Die
9. Thrasher
10. You Know What
11. Intro/Time For Some Action
12. Kill Joy
13. Help Me
14. God Bless Us All
15. I Wanna Jam
16. Sandy Squirrel
17. Rollinem 7's f/ Andre 3000
18. Kites f/ Kendrick Lamar and M.I.A.
19. ESP

Tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 from In Search Of... (2002)
Track 6 from The Neptunes Present... Clones (2003)
Tracks 7, 8, and 9 from Fly Or Die (2004)
Tracks 10, 11, and 12 from Seeing Sounds (2008)
Tracks 13 and 14 from Nothing (2010)
Track 15 from Nothing (Deluxe Edition) (2010)
Track 16 from Music From The Spongebob Movie Sponge Out Of Water EP (2015)
Tracks 17, 18, and 19 from No_One Ever Really Dies (2017)

N.E.R.D. hasn't released music since 2017 or played a show since 2019, and Chad Hugo and Pharrell Williams reportedly aren't on speaking terms since Chad sued Pharrell over Neptunes-related trademarks in 2024. So sadly, this playlist is probably pretty comprehensive unless there's a reconciliation at some point in the future. But they had a really good, interesting run as a massively successful hip hop production team's weird rock side project, and the band has its own distinct legacy at this point. 

The first N.E.R.D. album In Search Of... was released in its original form in Europe in 2001, with Neptunes-style programmed beats, before they decided to really make it a rock band with the re-recorded version of the album released in America in 2002. I have fond memories of the 2001 mixes, especially of "Run To The Sun," which I downloaded on Napster back in the day and listened to a million times, and I wish that version was commercially available. But I also really like the 2002 mixes, which feature live instrumentation by Spymob, a Minnesota band that was signed to Star Trak. I've said this before, but Spymob's 2004 album Sitting Around Keeping Score is a personal classic to me, and "Am I High" is my favorite N.E.R.D. song partly because of Spymob frontman John Ostby's prominent piano and backing vocals. 

Spymob drummer Eric Fawcett and guitarist Brent Paschke played on Seeing Sounds, but it seems like N.E.R.D. was mostly the product of the original trio, Pharrell and Chad and Shay Haley, for most of the subsequent albums. Nothing is the rare album of its era where I think the deluxe version is essential -- there are 5 good bonus tracks in addition to the original album's 10, including a rare Shay Haley co-writing credit, "I Wanna Jam," and a good song with Fam-Lay. 

"Help Me" has a co-writing credit by Jimmy Iovine, and I'm curious what that's about. Iovine wasn't too involved in songwriting even when he was a producer and engineer, and Nothing is just one of hundreds if not thousands of albums he oversaw as an executive producer and/or label executive. "Help Me" does have kind of a bombastic classic rock anti-war protest song vibe, though, it does seem kind of like what a Jimmy Iovine-assisted N.E.R.D. song would be like. 

N.E.R.D. really had massive hit songs like the Neptunes produced for other artists or like Pharrell had as a solo artist, but that seems somewhat deliberate, like this was how they were choosing to use some of their goodwill and music industry clout, to make something a little riskier. Still, it surprised me to see that N.E.R.D.'s current 3 songs on Spotify are all album cuts -- "Bobby James," "You Know What," and "Run to the Sun." "Brain," the song that Justin Timberlake and Malice referenced on "Like I Love You," is also in their Spotify top 10. And "God Bless Us All" was featured in Pharrell's Lego biopic Piece By Piece. I got to review No_One Ever Really Dies for Fact, and I liked it alright then, but in retrospect I think it's probably their weakest or second weakest album, it makes me miss the more band-oriented sound of the earlier records. 

5:01 AM

Monthly Report: May 2026 Albums

Monday, June 22, 2026


























1. Jobi Riccio - Face the Feeling
I don't get to work concerts at my teleprompting job all the time, but when I do it's often tribute shows (i.e. people can use a lyric monitor onstage when they're doing someone else's songs they don't perform all the time), and last week was an incredible one: Songwriters Celebrate John Prine at Wolf Trap. I'm going to cherish a lot of memories from those two days of rehearsals and performances, meeting Aoife O'Donovan and Margo Price and seeing Emmylou Harris dance around onstage. But one thing that's definitely going to stick with me was hearing Jobi Riccio for the first time when she opened the show with Prine's "Summer's End" and her own "Idaho." She's from Colorado and received the John Prine Songwriters Fellowship Award early in her career, her voice is incredible, and her second album is one of those records where it feels like one life-changing heartbreak looms over every song, even the songs that aren't about that relationship. When I hear "Idaho" I think about Riccio going over the arrangement with Prine's band and how Kenneth Blevins should pick up the beat on the second chorus, and "A Little of the Time" and "Wildfire Season," man, those are some great lyrics. I feel like Yep Roc releases a lot of records by older established artists who already have diehard fans, but I hope they're good at breaking younger artists, because Riccio really really deserves to be heard. Here's the 2026 albums Spotify playlist that I'm constantly updating with new releases. 

2. Eleni Mandell - Tailspin
Los Angeles's Eleni Mandell has been one of my favorite singer-songwriters for a long time, and I thought she reached new heights with her 11th album, 2019's Wake Up Again. In the announcement of he first album in seven years, though, Mandell says "I didn't know if I'd ever make another record," as she'd apparently been raising two kids and working as a high school English teacher. And I'm very grateful that she did make another record. Tailspin is in part an album about divorce and single motherhood, and "Hard To Be Lonely" and "Go Look At The Sky" have a deep sense of loss and longing. But it's got some of the sweetest melodies and most pastoral arrangements in her catalog, and there's a hard won joy and whimsy in songs like "Life Is Sometimes" and "Old Man, Old Dog." 

3. Kacey Musgraves - Middle of Nowhere
Kacey Musgraves followed her Grammy-winning triumph Golden Hour with a fairly large musical pivot on Star-Crossed, and even her next album Deeper Well, while more of an acoustic singer-songwriter record, felt like another evolution in a new direction. They were perfectly good albums, but just about every fan would agree they weren't as good as her 2010s stuff, so I am pretty happy with Middle of Nowhere feeling like classic Kacey, reluctant as I am to drag out a "return to form" narrative. Her hatchet-burying Miranda Lambert duet "Horses and Divorces" and "Rhinestoned" are probably the songs that put the biggest smiles on my face, but the whole thing is excellent. 

4. Ecca Vandal - Looking For People To Unfollow
Historically I haven't discovered a lot of new artists to listen to on YouTube, I just don't trust their algorithm. But I made more of an effort to browse YouTube for new music last year when I wrote a Spin list of the best music videos of 2025, and Ecca Vandal's breakout hit "Cruising To Self Soothe" made my top 10 after I stumbled upon her great videos. Rap-rock is a dicey genre that I don't always have a lot of time for, but Ecca Vandal, an Australian singer/rapper of Sri Lankan descent, combines the genres in a way I like and don't feel like I've heard a hundred times. I prefer the guitar-heavy stuff on the first two-thirds of Looking For People To Unfollow, she has a great scream that reminds me of Joan Jett, but the last few tracks that lean more toward beats and rhymes also sound pretty great. 

5. Columbia Icefield - A Silence Opens
January brought the posthumous release of pedal steel genius Susan Alcorn's collaboration with Nomad War Machine, and soon after, I was delighted to hear from Out Of Your Head Records that they had another album that Susan played on coming out this year. Alcorn was part of the band that played on trumpeter Nate Wooley's 2019 album Columbia Icefield, and he'd reconvened that band to record music composed and/or inspired by late trumpeter Ron Miles. It's sad to think that Wooley made A Silence Opens to pay tribute to one friend, and then lost another friend that worked on the album by the time it was released, but what a beautiful, powerfully emotional record to remember both of them by. 

6. Future Islands - From a Hole in the Floor to the Fountain of Youth
I got to interview Future Islands for the second time about their new B sides collection, and then went to their 20th anniversary show in Baltimore, and it was really incredible to see a band that used to play The Depot headline Pier Six Pavilion. "The Fountain" and "Find Love" from this compilation sounded great live, too. I'm always fascinated by would-be title tracks that were left off albums, and it's kind of shocking that "As Long As You Are" wasn't on 2020's As Long As You Are, that's a fantastic song. 

7. War On Women - Time Under Tension
20 years as an active band is a long time and not a lot of Baltimore bands have gotten there. War On Women might, though, they're already 15 years in. "Messages Unsent" from their 4th full-length is one of my favorite songs they've ever written, and I also like how "Serve" and "Hunger Stones" remind me a bit of Shawna and Brooks's very underrated previous band Avec. 

8. Ashley McBryde - Wild
I love the sound of Ashley McBryde's Jay Joyce-produced album, but I also really enjoy the creative partnership she's forged with John Osborne of Brothers Osborne. Osborne produced her 2022 concept Lindeville, and Wild feels like a chance for him to help her make a record that's really heavy on electric guitar, at times feels more like a southern rock album than a country album, he might play more solos on here than he did on the last Brothers Osborne album. "Behind Bars" is such a good lyric. 

9. Drake - Maid of Honour
There are a lot of ways for an artist to release more than an album's worth of music in a year -- deluxe editions, staggered weekly or monthly releases, B-sides, and so on. I don't think an old-fashioned double album is the best move all the time or even most of the time, and I think what Drake did in May -- a traditional rollout for his highly anticipated Iceman with two surprise albums coming out simultaneously -- was a pretty good way to super serve his fanbase with different kinds of records without it feeling like a retread of 2018's Scorpion. Iceman is more or less the straight up rap album while the other two go in different danceable/melodic directions. I hate Habibti, it's like a weaker More Life or Views, but I like Maid of Honour, it feels like a worthy continuation of one of Drake's most underrated albums, Honestly, Nevermind, with Gordo co-producing more than half the tracks, a Peggy Gou sample, a lot weird playful uptempo sounds that I haven't heard on a dozen other Drake albums. 

10. Willie Nelson - Dream Chaser
The big news about Willie Nelson's latest album is that it contains a song co-written with Bob Dylan, only the second time they've written a song together ever. Their 1993 duet "Heartland" was good but kind of a by-the-numbers topical song that seemed like it may have originated in their work with Farm Aid. Dream Chaser's "I Can't Read Your Mind" is a nice little melancholy number that feels appropriate coming from two guys who have each recorded multiple Frank Sinatra tribute albums. And other new songs like "Wonder What I'm Gonna Do" and "I Don't Think I've Cried Today" get extra pathos from just how positively ancient the 93-year-old Nelson sounds now. 

The Worst Album of the Month: Fakemink - Terrified.
I don't listen to a lot of UK rap but I respect that they've developed a whole sound and lineage at this point that's pretty distinct from American hip hop. And then I hear something like Fakemink, a 21-year-old from East London who makes derivative Soundcloud rap with a British accent, and I wonder if he could be the Gavin Rossdale of our time, but that's probably too generous. It's so funny to compare Fakemink's pretentious defense of his music to the idiotic sex raps on "Like A Virgin" and "Hard Candy," this guy really thinks he's doing some next level shit.  

5:00 AM

Saturday, June 20, 2026

 





I made a list of the 10 best Benny Blanco productions for Complex. 

2:21 PM

Friday, June 19, 2026

 




I wrote about Missy Elliott's "Can't Stop" for Spin's Deep Cut Friday column this week. 

2:20 PM

My Top 50 Movies of 2012

Thursday, June 18, 2026


 


























1. Compliance (Craig Zobel)
2. Looper (Rian Johnson)
3. Byzantium (Neil Jordan)
4. Hello I Must Be Going (Todd Louiso)
5. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)
6. Bachelorette (Leslye Headland)
7. Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino)
8. Lincoln (Steven Spielberg)
9. 21 Jump Street (Phil Lord and Christopher Miller)
10. Argo (Ben Affleck)
11. For A Good Time, Call... (Jamie Travis)
12. The Avengers (Joss Whedon)
13. Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson)
14. Brave (Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman, and Steve Purcell)
15. Ruby Sparks (Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris)
16. Magic Mike (Steven Soderbergh)
17. Skyfall (Sam Mendes)
18. Hyde Park On Hudson (Roger Michell)
19. Seeking A Friend For The End of the World (Lorene Scafaria)
20. The Hunger Games (Gary Ross)
21. Pitch Perfect (Jason Moore)
22. The Bay (Barry Levinson)
23. Wreck-It Ralph (Rich Moore)
24. Ginger & Rosa (Sally Potter)
25. Killing Them Softly (Andrew Dominik)
26. The Dark Knight Rises (Christopher Nolan)
27. Les Miserables (Tom Hooper)
28. Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow)
29. Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell)
30. Promised Land (Gus Van Sant)
31. Save the Date (Michael Mohan)
32. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Peter Jackson)
33. Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine)
34. The Five-Year Engagement (Nicholas Stoller)
35. Cloud Atlas (Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski, and Lilly Wachowski)
36. The Amazing Spider-Man (Marc Webb)
37. Think Like A Man (Tim Story)
38. Free Samples (Jay Gammill)
39. Chernobyl Diaries (Bradley Parker)
40. This Is 40 (Judd Apatow)
41. Vamps (Amy Heckerling)
42. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (Timur Bekmambetov)
43. Mirror Mirror (Tarsem Singh)
44. Your Sister’s Sister (Lynn Shelton)
45. The Campaign (Jay Roach)
46. Seven Psychopaths (Martin McDonagh)
47. One For The Money (Julie Anne Robinson)
48. Prometheus (Ridley Scott)
49. Celeste & Jesse Forever (Lee Toland Krieger)
50. Greetings From Tim Buckley (Daniel Algrant)

Compliance got some festival buzz but I think is really underrated as one of the best films of the decade, an absolute feel-bad masterpiece with Ann Dowd and Bill Camp's finest performances.  

Previously: 
My Top 50 Movies of 2013
My Top 50 Movies of 2014
My Top 50 Movies of 2015
My Top 50 Movies of 2016
My Top 50 Movies of 2017
My Top 50 Movies of 2018
My Top 50 Movies of 2019
My Top 50 Movies of 2020
My Top 50 Movies of 2021
My Top 50 Movies of 2022
My Top 50 Movies of 2023
My Top 50 Movies of 2024

2:19 PM

My Top 50 Movies of 2013

Wednesday, June 17, 2026

 





1. Oculus (Mike Flanagan)
2. The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese)
3. Inside Llewyn Davis (Ethan Coen and Joel Coen)
4. Enough Said (Nicole Holofcener)
5. A Promise (Patrice Leconte)
6. Snowpiercer (Bong Joon Ho)
7. Pain and Gain (Michael Bay)
8. Fruitvale Station (Ryan Coogler)
9. Nebraska (Alexander Payne)
10. Frozen (Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee)
11. Evil Dead (Fede Alvarez)
12. In A World... (Lake Bell)
13. Gravity (Alfonso Cuaron) 
14. Another Me (Isabel Coixet)
15. 12 Years A Slave (Steve McQueen)
16. The Great Gatsby (Baz Luhrmann)
17. Under The Skin (Jonathan Glazer)
18. Belle (Amma Asante)
19. Her (Spike Jonze)
20. August: Osage County (John Wells)
21. Mama (Andy Muschietti)
22. Side Effects (Steven Soderbergh)
23. The World’s End (Edgar Wright)
24. Dallas Buyers Club (Jean-Marc Vallee)
25. Pacific Rim (Guillermo del Toro)
26. Horns (Alexandre Aja)
27. Iron Man 3 (Shane Black)
28. Lucky Them (Megan Griffiths)
29. Monsters University (Dan Scanlon)
30. The Way Way Back (Nat Faxon and Jim Rash)
31. Austenland (Jerusha Hess)
32. We’re The Millers (Rawson Marshall Thurber)
33. The Conjuring (James Wan)
34. Adult World (Scott Coffey)
35. The To-Do List (Maggie Carey)
36. Warm Bodies (Jonathan Levine)
37. World War Z (Marc Forster)
38. Some Girl(s) (Daisy von Scherler Mayer)
39. Hateship Loveship (Liza Johnson)
40. Now You See Me (Louis Leterrier)
41. The Heat (Paul Feig)
42. Afternoon Delight (Joey Soloway)
43. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Peter Jackson)
44. Despicable Me 2 (Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud)
45. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (Adam McKay)
46. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (Francis Lawrence)
47. Don Jon (Joseph Gordon-Levitt)
48. Ender's Game (Gavin Hood)
49. The Counselor (Ridley Scott)
50. American Hustle (David O. Russell)

I don't feel nearly as strongly about 2013 as I did about the 2014 list I posted yesterday, but there was some good stuff. Wolf of Wall Street is my favorite DiCaprio performance, Pain and Gain is my favorite Michael Bay movie, etc. 

Previously: 
My Top 50 Movies of 2014
My Top 50 Movies of 2015
My Top 50 Movies of 2016
My Top 50 Movies of 2017
My Top 50 Movies of 2018
My Top 50 Movies of 2019
My Top 50 Movies of 2020
My Top 50 Movies of 2021
My Top 50 Movies of 2022
My Top 50 Movies of 2023
My Top 50 Movies of 2024

6:47 AM

My Top 50 Movies of 2014

Tuesday, June 16, 2026
































1. Gone Girl (David Fincher)
2. Ex Machina (Alex Garland)
3. It Follows (David Robert Mitchell)
4. Edge of Tomorrow (Doug Liman)
5. Obvious Child (Gillian Robespierre)
6. The Skeleton Twins (Craig Johnson)
7. Whiplash (Damien Chazelle)
8. Maps To The Stars (David Cronenberg)
9. John Wick (Chad Stahelski)
10. The Babadook (Jennifer Kent)
11. What We Do In The Shadows (Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi)
12. They Came Together (David Wain)
13. Still Alice (Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland)
14. Beyond The Lights (Gina Prince-Bythewood)
15. Dear White People (Justin Simien)
16. Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Alejandro Inarritu)
17. Appropriate Behavior (Desiree Akhavan)
18. Selma (Ava DuVernay)
19. Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson)
20. Bang Bang Baby (Jeffrey St. Jules)
21. A Million Ways To Die In The West (Seth MacFarlane)
22. Interstellar (Christopher Nolan)
23. The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson)
24. Boyhood (Richard Linklater)
25. Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy)
26. Guardians of the Galaxy (James Gunn)
27. Kingsman: The Secret Service (Matthew Vaughn)
28. The Duke of Burgundy (Peter Strickland)
29. Black Mountain Side (Nick Szostakiwskyj)
30. Match (Stephen Belber)
31. Big Eyes (Tim Burton)
32. About Last Night (Steve Pink)
33. Top Five (Chris Rock)
34. The Equalizer (Antoine Fuqua)
35. Frank (Lenny Abrahamson)
36. Ouija (Stiles White)
37. Big Hero 6 (Don Hall and Chris Williams)
38. A Little Chaos (Alan Rickman)
39. 22 Jump Street (Phil Lord and Christopher Miller)
40. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Marc Webb)
41. Veronica Mars (Rob Thomas)
42. East Side Sushi (Anthony Lucero)
43. Pulp: A Film About Life, Death & Supermarkets (Florian Habicht)
44. Let’s Be Cops (Luke Greenfield)
45. God’s Pocket (John Slattery)
46. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (Peter Jackson)
47. Chef (Jon Favreau)
48. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 (Francis Lawrence)
49. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Matt Reeves)
50. Wild (Jean-Marc Vallee)

I think this was a really good year for film, maybe the best of the last dozen I've made lists for? Just a lot of good stuff, personal bests by some excellent directors and actors, first installments in franchises, even surprising stuff like by far my favorite thing Seth MacFarlane has made, A Million Ways To Die in the West. I'm cynical about "Saturday Night Live" alumni doing drama or dramedy, but I think Obvious Child and The Skeleton Twins are high watermarks for that microgenre. 

Previously: 
My Top 50 Movies of 2015
My Top 50 Movies of 2016
My Top 50 Movies of 2017
My Top 50 Movies of 2018
My Top 50 Movies of 2019
My Top 50 Movies of 2020
My Top 50 Movies of 2021
My Top 50 Movies of 2022
My Top 50 Movies of 2023
My Top 50 Movies of 2024

6:46 AM

My Top 50 Movies of 2015

Monday, June 15, 2026
































1. Youth (Paolo Sorrentino)
2. Green Room (Jeremy Saulnier)
3. Crimson Peak (Guillermo del Toro)
4. The Witch (Roberg Eggers)
5. Capsule (Andrew Martin)
6. The Martian (Ridley Scott)
7. Sicario (Denis Villenueve)
8. Room (Lenny Abrahamson)
9. Creed (Ryan Coogler)
10. Spy (Paul Feig)
11. Spectre (Sam Mendes)
12. Carol (Todd Haynes)
13. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller)
14. Spotlight (Tom McCarthy)
15. Men & Chicken (Anders Thomas Jensen)
16. Tangerine (Sean Baker)
17. Inside Out (Ronnie Del Carmen and Pete Docter)
18. Ricki And The Flash (Jonathan Demme)
19. Star Wars: The Force Awakens (J.J. Abrams)
20. Louder Than Bombs (Joachim Trier)
21. Nightlight (Scott Beck and Bryan Woods)
22. Sleeping With Other People (Leslye Headland)
23. Jane Wants A Boyfriend (William Sullivan)
24. The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (Guy Ritchie)
25. The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino)
26. Shaun The Sheep Movie (Mark Burton and Richard Starzak)
27. Ant-Man (Peyton Reed)
28. The Final Girls (Todd Strauss-Schulson)
29. Miss You Already (Catherine Hardwicke)
30. Hardcore Henry (Ilya Naishuller)
31. The Bronze (Bryan Buckley)
32. Song One (Kate Barker-Froyland)
33. The Intern (Nancy Meyers)
34. Z For Zachariah (Craig Zobel)
35. The Program (Stephen Frears)
36. Straight Outta Compton (F. Gary Gray)
37. The End Of The Tour (James Ponsoldt)
38. Steve Jobs (Danny Boyle)
39. Joy (David O. Russell)
40. Trainwreck (Judd Apatow)
41. Minions (Kyle Balda and Pierre Coffin)
42. The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos)
43. Pitch Perfect 2 (Elizabeth Banks)
44. The Salvation (Kristian Levring)
45. Chappie (Neill Blomkamp)
46. The DUFF (Ari Sandel)
47. Self/less (Tarsem Singh)
48. The Big Short (Adam McKay)
49. Jupiter Ascending (Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski)
50. Love, The Coopers (Jessie Nelson)

I would love to tell Guy Ritchie that there was one year he was a slightly better filmmaker than Quentin Tarantino, like good for him, honestly. I think the movie here that I've seen the most times is The Martian, my wife absolutely loves that one. 

Previously: 
My Top 50 Movies of 2016
My Top 50 Movies of 2017
My Top 50 Movies of 2018
My Top 50 Movies of 2019
My Top 50 Movies of 2020
My Top 50 Movies of 2021
My Top 50 Movies of 2022
My Top 50 Movies of 2023
My Top 50 Movies of 2024

6:45 AM

Saturday, June 13, 2026

 





Oh no...the Shipley brothers have started a podcast. 

11:01 AM

Friday, June 12, 2026

 




I wrote about Rush's "By-Tor and the Snow Dog" for Deep Cut Friday on Spin this week. 

11:00 AM

Deep Album Cuts Vol. 406: Daft Punk

Thursday, June 11, 2026


 














I started working on this playlist a few years ago when Daft Punk disbanded and I was asked to write a Spin piece of their ten best songs. So this week I finally went back and finished it up. 

Daft Punk deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Short Circuit
2. WDPK 83.7 FM
3. Fresh
4. Within
5. Television Rules the Nation
6. The Game Has Changed
7. Voyager
8. Too Long / Steam Machine (live)
9. Giorgio by Morodor (with Giorgio Morodor)
10. Teachers
11. Fragments of Time (with Todd Edwards)
12. Veridis Quo
13. Make Love
14. Phoenix
15. Superheroes 
16. Prime Time of Your Life / Brainwasher / Rollin' & Scratchin' / Alive (live)
17. End of Line

Tracks 2, 3, 10, and 14 from Homework (1997)
Tracks 1, 7, 12, and 15 from Discovery (2001)
Tracks 5 and 13 from Human After All (2005)
Tracks 8 and 16 from Alive 2007 (2007)
Tracks 6 and 17 from Tron: Legacy (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (2010)
Tracks 4, 9, and 11 from Random Access Memories (2013)

Now that the group is officially over, it's even more impressive to think about what an impact Daft Punk made with just four albums and a soundtrack, each one having its own pretty distinct sound and feel. With acts like that, I sometimes feel like the only way to make a playlist of their catalog is to put the songs in chronological order, but I try to mix up the chronology when I can, and I was pleasantly surprised that it felt right here. 

I went to Florida with some college friends for spring break 2002, and my main memory of the road trip was listening to Discovery and Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory multiple times. Discovery is so fucking good. I think Human After All somewhat justifiably has a reputation as Daft Punk's weakest album but it has some great moments and I think has more continuity with their other albums, particularly Homework, than people give it credit for. Some songs definitely sound better in their Alive 2007 versions, though. 

Daft Punk's name was famously inspired by how a reviewer described one of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo's early bands, so I guess they were rockers before they made dance music, so maybe it makes sense that they became the dance act that everyone from every genre could agree on, the one that made the first dance album to win Album of the Year at the Grammys. Random Access Memories was a little divisive among music nerds, maybe it felt like too much of a prestige move for some people. But I kind of like when albums like RAM or Cowboy Carter are recognized for being a sort of quasi-academic study of music history in album form. Daft Punk were always quick to note their influences and predecessors, and it was fun to put "Teachers" from their first album in between two songs they later made with artists they namechecked on "Teachers." That moment when Giorgio Moroder says "My name is Giovanni Giorgio, but everybody calls me...Giorgio," I love it so much, gets me every time. 

10:58 AM

The 2026 Remix Report Card, Vol. 2

Tuesday, June 09, 2026
























Here's Vol. 1 from March and the Spotify playlist of every remix I've covered so far this year: 

"America's Baby (Remix)" by Desiigner featuring Wiz Khalifa
So apparently Desiigner is still making music and released his second album last year. He doesn't really sound like a Future biter anymore on "America's Baby," which doesn't really sound like anything, just a plainspoken boom bap song, but he still references "Panda" and "Timmy Turner." Not a huge Wiz fan but he improves the song somewhat or at least sounds natural on this beat. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C+ 

"Beg For Me (Remix)" by Lily Allen featuring Jade
I didn't like Lily Allen's West End Girl, felt more like reading a Reddit "am I the asshole?" post about a bad marriage than an album. Former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall released a pretty good album last year, though, and this revamp of the song from West End Girl with the annoying Lumidee sample is definitely refreshing by comparison. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B-

"Blue Devils (Remix)" by Trap Dickey featuring DaBaby
I like Trap Dickey's album, although I'm surprised it was released by TDE, I wonder how he got hooked up with them. He's one of the first nationally successful rappers to come out of South Carolina, so I guess it's nice for him to collaborate with one of the biggest North Carolina rapper. I'm still pretty sick of DaBaby and not a fan of him making a comeback, and he says "shitted" on here and then makes a poop sound with his mouth, but Trap Dickey and DaBaby admittedly do a pretty good back-and-forth flow together on here. 
Best Verse: Trap Dickey
Overall Grade: B-

"Boots On The Ground (Carolina Remix)" by 803Fresh featuring Petey Pablo, T.A.Z D3Vil, and DaBaby
Another South Carolina artist doing a Carolina-themed remix with DaBaby. I was way late to cover the Fantasia remix of "Boots On The Ground" in my last column, but I guess 803Fresh is just going to keep making new versions of that song forever. It's nice to hear Petey Pablo again, he always had a nice flow, but the guy I hadn't heard of, T.A.Z D3Vil, is really good. 
Best Verse: T.A.Z D3Vil
Overall Grade: C+

"Don Julio (Remix)" by Juice Lee featuring ALLBLACK, SieteGang Yabbie, Sir Hubb, and Clyde Carson
The original "Don Julio" was already a posse cut, ALLBLACK's verse is the only new addition on the remix. I think it's the best verse on here, but it's still a pretty terrible song, generic west coast shit that sounds like it was recorded on a Super Nintendo. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C

"Ever Since U Left Me (Big Bronx Remix)" by French Montana and Max B featuring Remy Ma
"Ever Since U Left Me (Egyptian Remix)" by French Montana and Max B featuring Tamer Hosny
"Ever Since U Left Me (West Coast Remix)" by French Montana and Max B featuring Ty Dolla Sign
It's frustrating when there's like 3 different remixes of a hit record and none of them really hit the spot. Hearing Remy on this track is fun but she only does 12 bars and her verse is poorly recorded, she needs a real engineer tracking her vocals. She uses the 'I went deaf' part of the hook to get in a jab at Foxy Brown. I guess Tamer Hosny is a big star in Egypt but who knows why he's on this song. 
Best Verse: Remy Ma
Overall Grade: C

"Gotham Part 2" by Billy Danze and Too Busy featuring Ghostface Killah
M.O.P.'s Billy Danze's 2020 album with producer Too Busy included "Gotham" featuring Method Man, and their 2026 album has a sequel with an even better verse from a Wu-Tang rapper.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B- 

"Hope (Remix)" by Nick Jonas featuring Brandon Lake
Last year I covered a remix CCM star Brandon Lake did with Jelly Roll that turned out to be a huge crossover hit for him, Nick Jonas has always been pretty Jesused out for a secular pop star and "Hope" was the most gospel-ish song on his latest solo album Sunday Best, he released this remix the same day as a new non-album single with Lake, "The Author." I dunno, I'm not the audience for any of this stuff, but I don't hear much musical merit in it beyond the message. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C 

"The Market Remix" by Casper TNG featuring A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie and 100Bandplan
Casper TNG and 100Bandplan are both from Toronto and "The Market" was a big breakthrough for both of them on the Canadian Hot 100. I guess Canadian hip hop is still in a pretty rough place outside of Drake because this song is ass, but A Boogie is a good choice for the remix because this kinda sounded like his shitty music already. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C 

"Midnight Sun (Girls Trip)" by Zara Larsson featuring PinkPantheress
After Zara Larsson's remix of PinkPantheress's "Stateside" blew up, it was cool that they linked up for another remix of one of Zara's songs for her Midnight Sun: Girls Trip remix album. The Muni Long "Midnight Sun" remix I covered last year was pleasant but forgettable, this one is overhauled a bit more with PinkPantheress and American R&B producer Troy Taylor co-producing a new version of the track. It's cool, but I'm glad that once U.S. radio finally started playing "Midnight Sun" heavily in the last few weeks it was the original version and not this. PinkPantheress mentions Delaware, fun to hear that on a big song by artists who aren't even from America. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B- 

"Motion Party (Remix)" by BossMan Dlow featuring Megan Thee Stallion
I liked that the original "Motion Party" is this super brief 95-second thing, but adding a guest and another minute for the remix definitely makes it feel a a little more like a full song. Meg sounds great on this beat, she laughs both times that BossMan Dlow says "I remember when they laughed at me" in a way that almost sounds mean, which is hilarious. And since this was the first verse she released since breaking up with Klay Thompson, people immediately started analyzing the lines about cheating in there. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: A- 

"No One Told Us (Extended Version)" by 50 Cent featuring Fetty Wap and Leon Thomas
Another very short song that feels a little more complete as a remix, they even call it the 'extended version.' Fetty Wap is the guy you expect to hear on a hook but not necessarily a great verse, but he's really good on here, made me enjoy the song more. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B+ 

"Pop Dat Thang (Official Remix)" by DaBaby featuring GloRilla, Yung Miami, and YK Niece
I assumed the hook of "Pop Dat Thang" was a sample of an obscure record but I guess it isn't, this goes on my shitlist of rap hits with apparent AI-generated vocal loops alongside Gunna's "wgft" and Sexyy Red's "U My Everything," what a depressing trend. GloRilla's verse is very good, I'm kind of baffled at Yung Miami becoming a viable solo star, she really is not up to doing guest verses. I like when the artist that made the original song does a new verse for the posse cut remix, but it's DaBaby so I'm reluctant to give him props for anything. 
Best Verse: GloRilla
Overall Grade: B-

"Ruthless (Remix)" by Freddie Gibbs featuring Leon Thomas
Way back before "Mutt" and the Chris Brown remix of "Mutt" became inescapable for most of 2025, Freddie Gibbs appeared on the whatever first remix of "Mutt." So now Leon Thomas is repaying the favor, adding a verse to the song that sampled 112 on a re-release of the album Gibbs put out in 2024. I would hate if Freddie Gibbs started getting played on the radio, especially if it was this. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C+ 

"Sexy For Me (Remix)" by Jason Derulo featuring Jazeek
"Sexy For Me (Remix)" by Jason Derulo featuring Kevin Gates
"Sexy For Me" is a shameless retread of one of Derulo's biggest hits, 2014's "Talk Dirty," which I guess has worked to some extent because it's the first song he's gotten some pop radio spins for in about five years. Getting Kevin Gates for a guest verse also feels kind of like mid-2010s nostalgia, and Gates sex bars feel slightly too filthy for the PG-13 naughtiness I associate with Jason Derulo. Jazeek is a German rapper who's had three #1 albums on the charts in Germany, apparently.   
Best Verse: Kevin Gates
Overall Grade: C

"Thick One (Remix)" by 42 Dugg featuring Kash Doll and Skilla Baby
It's kinda cool to hear three Detroit rappers of note on a hit together, but Kash Doll really doesn't add anything to the song, I see why she never really got past the level of just being well known on social media to actually having big records. She says "KD" at the beginning of her verse, which reminds me of this classic moment.
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C-

"Tuition (Remix)" by Don Toliver featuring Lil Baby
Don Toliver's album is pretty big but the original "Tuition" is one of its less popular songs, I don't know if Lil Baby's verse just came in too late to make the album or if they're trying to turn the song into a hit. Very low energy strip club song and it feels like a waste of a decent Lil Baby verse. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C+ 

"Yoppenheimer (Remix)" by Lelo featuring Joey Bada$$
"Yoppenheimer" is a pretty funny title that's not mentioned at all in the original song, but Joey Bada kind of ruins it by saying "Oppenheimer flow, going nuclear when I ride the beat," and then a couple bars later "not a star, I'm the big dripper," just an embarrassingly corny rapper. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C

10:00 AM

TV Diary

Monday, June 08, 2026


























Javier Bardem very easily could've been typecast as a certain kind of menacing character after No Country For Old Men, but he managed to do the expected Bond villain and then take on a decent variety of roles from there. So playing Max Cady in the latest version of Cape Fear feels like such an obvious slam dunk casting for him that it's almost boring. And while I roll my eyes when old stuff is given a newfangled prestige TV sheen, it almost feels like they should've done more to modernize the tone of the story, it feels like they mimicked the feel of the two Cape Fear films so closely (and Scorsese and Spielberg are exec producers) that it's even more redundant and unnecessary, at least after two episodes. 

b) "Not Suitable For Work" 
My wife's a big fan of the horror comedy musical Anna and the Apocalypse, which I recently put on my list of the best movies of 2017. Ella Hunt was the lead in that, and for years it puzzled me that someone that talented and beautiful hadn't done a whole lot since that movie. So it was nice to see that Hunt's debut album and a sitcom starring Hunt both came out last week. I'll watch anything Mindy Kaling creates, she just has a good ear for old-fashioned snappy sitcom dialogue, but "Not Suitable For Work" has a pretty generic premise to overcome with a group of 20-somethings living in the same apartment building in New York City. Will Angus is probably the funniest person in the cast, there's definite potential there, but it's gotta get over that hump of feeling like a "Friends" knockoff and find its own comic rhythm. 

"The Boroughs" isn't created by the Duffer brothers but they are executive producers, and it feels a bit like "if 'Stranger Things' was about senior citizens instead of tweens," which automatically makes it more palatable to me, especially because there's another actress I love from Beetlejuice, Geena Davis in this instance. I'm not totally hooked on the story, but the occasional monster fx are good and the cast is engaging enough that I enjoyed the whole adventure and the repeated emotional use of "Thunder Road." 

Nic Cage's turn as Spider-Noir in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was one of those fun little unexpected bits that helped make that movie a delight. But making it into a series almost 8 years later just feels overcooked and dumb, Cage's Edward G. Robinson voice sounds worse the more I hear it and they couldn't commit to making the whole thing black-and-white so it's got a hideous color palette like the '90s Dick Tracy movie. I got a lot of blowback for talking shit about this show on Twitter, but I've continued to watch it and my opinion hasn't improved much. 

Britbox has been around for a while as a way to stream a lot of British TV in America. We resisted signing up for a while, but my wife wanted to see this series focusing on one of Elizabeth Bennet's sisters from Pride & Prejudice. And it's pretty enjoyable, it takes slightly more liberties with the original story than it needs to, but tonally is pretty spot on. Tanya Reynolds in particularly has a lot of fun with Caroline Bingley's politely rude dialogue and Richard E. Grant makes a great Mr. Bennet. 

I have a lot of gripes about "For All Mankind" but I still enjoy it (the recent episode with an early 2010s mass casualty event on Mars during a flash mob set to Nicki Minaj's "Starships"? Wonderfully ridiculous!). But it feels like maybe a little too much for Apple TV to launch a spinoff for one of its longest running shows. they should've just had more Soviet Union storylines after the first couple seasons instead of making it into a whole separate series. Solid cast, though, it's not bad. 

There were a couple episodes of the first season of "Deli Boys" that really lived up to the show's potential, enough to keep me tuning in for the second season, which has started off pretty well. Poorna Jagannathan is so much fun to watch in this, she usually plays doctors and moms but she gets to be a total badass in a crime syndicate. 

I liked the first season of this but I'm kind of surprised by how happy I was for it to return, just a nice easygoing dramedy that occasionally hits you with a belly laugh or something really emotionally resonant. Kind of refreshing to see Tina Fey and Will Forte play grownups with a little bit of gravity in their performances, and Colman Domingo just elevates everything he's in. 

Another good Netflix show back for a second season, so far it just kind of feels like they're decompressing from the events of the first season and setting up a new story, but Emma Myers is a great lead. 

I was never much of a fan of "Big Mouth," and this is a talking animal show with the same creators and voice actors. Kind of feels like everyone is smarter than the puerile sex jokes here and knows it, maybe they're having fun but I'm not. 

I find the episode lengths of a lot of Asian TV off-putting, there's really no reason every episode of HBO Max's "Song of the Samurai" should be a 95-minute feature film, especially because it's kind of funny and charmingly character-driven. But I really like it, I'm glad it's something unique and not just doing something like "Shogun" with a smaller budget. 

Every story of Brittney Griner or someone else getting jailed for drug possession in Russia is totally terrifying, so this Apple TV series dramatizing a fictionalized version of that situation is pretty gripping just for tapping into the fear of fucking up in a place like that. 

This Chilean series is one of the best Netflix imports I've seen this year. It's a missing teen mystery, and there's always a lot of those, but the dialogue and direction is sharp and they use music really well. 

Another missing person story, this one from China, interesting but moves a little slow for my taste. 

A decent Mexican drama on Netflix, Sofia Vergara's cousin Paulina Davila is gorgeous. 

A Taiwanese series based on fantasy novels, pretty good visual effects. 

A South Korean romcom with one of those hoary Hallmark Channel premises where a big city working girl ends up in the country and falls for a farmer. 

This South Korean show about a lawyer who can see ghosts, and tries to resolve cases that are tormenting those ghosts, is kind of charming, I could totally see it getting adapted into a network hit in America. 

A more serious Japanese show about a lawyer who lives in a tent on the roof of a building and takes all sorts of cases involving gangs and drunk drivers and stuff, it's really fascinating to me what kind of stuff gets adapted from Manga series. 

This Indian show is a dramatization of the life of a guy who teaches people about physics on YouTube. I guess it's like the Indian equivalent of if there was a Neil deGrasse Tyson biopic or something? Weird. 

This variety show that's been on Japanese TV since 2012 just debuted on Netflix in America, it's fascinating to see what their late night TV is like, this show is very heavy on man-on-the-street interviews about current events. 

I know next to nothing about Tennis so it's interesting to see a Netflix docuseries dig in to the career of one specific superstar, Rafael Nadal. I'm sure there's something you lose in access-driven docs where the celebrity gets to control their own narrative, but I guess Rafa has never opened up this much before so it's still worth seeing. 

In light of all the MJ stan propaganda making the rounds after Michael, it's good to see something like this Netflix docuseries shining a light on exactly what Michael Jackson has been accused of, I don't think anybody needs to draw any conclusions about what did or didn't happen, but we shouldn't sweep it under the rug. 
 
x) "Kylie" 
Kylie Minogue's longevity as a pop star should really be studied, so I'm loving this Netflix docuseries, just learning about how she got into show business, what that show "Neighbours" was actually like, how she transitioned from Stock Aitken and Waterman hits to doing different music, how Michael Hutchence influenced that, etc. 

I didn't think this story of a guy with a suspiciously convenient form of amnesia was going to be interesting, but with every episode of the HBO doc it just got stranger and more fascinating, totally bizarre situation. 

Pretty much what you'd expect from a reality show about rich young adults in the Hidden Hills. 

6:44 AM