narrowcast

Saturday, October 12, 2024

My latest for Spin: a Coldplay album ranking and pieces about Hotel Fiction and Flamy Grant.

7:24 PM

Monthly Report: September 2024 Albums

Friday, October 11, 2024

1. LL Cool J - The Force

I've always thought LL Cool J deserves to be revered even more than he is, and that he had more potential to come back and make some great music again. I didn't necessarily think it would happen since he's been making good CBS money for a long time now, but I thought it could, and I feel very vindicated by The Force. The fact that Q-Tip produced the album and brought this out of him is great, too, just a cool full circle moment for Queens rap, and Tip gave him such a funky and playful backdrop that's more interesting than just a full-on nostalgic boom bap record. Like, even the songs with Eminem and Saweetie are awesome, when I would've expected those to be weak links, and the opening track "Spirit of Cyrus" is this really bold, thought-provoking song about Christopher Dorner. There's longevity in rap, and then there's LL Cool J making an album this good 39 years after Radio, just unprecedented. Here's the 2024 albums Spotify playlist with all the new records I've listened to throughout the year.

2. Chase Rice - Go Down Singin'

Chase Rice's I Hate Cowboys & All Dogs Go To Hell was one of my favorite albums of 2023, a total midcareer revelation from a guy that had a lot more going on musically and lyrically than I'd ever realized. And I'm glad he's stayed on that path with Go Down Singin', even if it's taken him further away from country radio playlists. "Oklahoma" and "Key West & Colorado" were standouts on the last album, and "Oh Tennessee" and "Arkansas" are two of my favorites on this one. So... keep naming songs after states, I guess, Chase Rice!

3. Jackson Dean - On The Back Of My Dreams

When I interviewed Jackson Dean last year, we talked a bit about how he re-recorded "Fearless" for the single release because he'd improved so much as a vocalist in the years of touring since he recorded his major label debut. And you can really hear his growth as a singer with On The Back Of My Dreams, "Another Century" may be his best vocal performance to date. He's stretching out a little musically, too, there's nothing on his previous records that sounds like "Long Goodbye."

4. Gallant - Zinc

Zinc is Gallant's first album for Mom + Pop, after two Warner Bros. albums and a couple of indie projects, and I think that's a really good label for him. His sound is pretty unique and genre-blurring and I don't know if Warner Bros. ever really know what to do but to just market him as an R&B singer. "Monorail" is probably my favorite song on Zinc, it has some guitars and an almost drum'n'bass-style rhythm track, but his vocal is still really soulful.

5. Kassi Ashton - Made From The Dirt

Missouri singer-songwriter Kassi Ashton has grazed the lower reaches of the country radio charts with singles like "Called Crazy" and "Dates in Pickup Trucks" where she kind of plays a flirtatious femme fatale. But the tracks on her debut album that I think make the best use of her voice are the sad slow songs like "The Straw" and "Angels Smoke Cigarettes," she's got more emotional range than I expected.

6. Michael Kentoff - Michael Kentoff

The new solo album by The Caribbean's Michael Kentoff is produced by Chad Clark of Beauty Pill, and as always they work really well together. But since it's Kentoff solo and not his entire band, I think Clark's fingerprints are much more clearer here, in a good way -- it often sounds like Beauty Pill's trippier, more loop-heavy songs, but with a different vocalist and a slightly different but still very vivid and surreal lyrical sensibility. I particularly like "The Slight Brigade."

7. Future - Mixtape Pluto

I recently worked on Complex's updated ranking of Future's catalog, and I was basically given my choice of the 8 project Future has released in the last 5 years to write about. And I didn't write about Mixtape Pluto because it had just come out and I really didn't know where to rank it or what to say about it yet. And even now all I can say is that it's a solid middle-of-the-pack Future tape with some good production, but no features or really immediate songs jumping out as obvious hits. I've never been the biggest Wheezy fan but I think he's got the best tracks on here, I love the creepy atmospheric synth lines on "Ready To Cook Up" and "Ocean" and "MJ."

8. MJ Lenderman - Manning Fireworks

Last year the North Carolina band Wednesday's album Rat Saw God was one of those indie rock records that was so widely celebrated that I listened to just see what all the fuss was about, and I thought it was pretty good. This year, Wednesday guitarist's new solo album racked up even more acclaim, just months and months of advance buzz, and then Pitchfork formally canonizing it as one of the best albums of the past 5 years within a month of its release. MJ Lenderman's colorful lyrics are what really separate him from other similar-sounding acts -- it's like a Son Volt record if Jay Farrar liked to sing words like "himbo" or "cum" or reference video games or Pixar movies. I get the appeal, though, Americana records could generally use more personality and specificity. It does start to feel like a schtick at times, though, the opening lines of "Rip Torn" are awful.

9. various artists - Silver Patron Saints: The Songs of Jesse Malin

I've always thought of the Sweet Relief as a real force of good in the music world, raising money for musicians who need help covering healthcare costs and also putting these cool all-star tribute albums into the world that shine a light on cult artists like Victoria Williams and Vic Chesnutt. I didn't know much about Jesse Malin -- I didn't even realize he was the frontman of D Generation before his solo career -- but this album was recently released, with proceeds going to his Sweet Relief fund, after he suffered a rare spinal stroke last year. And Silver Patron Saints has an incredible lineup of 27 artists, including so many I love -- Dinosaur Jr., Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Butch Walker, just to name a few -- that I felt like I had to listen to Malin's originals as well as the covers, and I'm glad I did, he's got some great songs.

10. Thurston Moore - Flow Critical Lucidity

Thurston Moore's post-Sonic Youth solo albums have more or less sounded like Sonic Youth albums if Moore sang all the songs, especially compared to Kim Gordon's solo records. Flow Critical Lucidity does to an extent, it very much reminds me of Sonic Youth's albums from Murray Street onward, but the backing band is less 'rock' and it's a very mellow, textural record, "Shadow" and "Rewilding" in particular sound great. Moore has an unfortunate tendency to come up with a great guitar part, and then mirror it with the vocal melody instead of coming up with a countermelody, that becomes a little more glaring and tiresome on his solo albums.

The Worst Album of the Month: various artists - A Whole New Sound

In 1988, Hal Willner produced Stay Wake: Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films, a Disney-sanctioned tribute album that featured left-field artists like Tom Waits, Sun Ra, Michael Stipe and the Replacements covering music from animated classics. Now, though, there's just a constant churn of tribute albums with modern rockers covering music from whatever canon you can think of, and A Whole New Sound, which features mostly Warped Tour era punk pop bands covering Disney songs, feels like a gruesomely dull counterpoint to Stay Awake. It's not like Bowling For Soup or Simple Plan were particularly good bands to begin with, but something like this might've at least felt a little fun if it had been made 15 or 20 years ago when these bands were at their peak.

4:15 PM

Tuesday, October 08, 2024

I did another fun interview for Stereogum's We've Got A File On You with Dexter and Noodles from The Offspring. We talked about their new album, Dexter's next HIV research paper, Crazy Taxi, and being parodied by "Weird Al" Yankovic.

10:28 PM

Movie Diary

Friday, October 04, 2024

a) Wolfs

Most of the times we've seen George Clooney and Brad Pitt in the same movie, top shelf directors like Soderbergh or the Coen brothers have been involved. So I was a little skeptical that Wolfs is directed by Jon Watts, best known for the Spider-Man movies with Tom Holland, would not be up to the job. Wolfs is really good, though, they get a lot of mileage out of the simple premise of two fixers who always work alone being forced to cooperate with each other. Austin Abrams is also a great foil for Clooney and Pitt's exasperated tough guys, the movie gets in and out briskly in 108 minutes without letting you learn most of the character's names and throwing a few good twists in there to keep you interested.

b) His Three Daughters

His Three Daughters stars three actresses I adore, and they're all kind of playing the kind of characters they're generally great at playing. Natasha Lyonne is a sarcastic stoner, Carrie Coon is stern and talkative, and Elizabeth Olsen is fragile and emotive. And they spend pretty much the entire movie in an apartment together waiting for their father to die. It's very stagey, sometimes the actresses feel typecast to the point of self-parody, and Carrie Coon gets these stilted monologues where she's saying hundreds of words at a time, but it's mostly a very good movie with a lot of great performances. Jovan Adepo, who worked with Olsen and director Azazel Jacobs on the great series "Sorry For Your Loss," really gives High Three Daughters a dramatic charge in his brief appearances, and the scene toward the end with Jay O. Sanders is a real emotional gut punch.

c) The Fall Guy

I only have the most vague memory that there was a show called "The Fall Guy" on TV when I was a kid, and I'm over 40, so it feels pretty obvious to me why a film adaptation did not make a ton of money. The Fall Guy is really fun and entertaining, though. I'm generally a Ryan Gosling skeptic who only grudgingly admits when his movies are guy, but The Fall Guy and The Nice Guys are the ones that get my wholehearted endorsement, made good use of Emily Blunt, Stephanie Hsu, and Winston Duke.

d) Will & Harper

During the COVID lockdowns, Will Ferrell received an e-mail from a friend he hadn't seen a while, a comedy writer he'd worked with at "Saturday Night Live" and on several subsequent projects, who was coming out as a trans woman. And Will and Harper decided to go on a road trip together to celebrate Harper's new life, and get Harper comfortable with being out in the world as a woman, and they filmed a documentary along the way. Will & Harper is a really beautiful tribute to friendship above all else, and it's probably putting a lot of good into the world just to show a beloved movie star accepting his friend's new identity and caring enough to do this. But two people who've made a lot of broad, goofy comedy together were not going to let this just be a touchy-feely tearjerker movie, there's some fun little tangents, I get the feeling there was a really silly cut of this movie that they held back from out of fear of undermining the serious parts.

e) I Used To Be Funny

I Used To Be Funny is one of those movies that tells the story out of chronology with lots of flashbacks, sometimes jumping across three different periods of time within a couple of years. I don't think it was executed that well, the plot wasn't exactly confusing, but the jumbled order mostly served to withhold how dark the story was for the first hour before plunging you into some really sad, upsetting stuff. By the last stretch of the movie, when you understood everything that had happened, they brought it to a satisfying conclusion, but I have mixed feelings about the storytelling.

f) Pearl

I thought X was pretty good, but the Mia Goth multiple role gimmick was, I thought, the least successful part of the movie. And I was skeptical about it becoming a whole trilogy with a prequel movie, this just doesn't feel necessarily. Some good scenes, but didn't need to exist.

g) Five Nights At Freddy's

It's weird watching this movie version of a 'scary' game for kids, it really has the vibe and visual language of an R rating but pulls back just enough to be PG-13.

h) Spread

I know 'Tubi movie' is a pejorative that mostly translates to dramas and action movies with incredibly bad production values, but this is a solid little comedy starring Elizabeth Gillies, who I think is just great, I got to meet her for a minute recently when I worked on the stage show she does with Seth MacFarlane.

i) Bird Box: Barcelona

I wouldn't say the original Bird Box was a great movie, but it was a nice little zeitgeist-grabbing thrill ride that maybe could've been a franchise. Instead, Netflix quietly released a spinoff over five years later that takes place in Spain, and it just feels like it has none of the juice the original had, a couple exciting scenes but I just didn't care when I was watching it.

8:54 AM

Thursday, October 03, 2024

I always love doing We've Got A File On You interviews for Stereogum, and this week I did one of my favorites ever. I got to ask Raphael Saadiq about his work with Tony! Toni! Tone! and Lucy Pearl and his productions for Beyonce, D'Angelo, Brent Faiyaz, and Solange. We talked about real studio nerd stuff like Mellotrons and Clavinets and how recording to tape is different that recording digitally. He told me which of his songs made Prince dance in the rain, and which one inspired what a lot of people named their daughters.

4:03 AM

Wednesday, October 02, 2024

The Kinks' debut album is 60 years old today, and I ranked all 24 of the band's albums for Spin.

4:01 AM

My Top 100 Singles of 1972

Tuesday, October 01, 2024

Here's the Spotify playlist:

1. Stevie Wonder - "Superstition"
2. Al Green - "Let's Stay Together"
3. Lyn Collins – “Think (About It)”
4. Faces - "Stay With Me"
5. Yes - "Roundabout"
6. The Who - "Baba O'Riley"
7. The Eagles - "Take It Easy"
8. Chicago - "Saturday In The Park"
9. The Rolling Stones - "Tumbling Dice"
10. The O'Jays - "Back Stabbers"
11. Elton John - "Tiny Dancer"
12. Steely Dan - "Do It Again"
13. America – “Ventura Highway”
14. Curtis Mayfield - "Superfly"
15. Derek And the Dominoes - "Layla"
16. Van Morrison – “Jackie Wilson Said (I’m In Heaven When You Smile)”
17. Bill Withers - "Lean On Me"
18. Jackson Browne - "Doctor My Eyes"
19. Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose – “Too Late To Turn Back Now”
20. David Bowie - "Suffragette City"
21. Sly & The Family Stone - "Family Affair"
22. The Doobie Brothers - "Listen To The Music"
23. Paul Simon - "Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard"
24. Harry Nilsson - "Jump Into The Fire"
25. The Temptations - "Papa Was A Rolling Stone"
26. Alice Cooper - "School's Out"
27. The Isley Brothers - "Work To Do"
28. Gary Glitter - "Rock And Roll Part 2"
29. Joe Tex - "I Gotcha"
30. Al Green – “I’m Still In Love With You”
31. David Bowie - "Ziggy Stardust"
32. The Stylistics - "You Are Everything"
33. War - "Slippin' Into Darkness"
34. Carly Simon - "Anticipation"
35. Aretha Franklin - "Day Dreaming"
36. The Kinks – “Supersonic Rocket Ship”
37. The Osmonds – “Crazy Horses”
38. The Isley Brothers – “Lay Away”
39. The Raspberries – “Go All The Way”
40. Todd Rundgren - "I Saw The Light"
41. The Dramatics – “In The Rain”
42. Harry Nilsson - "Coconut"
43. Thin Lizzy - "Whiskey In The Jar"
44. Elton John - "Rocket Man (I Think It’s Going To Be A Long, Long Time)"
45. Neil Young - "Old Man"
46. Mott the Hoople - "All The Young Dudes"
47. Argent - "Hold Your Head Up"
48. Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes – “If You Don’t Know Me By Now”
49. The Rolling Stones - "Happy"
50. T. Rex - "Children of the Revolution"
51. Roberta Flack – “The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face”
52. Tanya Tucker – “Delta Dawn”
53. The Allman Brothers Band - "Melissa"
54. Elvis Presley - "Burning Love"
55. Steely Dan - "Dirty Work"
56. War – “The World Is A Ghetto”
57. The Moody Blues - "Nights in White Satin"
58. Bread – “Sweet Surrender”
59. Yes – “And You And I”
60. The Stylistics - "Betcha By Golly Wow"
61. George Jones - "We Can Make It"
62. Rod Stewart – “You Wear It Well”
63. Al Green - "Look What You Done For Me”
64. The Doobie Brothers - "Jesus Is Just Alright"
65. Johnny Nash - "I Can See Clearly Now"
66. Curtis Mayfield - "Freddie's Dead"
67. Marvin Gaye - "Trouble Man"
68. Bill Withers - "Use Me"
69. Jethro Tull - "Thick As A Brick"
70. Stevie Wonder - "Superwoman (Where Were you When I Needed You)"
71. Todd Rundgren - "Couldn't I Just Tell You"
72. The Bee Gees – “Alive”
73. Joni Mitchell - "You Turn Me On, I'm A Radio"
74. Yes – “Yours Is No Disgrace”
75. Al Green – “You Ought To Be With Me”
76. The Who - "Join Together"
77. David Bowie - "Starman"
78. Neil Young - "Heart Of Gold"
79. Bread – “Everything I Own”
80. Elton John - "Honky Cat"
81. Don McLean - "American Pie"
82. The Eagles - "Witchy Woman"
83. George Jones - "Loving You Could Never Be Better"
84. The Isley Brothers – “Pop That Thang”
85. O.B. McClinton – “Don’t Let The Green Grass Fool You”
86. Paul Simon - "Mother And Child Reunion"
87. Sly & The Family Stone - "Runnin' Away"
88. Stevie Wonder – “Keep On Running”
89. Bread – “Guitar Man”
90. Elton John - "Crocodile Rock"
91. America - "A Horse With No Name"
92. Loggins and Messina - "Your Mama Don't Dance"
93. Donna Fargo – “The Happiest Girl In The Whole U.S.A.”
94. Chuck Berry - "My Ding-A-ling"
95. Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band – “Garden Party”
96. Tom T. Hall – “(Old Dogs, Children and) Watermelon Wine”
97. The Eagles - "Peaceful Easy Feeling"
98. The Kinks – “Celluloid Heroes”
99. Eric Clapton – “Let It Rain”
100. Marvin Gaye - "You're The Man"

Another pretty amazing year, feels like 30 or 40 songs that would've been a lock for my top 10 in a normal year. Of course, some really overexposed stuff like "American Pie" or "Rocket Man," I probably put lower than they deserve to be, but I'm comfortable with this being my canon and not trying to be objective or anything.

Previously:

My Top 50 Albums of 1972

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1973

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1974

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1975

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1976

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1977

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1978

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1979

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1980

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1981

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1982

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1983

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1984

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1985

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1986

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1987

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1988

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1989

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1990

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1991

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1992

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1993

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1994

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1995

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1996

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1997

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1998

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1999

My Top 25 Albums and Top 50 Singles of 2000

My Top 25 Albums and Top 50 Singles of 2001

My Top 25 Albums and Top 50 Singles of 2002

My Top 25 Albums and Top 50 Singles of 2003

My Top 25 Albums and Top 50 Singles of 2004

My Top 25 Albums and Top 50 Singles of 2005

My Top 25 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 2006

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 2007

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 2008

My Top 50 Albums and Top 50 Singles of 2009

My Top 50 Albums and Top 50 Singles of 2010

My Top 50 Albums and Top 50 Singles of 2011

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 2012

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 2013

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 2014

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 2015

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 2016

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 2017

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 2018

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 2019

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 2020

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 2021

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 2022

My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 2023

4:00 AM

Saturday, September 28, 2024

In 2019, I worked on a Complex piece ranking all of Future's albums and mixtape. This week, Complex published an updated version of the piece and I wrote a few new blurbs for some of the projects Future has released in the last 5 years.

7:17 AM

Friday, September 27, 2024

It was announced this week that Rams Head Live! is closing, and I wrote a Baltimore Banner column about my memories of shows at the venue, and the mixed emotions that Baltimore music lovers feel about the news.

7:16 AM

TV Diary

Wednesday, September 25, 2024

a) "Three Women"

Showtime produced "Three Women" and then decided not to air it after the season was filmed, and I'm so glad that Starz picked it up, the first two episodes that have aired so far are really impressive. Apparently Lisa Taddeo's Three Women is a best-selling non-fiction book in which Taddeo probes the lives and stories of three women, in the series Shailene Woodley plays a fictionalized version of Taddeo ("Gia"). One of the three women is played by Betty Gilpin, who I really genuinely think is one of the best actresses working today and I think this is one of her very best performances, particularly in the second episode.

b) "How To Die Alone"

After years of great supporting performances on "Insecure" and "The White Lotus," Natasha Rothwell is finally starring in her own show, which she created. There is a bit of a reliance on these goofy slapstick moments that I don't think the show really needs, but when the scenes are more character-driven, it's really good.

c) "The Perfect Couple"

Nicole Kidman has done a lot of television since "Big Little Lies," but she's really taken on an insane workload lately. She will have starred in at least 3 seasons of television in 2024 ("Expats," "The Perfect Couple," and "Special Ops: Lioness"), possibly 4 or 5 depending on when "The Last Anniversary" and the second season of "Nine Perfect Strangers" come out. "The Perfect Couple" is about a destination wedding where the maid of honor is murdered, pretty good ensemble but I haven't gotten too far with the show yet, dunno if it's just "White Lotus" lite or something more (naturally, the murder victim is played by an actor from "The White Lotus," Meghann Fahy).

d) "Agatha All Along"

I really liked "WandaVision" and the whole reveal with Kathryn Hahn's character, but that was 3 and a half years ago, kinda feels like forever. I like that they took another big swing for the first episode of "Agatha All Along" and kept with the theme of "WandaVision," though, it was really entertaining.

e) "Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist"

This period piece about a robbery the night of a Muhammed Ali fight in 1970 is really entertaining, insanely stacked cast that includes Don Cheadle, Samuel L. Jackson and Taraji P. Henson. And listen, I have no problem with Kevin Hart, I happily watch him in a lot of stuff, but he wasn't the right lead for this, he doesn't have the right screen presence for something that isn't a full-on comedy, it reminds me of Will Ferrell not understanding why "Winning Time" could star John C. Reilly but not him.

f) "The Penguin"

My favorite memory of watching The Batman was when my wife walked in the room, and I pointed to the Penguin and explained that he was being played by Colin Farrell and she just got the most puzzled look on her face and said "why?" There have been some great performances from people in heavy makeup or prosthetics -- including the definitive Penguin, Danny DeVito! -- but Farrell as the Penguin just seems like such a needlessly gaudy gimmick, having a fit handsome sex symbol wear a fatsuit and a weird latex face. And it seems even more ridiculous when you make him the main character of a series, and the more I look at Farrell's weird Penguin face the more of a strange uncanny valley effect it has, like it's a real person's eyes behind a bunch of other shit that looks slightly off. I liked the first episode, especially because Craig Zobel (Compliance, The Hunt) is a much better director than Matt Reeves, and Cristin Milioti is good enough in this show to keep me watching, but I'm irritated by the prestige TV sheen on comic book characters here.

g) "Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story"

It feels like every time Ryan Murphy does a series based on a true story, he strays further and further from the truth, and this Menendez brothers series has gotten a lot of criticism for taking liberties with the story. I haven't gotten too far into it to see everything they supposedly got wrong, but it's well produced and compelling, which is part of the problem, these people who make true crime shows can make absolutely bullshit and harmful lies fun to watch.

h) "American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez"

It's funny that Ryan Murphy's OJ Simpson show was "American Crime Story" but the Aaron Hernandez one is "American Sports Story." Is the difference that one guy was still in the NFL when he killed people and the other wasn't? I don't know if this has as many factual issues as the Menendez show, but this is much weaker as television, partly because Jose Andres Rivera is hopelessly miscast, you can never watch this show for a second thinking that you're watching Aaron Hernandez, there's no resemblance whatsoever.

i) "Billionaire Island"

A Netflix series called "Billionaire Island" sounds like potentially the worst reality show on television, but it's a pretty good drama from Norway about power struggles in the salmon farming industry. It feels like we're just getting inundated with "Succession"-ish shows these days, but if you have to watch only one, I think you might as well watch one about Norwegian fish tycoons.

j) "Love Next Door"

A pleasant little South Korean show on Netflix about a woman going back to her hometown and gets romantically involved with one of her childhood friends, if this show was produced in America it'd definitely be on the CW.

k) "Poong, The Joseon Psychiatrist"

A South Korean show about a psychiatrist (duh), which starts out with a whole dramatic origin story where the guy is an acupuncturist for the royal family and is expelled from his job when the king dies after he performs acupuncture on him.

l) "Timelesz Project - Audition"

This Netflix docuseries is about a Japanese pop group that rebrands and changes its lineup after a sexual abuse scandal involving the agency that formed the group. It's a pretty somber, serious show, but sometimes they mention Timelesz's old name, Sexy Zone, and I have to stifle a laugh.

m) "Angel Di Maria: Breaking Down The Wall"

Don't know much about soccer but I found this docuseries about an Argentine football star pretty enjoyable.

n) "The Yara Gambirasio Case: Beyond Reasonable Doubt"

A true crime docuseries about a 13-year-old Italian girl who went missing in 2010 and her body was found a few months later. Don't know if I'll finish it, just a really awful, sad story.

o) "Caught In The Web: The Murders Behind Zona Divas"

Another tough watch, about women who became escorts in Mexico City and were trafficked and murdered.

p) "The Chicano Squad"

An A&E miniseries about how the Houston PD formed a bilingual Latino homicide unit when the rate of Latin murder cases skyrocketed in the late '70s, interesting story but also depressing in how it took such an extreme situation for those people to get those jobs.

q) "Secret Lives of Mormon Wives"

A couple years ago there was a whole viral thing about Mormon wives talking about swinging and partner swapping on TikTok, and unsurprisingly they were all game to star in a Hulu reality show. I understand the fascination with Mormon culture but mostly these are just normal suburban moms and it feels like they're all trying to be the Kardashians here.

r) "American Godfathers: The Five Families"

There are so many mafia movies and TV shows that it kind of gets hard to separate the real history from the pop culture depictions, so I enjoyed this docuseries, which, naturally, was narrated by someone from "The Sopranos," Michael Imperioli.

s) "Wise Guy: David Chase and the Sopranos"

"The Sopranos" has been a cultural blind spot for me for a long time, I only just started watching the series this year. So I enjoyed this 2-part HBO doc that delves into David Chase and the show's other writers' lives and personal experiences that inspired the show, and some pretty great stories about getting the show off the ground and anecdotes about how hard James Gandolfini worked on the show, how kind he was to the people he worked with, and the toll playing Tony Soprano took on him.

t) "Nothin' But A Good Time: The Uncensored Story of '80s Hair Metal"

This 3-part Paramount+ documentary is light on starpower -- just about only frontmen of major bands who did interviews were Poison's Bret Michaels (who, of course, sang the song the show is named after) and Great White's Jack Russell, who just died last month. But there's still a wealth of really good stories from industry guys like Tom Zutaut and Alan Niven and sidemen like GNR's Steven Adler and Kix's Brian Forsythe (who I myself interviewed last year). Still, a pretty entertaining overview of the era with some very memorable stories. Quiet Riot's Rudy Sarzo was on tour with Ozzy Osbourne when Randy Rhoades died, and his stories about Ozzy's grief and remorse are really touching.

u) "Cursed Gold: A Shipwreck Scandal"

In 1989, a scientist discovered tons of gold on a shipwreck in the Atlantic Ocean. I'm really a nature doc geek because I was a lot less interested in this than National Geographic's other recent docs that were just about ocean life.

v) "Have I Got News For You"

It feels like the days of every "Daily Show" correspondent getting their own "Daily Show"-style series are long gone, so I'm glad that Roy Wood Jr. got a show on CNN but they've adapted a UK panel show instead of doing another evening news satire. These shows that rely a little more on improv than writing are inherently less consistently funny, but I enjoyed the first episode, Wood is a great host.

w) "Chimp Crazy"

This show tells a pretty wild story but I feel like it only got made because people want to have "the next 'Tiger King'" and after a while it's just depressing to hear about this woman's antics.

x) "Jack Whitehall: Fatherhood With My Father"

This is British comedian Jack Whitehall's second reality show with his dad after "Travels With My Father," now about him having a kid. And so much of it just feels contrived to put them into "funny" situations that I just don't find it charming at all, it's just another heavily staged reality show except it's trying to make you laugh.

y) "The Anonymous"

A reality show that tries to be clever with a thing where contestants interact in real and then also interact on the internet via anonymous screennames, but I don't know, the whole thing just feels stupid. It's also confusing how they sprinkle in some minor celebrities and people from other shows (including Andy King from the Fyre Festival doc) into a group of otherwise unknown people.

z) "Coming From America"

A reality show about four African American families who decide to live in Africa. I don't really have an opinion about what they're doing, but the way the Americans talked about living in Africa in this show made me cringe a lot.

11:50 AM

Sunday, September 22, 2024

I ranked every Built to Spill album for Spin, and also wrote about Casii Stephan's new EP.

10:07 AM

Saturday, September 21, 2024

I interviewed Cris Jacobs, and also the legendary producer of his latest album, Jerry Douglas, for the Baltimore Banner.

10:06 AM

Deep Album Cuts Vol. 370: Maze Featuring Frankie Beverly

Friday, September 20, 2024

A few months ago I put "Before I Let Go" at #1 on my list of the best R&B singles of the 1980s. And I really wanted to do a Maze deep cuts playlist over the summer when Frankie Beverly played his final show with the band, but I didn't get around to it, and then Beverly sadly passed away last week at the age of 77.

Maze Featuring Frankie Beverly album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Color Blind

2. Time Is On My Side

3. I Need You

4. You're Not The Same

5. Lovely Inspiration

6. Welcome Home

7. Happiness

8. Changing Times (live)

9. Reason

10. Right On Time

11. Your Own Kind Of Way

12. A Place In My Heart

13. Change On Our Ways

14. Love Is

Tracks 1 and 2 from Maze Featuring Frankie Beverly (1977)

Tracks 3 and 4 from Golden Time of Day (1978)

Tracks 5 and 6 from Inspiration (1979)

Track 7 from Joy and Pain (1980)

Tracks 8 and 9 from Live in New Orleans (1981)

Tracks 10 and 11 from We Are One (1983)

Track 12 from Can't Stop the Love (1985)

Track 13 from Silky Soul (1989)

Track 14 from Back to Basics (1993)

Beverly formed his band, originally called Frankie Beverly's Raw Soul, in Philadelphia, but the group was based in San Francisco for most of its history. But Washington, D.C. was always a strong market for Maze and I know and love so many of the band's songs from stations like Majic 102. Marvin Gaye took the band on the road, mentored them, and suggested the name change to Maze.

Maze is kind of the quintessential non-crossover R&B act. They have 9 albums that went gold but none of them got to platinum. They have dozens of hits on the R&B charts, but only 4 of them made it to the bottom half of the Hot 100, and their most famous song, "Before I Let Go," wasn't one of them. They do have a connection to a #1 pop hit, though. A few years ago I interviewed 24kGoldn of "Mood" fame, and learned that his real name is Golden and he was named after the title track from Maze's "Golden Time of Day."

Maze and Frankie Beverly were early on the trend of releasing a live album with a few studio tracks tacked on the end, and "Before I Let Go" was one of the four new songs on Live in New Orleans, along with "Reasons." I like to think that Beyonce put her "Before I Let Go" cover at the end of a live album, Homecoming, on purpose in homage to that fact.

"I Need You" was sampled on 50 Cent's "Hustler's Ambition," "Right On Time" was sampled by Eminem and J Dilla, and "Happiness" was sampled by Z-Ro. Maze has released some greatest hits albums, but in 1998 they also released Greatest Slow Jams, which is heavy on album tracks including "Lovely Inspiration," "Happiness," "Reason," "Your Own Kind of Way," and "A Place in My Heart."