Deep Album Cuts Vol. 410: Third Eye Blind

Wednesday, July 15, 2026














Third Eye Blind were huge for a brief time in the late '90s, but they never really stopped making records, so I thought I'd dig into their catalog and see what it was like beyond the big early hits. 

Third Eye Blind deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Thanks a Lot
2. I Want You
3. Burning Man
4. Motorcycle Drive By
5. Narcolepsy
6. 1,000 Julys
7. Wounded
8. The Red Summer Sun
9. An Ode to Maybe
10. Farther
11. Misfits
12. Self Righteous
13. Can You Take Me
14. Dopamine
15. Mine
16. Weightless
17. In the Fade
18. Light It Up
19. Funeral Singers

Tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 from Third Eye Blind (1997)
Tracks 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10 from Blue (1999)
Tracks 11 and 12 from Out of the Vein (2003)
Track 13 from Ursa Major (2009)
Track 14 from Dopamine (2015)
Track 15 from the "Everything Is Easy" single (2015)
Track 16 from We Are Drugs EP (2016)
Track 17 from Thanks For Everything EP (2018)
Track 18 from Screamer (2019)
Track 19 from Our Bande Apart (2021)

Stephan Jenkins produced an R&B cover of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" by a group called The Braids that was briefly a chart hit in 1996. Around the same time, Third Eye Blind parlayed a spot opening an Oasis show in San Francisco into a major label bidding war and signed a huge contract with Elektra with full creative freedom. I remember seeing big full page ads for Third Eye Blind's debut album in magazines like Alternative Press before I heard "Semi-Charmed Life," and to be honest, I hated that song the whole time it was inescapable in the summer of '97. I got over that, though, it's a great song, I think it's the "Born To Run" of the '90s. 

Third Eye Blind headlined my college's spring concert in 2005, and I didn't go, but I think I had warmed to the band's hits by that point. And my wife and her brother were big fans of that first album, so I'd hear it on road trips and songs like "Motorcycle Drive By" started to grow on me. More recently, my brother-in-law has been really into Third Eye Blind's cover of Beyonce and Drake's "Mine" that appeared on a 2015 b-side, he even had it on his wedding playlist. 

I remember a very entertaining interview with Gina Arnold where Stephan Jenkins declared "We're not a media-created band like Sleater-Kinney" and "We've driven to New York in a van and played CBGBs," my brother and I would mockingly quote that constantly. Jenkins generally seems like a ridiculous character, and kind of turned into an Axl Rose-style diva lead singer, firing guitarist Kevin Cadogan, who co-wrote more than half of the songs on the first two Third Eye Blind albums. But I think he's pretty talented and those albums are both full of great songs. 

As ubiquitous as the band's debut was, I genuinely barely remember Blue coming out. I never heard the lead single "Anything" on the radio, it didn't have a video, I vaguely remember someone telling me they put out this 2-minute song that was good, and I love that one now. Even the album's big hit, "Never Let You Go," I feel like I only saw the video once or twice at the time. Somehow the album still went platinum, but the band never really recovered their momentum, even if some of their later albums charted higher. Blue is cool, though, I think it's worthy of a Pinkerton-like following, "The Red Summer Sun" has an insane vocal, Jenkins really does kinda turn into Axl Rose in the middle of that one. His dark sense of humor doesn't really come across on "Slow Motion," though, the lyrics on that one are such a bad idea that later editions of the album just have it as an instrumental, which I don't really have a problem with, I never want to hear those lyrics again. 

They never really reached the heights of the first two albums again, but there's some interesting stuff on the later records, including some surprising collaborations. "Self Righteous" is a 6-minute song featuring Kimya Dawson of the Moldy Peaches. "Misfits," which was first developed as a song Jenkins and Fred Durst were working on for Limp Bizkit's Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water. Jenkins also became friends with Billy Corgan, who co-wrote "Light It Up." "Weightless" is a good song mostly in 5/4 for my ongoing 5/4 files. And Third Eye Blind's most recent album contains a pretty good cover of Califone's most popular song, "Funeral Singers," which was a surprising choice. 

Previous playlists in the Deep Album Cuts series:
Vol. 1: Brandy
Vol. 2: Whitney Houston
Vol. 3: Madonna
Vol. 4: My Chemical Romance
Vol. 5: Brad Paisley
Vol. 6: George Jones
Vol. 7: The Doors
Vol. 8: Jay-Z
Vol. 9: Robin Thicke
Vol. 10: R. Kelly
Vol. 11: Fall Out Boy
Vol. 12: TLC
Vol. 13: Pink
Vol. 14: Queen
Vol. 15: Steely Dan
Vol. 16: Trick Daddy
Vol. 17: Paramore
Vol. 18: Elton John
Vol. 19: Missy Elliott
Vol. 20: Mariah Carey
Vol. 21: The Pretenders
Vol. 22: "Weird Al" Yankovic
Vol. 23: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Vol. 24: Foo Fighters
Vol. 25: Counting Crows
Vol. 26: T.I.
Vol. 27: Jackson Browne
Vol. 28: Usher
Vol. 29: Mary J. Blige
Vol. 30: The Black Crowes
Vol. 31: Ne-Yo
Vol. 32: Blink-182
Vol. 33: One Direction
Vol. 34: Kelly Clarkson
Vol. 35: The B-52's
Vol. 36: Ludacris
Vol. 37: They Might Be Giants
Vol. 38: T-Pain
Vol. 39: Snoop Dogg
Vol. 40: Ciara
Vol. 41: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Vol. 42: Dwight Yoakam
Vol. 43: Demi Lovato
Vol. 44: Prince
Vol. 45: Duran Duran
Vol. 46: Rihanna
Vol. 47: Janet Jackson
Vol. 48: Sara Bareilles
Vol. 49: Motley Crue
Vol. 50: The Who
Vol. 51: Coldplay
Vol. 52: Alicia Keys
Vol. 53: Stone Temple Pilots
Vol. 54: David Bowie
Vol. 55: The Eagles
Vol. 56: The Beatles
Vol. 57: Beyonce
Vol. 58: Beanie Sigel
Vol. 59: A Tribe Called Quest
Vol. 60: Cheap Trick
Vol. 61: Guns N' Roses
Vol. 62: The Posies
Vol. 63: The Time
Vol. 64: Gucci Mane
Vol. 65: Violent Femmes
Vol. 66: Red Hot Chili Peppers
Vol. 67: Maxwell
Vol. 68: Parliament-Funkadelic
Vol. 69: Chevelle
Vol. 70: Ray Parker Jr. and Raydio
Vol. 71: Fantasia
Vol. 72: Heart
Vol. 73: Pitbull
Vol. 74: Nas
Vol. 75: Monica
Vol. 76: The Cars
Vol. 77: 112
Vol. 78: 2Pac
Vol. 79: Nelly
Vol. 80: Meat Loaf
Vol. 81: AC/DC
Vol. 82: Bruce Springsteen
Vol. 83: Pearl Jam
Vol. 84: Green Day
Vol. 85: George Michael and Wham!
Vol. 86: New Edition
Vol. 87: Chuck Berry
Vol. 88: Electric Light Orchestra
Vol. 89: Chic
Vol. 90: Journey
Vol. 91: Yes
Vol. 92: Soundgarden
Vol. 93: The Allman Brothers Band
Vol. 94: Mobb Deep
Vol. 95: Linkin Park
Vol. 96: Shania Twain
Vol. 97: Squeeze
Vol. 98: Taylor Swift
Vol. 99: INXS
Vol. 100: Stevie Wonder
Vol. 101: The Cranberries
Vol. 102: Def Leppard
Vol. 103: Bon Jovi
Vol. 104: Dire Straits
Vol. 105: The Police
Vol. 106: Sloan
Vol. 107: Peter Gabriel
Vol. 108: Led Zeppelin
Vol. 109: Dave Matthews Band
Vol. 110: Nine Inch Nails
Vol. 111: Talking Heads
Vol. 112: Smashing Pumpkins
Vol. 113: System Of A Down
Vol. 114: Aretha Franklin
Vol. 115: Michael Jackson
Vol. 116: Alice In Chains
Vol. 117: Paul Simon
Vol. 118: Lil Wayne
Vol. 119: Nirvana
Vol. 120: Kix
Vol. 121: Phil Collins
Vol. 122: Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Vol. 123: Sonic Youth
Vol. 124: Bob Seger
Vol. 125: Radiohead
Vol. 126: Eric Church
Vol. 127: Neil Young
Vol. 128: Future
Vol. 129: Say Anything
Vol. 130: Maroon 5
Vol. 131: Kiss
Vol. 132: Dinosaur Jr.
Vol. 133: Stevie Nicks
Vol. 134: Talk Talk
Vol. 135: Ariana Grande
Vol. 136: Roxy Music
Vol. 137: The Cure
Vol. 138: 2 Chainz
Vol. 139: Kelis
Vol. 140: Ben Folds Five
Vol. 141: DJ Khaled
Vol. 142: Little Feat
Vol. 143: Brendan Benson
Vol. 144: Chance The Rapper
Vol. 145: Miguel
Vol. 146: The Geto Boys
Vol. 147: Meek Mill
Vol. 148: Tool
Vol. 149: Jeezy
Vol. 150: Lady Gaga
Vol. 151: Eddie Money
Vol. 152: LL Cool J
Vol. 153: Cream
Vol. 154: Pavement
Vol. 155: Miranda Lambert
Vol. 156: Gang Starr
Vol. 157: Little Big Town
Vol. 158: Thin Lizzy
Vol. 159: Pat Benatar
Vol. 160: Depeche Mode
Vol. 161: Rush
Vol. 162: Three 6 Mafia
Vol. 163: Jennifer Lopez
Vol. 164: Rage Against The Machine
Vol. 165: Huey Lewis and the News
Vol. 166: Dru Hill
Vol. 167: The Strokes
Vol. 168: The Notorious B.I.G.
Vol. 169: Sparklehorse
Vol. 170: Kendrick Lamar
Vol. 171: Mazzy Star
Vol. 172: Erykah Badu
Vol. 173: The Smiths
Vol. 174: Kenny Rogers & The First Edition
Vol. 175: Fountains Of Wayne
Vol. 176: Joe Diffie
Vol. 177: Morphine
Vol. 178: Dr. Dre
Vol. 179: The Rolling Stones
Vol. 180: Superchunk
Vol. 181: The Replacements
Vol. 371: The Beastie Boys
Vol. 372: Marianne Faithfull
Vol. 373: Sly and the Family Stone
Vol. 374: Billy Idol
Vol. 375: The Jam
Vol. 376: Roberta Flack
Vol. 377: Chubby Checker
Vol. 378: Bad Company
Vol. 379: Mana
Vol. 380: Joe Cocker
Vol. 381: The Kinks
Vol. 382: Phish
Vol. 383: Faith No More
Vol. 384: The Alarm
Vol. 385: Jill Sobule
Vol. 386: Luther Vandross
Vol. 387: Angie Stone
Vol. 388: MC Lyte
Vol. 389: The Beach Boys
Vol. 390: The S.O.S. Band
Vol. 391: Bad Bunny
Vol. 392: Donna Summer
Vol. 393: The Wu-Tang Clan
Vol. 394: Raekwon
Vol. 395: Ghostface Killah
Vol. 396: RZA
Vol. 397: GZA
Vol. 398: Method Man
Vol. 399: Redman
Vol. 400: Al Green
Vol. 401: Billy Joel
Vol. 402: Melissa Etheridge
Vol. 403: Shakira
Vol. 404: Aerosmith
Vol. 405: Cake
Vol. 406: Daft Punk
Vol. 407: N.E.R.D.
Vol. 408: Built To Spill
Vol. 409: Queen Latifah

5:00 AM

Friday, July 10, 2026

 







This week I wrote about one of my favorite Sonic Youth songs, "Rain on Tin," for my Spin column Deep Cut Friday, and also ranked Sly and the Family Stone's albums. 

9:50 AM

Monthly Report: June 2026 Albums

Thursday, July 09, 2026


 




















1. Tierra Whack - Whack's Museum
I'm not someone who begrudges rappers experimenting with singing and melodic flows. But there was plenty of that the last couple times Tierra Whack released a batch of new songs (2021's trio of EPs called Rap? and Pop? and R&B?, and the 2024 album Whack World). So her new mixtape Whack's Museum feels like an overdue confirmation that she's absolutely one of the best MCs going right now. The tape opens with her chuckling "They say I should rap more," and then she proceeds to rhyme her ass off for 12 tracks, a third of them produced by Conductor Williams. 

2. Olivia Rodrigo - You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love
I don't know if I like this as much as Olivia Rodrigo's first two albums, but she's still on an incredible run and has really not missed once yet. And I like that she's pivoted a bit, from grungy/punky rock influences to lots of homages to The Cure (and a Robert Smith cameo), and from angry or sad or horny breakup songs to the whirlwind of emotions of a blossoming new relationship. The whole title and vibe of You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love kind of takes me back to the early days of dating my wife, and her enormous sad eyes that made me want to just stay with her forever and try to make her smile more. I particularly like "Maggots For Brains" and "U + Me = <3," which has my favorite line on the album: "They say modern love's a cruel endeavor, and to that I say 'Fuck it, whatever.'" 

3. Key Glock - Project X
On a Thursday afternoon in June, the world heard the news that Memphis's Tay Keith, one of the biggest rap producers of the past ten years, had died at 29. That night, people pressed play on Memphis rapper Key Glock's new album and the first thing they heard was Tay Keith's signature drop, and it was bittersweet to learn that Tay Keith produced 5 tracks on Project X. Key Glock's got a formula that he never really deviates from -- he's got more ways to say he bought some expensive jeans than perhaps any rapper in history -- but he's got a great ear and as usual picks some excellent beats, from Tay Keith and Grayson Beats's "Mannish" to Oh Ross and Blazerfxme's "Big 5." 

4. Niall Horan - Dinner Party
All four surviving members of One Direction released albums in the first half of 2026, and I'm not surprised that Niall Horan continues to quietly have the best solo catalog out of the group. Julian Bunetta and John Ryan have made some huge hits with Sabrina Carpenter in the last few years but they really do some of their best work with Horan, "Tastes So Good" is a fantastic opener, and "End of an Era" is a moving tribute to Liam Payne. 

5. Imani Imani - Papercut
It's been 6 years since Kendrick Lamar and Dave Free launched pgLang, a multimedia company that seems to have mostly worked on advertising campaigns and occasionally releasing the music of Kendrick and his cousin Baby Keem. Apparently they released an album by another artist, Tanna Leone, in 2022, but I have no recollection of hearing anything about that. Singer Imani Imani's debut Papercut was surprise released on a Tuesday in June, I guess on the premise that the pgLang brand could lure enough listeners to check out a new artist. I don't know how well it worked, but I hope Imani Imani has a future, this album is really good, I particularly like the early stretch of "Come Together," "Snatch," and "On Demand." There are a couple familiar names in the liner notes, James Fauntleroy and Sam Dew, but it seems like she's not working too much with established people, and has a lovely voice that works in several different styles of music. 

6. Vince Staples - Cry Baby
I respect that Vince Staples has always moved like an album artist who makes each release musically and/or lyrically distinct from his other work. Summertime '06 didn't sound like his early tapes, Big Fish Theory was a departure from all of the above and kind of divisive at the time, but now it's one of his most popular records. So I take the mixed reviews of Cry Baby with a grain of salt, because even if it's not his best work, I really like dig him adding something like this to his catalog. It's a political rap/rock record that sounds nothing like Rage Against the Machine, full of rhymes about American racism and the Trump administration over chugging indie rock guitars. Vince gets a lot of credit for his deadpan wit, but there's a lot of sincerity in his music too, and I like how fully he engages with the subject matter and says exactly what he thinks. It really feels like 2010s mainstream rap songs like YG's "FDT" and Childish Gambino's "This Is America" totally went out of fashion in the 2020s and guys like Kendrick and J. Cole wouldn't be caught dead making a record this earnestly topical today. So Vince making Cry Baby actually feels refreshing, he's swerving confidently into an unoccupied lane. 

7. T.I. - Kill The King
T.I. has said that Kill The King is his final album, and so I'll just quickly link my old piece about how almost no rapper ever truly retires and I think he'll be back. But having a comeback hit like "Let 'Em Know" 25 years into his career is pretty cool, I'm glad he was able to catch a real wave with this album. He got some good beats from DJ Toomp, Organized Noize, Mr. Hanky, and DJ Montay, and Young Dro is on like three tracks. T.I. is still really an elite rapper, I'm pretty happy with it as a fan, whether or not it's his last album. 

8. Berndt / Schmidt - Cloud Machines
The High Zero Festival is one of my favorite things on earth -- longtime Baltimore saxophonist John Berndt co-founded the festival in the '90s, and M.C. Schmidt of Matmos, who moved to Baltimore in 2007, is the current president of the High Zero Foundation. Their first album as a duo, apparently 12 years in the making, is the kind of experimental record that makes judicious use of silence as much as any sound. You get a lot of room to listen or not listen closely to these strange and often beautiful little spurts of sound that come from Bernt and Schmidt's instruments, synths, samplers, and collaborators like guitarists Owen Gardner of Horse Lords and Joel Knispel. 

9. Horse Lords - Demand To Be Taken To Heaven Alive! 
I already included one of the advance singles from the sixth Horse Lords album, "Brain of the Firm," in my annual DJ set of music in 5/4 back in May. There's some more 5/4 on Demand To Be Taken To Heaven Alive! as well as some other unusual time signatures (I love the 9/8 on "A City Yet To Come). But what really impresses me about Horse Lords is how they blur and overlap and transition between different meters and polyrhythms. In a way they're probably one of the tightest bands in the world, because they play such unnatural grooves together so well. 

10. Death Cab For Cutie - I Built You A Tower
I think of Ben Gibbard as a singer/songwriter guy at heart. Like, Death Cab For Cutie always seemed like a somewhat unlikely platinum rock band, he could very easily have had more of a Elliott Smith or Iron & Wine-type career, whether as a solo artist or under the Death Cab name. That being said, The Photo Album is my favorite Death Cab album partly because there's a little more muscle in the rhythm section, and I Built You A Tower goes even further in having a real bass-heavy post-punk crunch on "Punching the Flowers," "How Heavenly A State," and "Envy the Birds." They even pull off a nice 5/4 groove on the latter, which is not something I really ever expected to hear on a Death Cab record. 

The Worst Album of the Month: Malcolm Todd - Do That Again
If I wanted to take easy shots at Malcolm Todd, there are plenty of readymade narratives to draw from: that he's a showbiz nepo baby (his father is a successful TV producer/creator), or an industry plant (Spotify recently removed some suspicious streams from his listener statistics), or a white teenybopper knockoff of a Black artist (Steve Lacy). I really just don't like his music, particularly his dopey breathy singing style. I also don't like his lyrics -- Do That Again opens with lots of horny songs about hotel room trysts, and then goes into a stretch of sour breakup songs where he slut shames a girl or mutters "bitch." I do like the album his sister Audrey Hobert released last year, though. 

5:01 AM

Movie Diary

Wednesday, July 08, 2026

 




a) The Sheep Detectives
My wife kind of scoffed when I put on a movie called The Sheep Detectives, but she was in tears about 110 minutes later. A really charming, funny movie with a decent mystery and some surprising emotional depth. I feel like they could've gotten a British actor for Nicholas Braun's role instead of him attempting an accent, but a pretty minor quibble. 

b) Backrooms
My son talked about going to see this with his friends on opening weekend, but for whatever reason that didn't happen, and he and I ended up going to see it while we were on vacation in Rehoboth a couple weeks ago. I don't see a lot of big zeitgeisty movies while they're still in theaters, but I'm glad I got to see this one. I was skeptical for the first half or so that it was going to be a little underwhelming once you got the basic premise, but there were just so many fascinatingly creative visual flourishes. And as the story got darker and more bizarre I found it really engrossing, one of those movies that has really stuck with me. I'm not entirely sure how I'd rate it, that might take a repeat viewing, but I was pretty impressed. 

c) Office Romance
I like Brett Goldstein as an actor and screen presence but have found his projects as writer/creator to be a bit hit and miss. "Shrinking" is great, and last year's All of You was a dud, but I would put Office Romance squarely in the hit category, I really enjoyed it. I feel like Jennifer Lopez being Goldstein's co-star makes it feel even more like a familiar, conventional romcom than it is. But the writing is sharp, there are some nice clever turns in the story, the two leads have surprisingly convincing chemistry, and Betty Gilpin absolutely steals every scene she's in, one of those deranged, committed supporting turns that totally elevates a movie. 

d) Voicemails For Isabelle
Another kind of formulaic romcom, but one of those moderately high concept ones where the guy pursues the girl without letting her know what strange coincidence brought them together and she eventually finds out and it becomes a problem. Zoey Deutch is the lead and at one point it was going to be Hailee Steinfeld, and I think that's a lateral move because if either of them is in something I'm going to watch it. Nick Offerman has a few decent scenes as comic relief but it feels like they could've leaned more into it being a comedy, but a sweet little movie. 

e) Hoppers
I didn't know much about this Pixar film before watching it, and I'm glad I didn't, because it was a lot of fun to discover just how strange and convoluted the premise was. I'm not going to say it was up there with Up, but it reminded me a little of that, that and Turning Red are the Pixar comparison points I'd go with. 

f) Green Room
Last month I went on a big binge of movies from a decade ago while finalizing my lists of my favorite films of 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015, and this might have been the best of the ones that were new to me. The loss of Anton Yelchin is so fucking sad, especially because he was making movies as good as this and Thoroughbreds just before he died. Patrick Stewart playing the villain was an inspired turn, he's not asked to do that often but he's great.  

g) Enter the Requiem
After I watched Green Room, I was curious to see Jeremy Saulnier's earlier low budget feature Blue Ruin, which was available on some D-list free streaming services like Fawesome.tv. But for whatever reason, when I cued up Blue Ruin, Fawesome.tv encountered some issue or glitch and started to play a completely different movie, and I watched it for a good long while going "wow, he really improved quickly with Green Room" before realizing that it was something else. And Enter the Requiem may genuinely be the worst movie I've ever seen, just so many baffling acting and directing choices, closer to The Room than a garden variety bad film. I wouldn't even recommend it for a "MST3K" or "How Did This Get Made?"-type thing. 

My wife came home midafternoon one day when I was watching this, and I said "As you know, I don't really care to know much about movies before I put them on, so I had no idea this movie about British lepidopterists was going to be dangerously horny." Pretty good movie, though.

It's funny to watch Joachim Trier's only English-language film now, knowing that he'd go on to become a much bigger deal in American without making any other movies fully in English. Pretty good film, good performances from Jesse Eisenberg and Isabelle Huppert. The subplot with Rachel Brosnahan felt kind of pointless and tacked-on, although I can't complain because she's so gorgeous in this movie, and it's funny to see a sex scene between two actors who'd go on to play Lex Luthor and Lois Lane (though not in the same movie). 

j) Take This Waltz
I was really impressed by Sarah Polley's writing and direction in this. Great depiction of Toronto, too, really made it seem like a lovely place to live. And I say that as someone who doesn't particularly enjoy movies where the entire story is a love triangle, but this felt really lived-in and true to life (I imagine it may have been autobiographical, given that Polley divorced and remarried in the years before Take This Waltz came out). Polley really captured the intimacy of a marriage, as played by Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen, and the intimacy of flirtation and a new or potential relationship, as played by Williams and Luke Kirby, in really insightful and realistic ways. 

While going through early/mid-2010s films I caught up on some big historical Oscar flicks I missed at the time, including this, which I enjoyed more than I expected to. I'm not always over the moon about Daniel Day-Lewis but he's undeniably great here, and there's a gallery of great supporting performances comparable to Oppenheimer.  

l) Selma
Another big biopic I was overdue to watch. Really made me appreciate Ava DuVernay's talent, feels like she had a very strong sense on what episodes from Martin Luther King Jr.'s life to present to  make it feel like his story and not just a narrative from a history book. 

m) Frank
Of the Michael Fassbender movies about indie rock that partially take place at SXSW, Frank is far better than Song To Song. I think the true story of Frank Sidebottom/Chris Sievey would've made a much more interesting movie than this heavily fictionalized riff on it, though. 

n) Black Mountain Side
A pretty good unsettling low budget horror movie about a mysterious archeological discovery in northern Canada, really built to a good unsettling climax. Kind of a bummer that Nick Szostakiwskyj has only directed one more feature in the decade since, this is the kind of thing that should be a calling card to build a career on. 

o) Mojave
William Monahan won an Oscar for his screenplay for The Departed but the rest of his filmography makes him seem like kind of a one hit wonder (and The Departed was adapted from a Hong Kong film, after all). He wrote and directed Mojave, which stars Garrett Hedlund as this cartoonishly badass Hollywood filmmaker who decides to go wandering around the Mojave Desert and meets a drifter played by Oscar Isaac. Some of Monahan's directorial choices are laughably bad, and the story takes a few head-scratching turns before a pretty stupid ending. 

p) Before I Go To Sleep
A weird psychological thriller with Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth, didn't particularly care for it. 

q) Ginger & Rosa
One of Elle Fanning's first really meaty roles in her transition from stardom to Oscar-caliber serious drama, a pretty good '60s period piece by British director Sally Potter.

r) Bachelorette 
I had seen bits of this on cable in the past and enjoyed everything else Leslye Headland has done ("Russian Doll," Sleeping With Other People, etc.) so I assumed I would like it once I finally watched the whole thing, and I did. Not that different from a lot of other ensemble comedies starring women that revolve around a wedding, but the dialogue's very sharp and I found it a little more enjoyable than the other big one of that era, Bridesmaids, and I could watch early 2010s Lizzy Caplan and Isla Fisher all day. 

Even after seeing Annette, I felt a little unprepared for just how bizarre Leos Carax's previous film Holy Motors is, or that Eva Mendes and Kylie Minogue would be down for something this surreal. 

I think there are limits to the practicality of identity-based casting, people should generally stick to playing characters of their own race, but actors should be allowed some measure of freedom to portray someone who is not exactly like them. That being said, this movie about a facility where people with different behavioral disorders was really derailed by Robert Sheehan's portrayal of a man with Tourette's and Dev Patel's portrayal of a man with OCD, I cringed a lot at their broad, hacky performances. You could probably make a much better version of this film with actors who actually have those conditions or have some lived experience with them -- in fact this is one of Zoe Kravitz's best roles, and she drew on her own struggles with anorexia. 

My son found this very odd 2021 animated film on Netflix, which has a mostly American cast and crew but was only released theatrically in Russia and China, where Rachel Bloom and Adam Devine play "flummels," rabbit-like creatures who have donut holes in the middle of their torsos. 

Another one my son watched on Netflix, a bit more charming, with a sort of retro animation style. 

I don't think there were any, like, Osama Bin Laden jokes in this, but it's still slightly disturbing that this animated film about a military crew of fur seals was probably inspired by SEAL Team Six. Good on them for getting the singer Seal to make a cameo, though. 

The best of my son's recent Netflix finds, a pretty cool looking Mexican production with stop motion animation that's apparently a prequel to a series called "Frankelda's Book of Spooks." 

5:00 AM

Saturday, July 04, 2026

 



The second episode of Total Ship Show with my brother Zac, is out now, on Spotify and YouTube and wherever you listen to podcasts. 

9:23 AM

Friday, July 03, 2026

 





This week I ranked Sade's albums for Spin, wrote about 20 albums that defined 2006, and did a Deep Cut Friday column about "Hey, Johnny Park!" by Foo Fighters. 

9:22 AM

TV Diary

Tuesday, June 30, 2026

 





I've long been kind of a "Curb Your Enthusiasm" skeptic. I'm a huge "Seinfeld" fan and naturally appreciate Larry David's significant contributions to that show (including the very funny George Steinbrenner bits), but I see him as kind of a boring, limited performer that I don't think needs to be in front of the camera. So my expectations for his new HBO series, sketch comedy about American history, were so low that I might have circled around to being relieved that I found it mildly amusing. That's partly because there's a lot of good supporting talent (Henry Winkler, Alan Tudyk, Chris Parnell, etc.) making the sketches feel like slightly more than window dressing for Larry David playing historical figures. I don't think it's something I'll want to keep watching for long, but the first episode gave me a chuckle here and there. 

A show about a man in his 50s dating his best friend's 26-year-old daughter feels like a thinkpiece powder keg, no matter how much "Alice and Steve" tries to play a lot of as a somewhat straightforward romcom. Even with beloved comedy veteran Jemaine Clement as Steve, who has genuine chemistry with Tali Topol Margalith as Alice's daughter Izzy, it's very easy to imagine that most of the viewing audience just seething with rage like Alice, played by Nicola Walker. The plot and tone is actually pretty similar the 2011 film The Oranges, which wasn't very well received even in a time when age gap discourse wasn't nearly as heated as it is now. I'm not particularly opinionated on this topic so I was able to largely enjoy it as a pleasant, middling comedy, but the finale really built to a very contrived climax, felt like they just kind of gave up on exploring the complexities of the story to force it into a resolution. 

"Wild Cherry" is a British series from "Mood" creator/star Nicole Lecky but it feels like every fifth American prestige TV drama since "Big Little Lies," a story of scandals and secrets among mothers and teenage girls in an affluent community. It's a perfectly good premise for a show and this one seems moderately promising, but it's hard to shake the feeling that I've seen a lot of this kind of thing already. 

Amazon Prime continues to prioritize the YA romance genre way beyond any other streamer, "Off Campus" is definitely their breakout hit this year but "Every Year After" seems to be doing well too and has already been renewed for a second season. Sadie Soverall looks a little like Sadie Sink from "Stranger Things," as if redheads named Sadie are walking off an assembly line somewhere. It's a pretty engaging story and doesn't feel overly formulaic, I particularly liked the first episode directed by Gillian Robespierre of Obvious Child fame. 
This is the first other Britbox show that I've started to get into since we signed up so my wife could watch "The Other Bennet Sister." The main character in "A Woman of Substance" is the richest woman in the world, with her story told across several decades with Jessica Reynolds playing her as a young woman and Brenda Blethyn playing her as an older woman. Interesting plot I don't always like TV that bounces between multiple time periods but I think they do a good job with the storytelling here. 

Given that it seems there's going to be a long, long wait between every season of "Severance," I'm glad that Britt Lower booked a miniseries to occupy her time and stay on TV. Unfortunately, it's one of those Harlan Coben adaptations that Netflix pushes out every few months. This one feels especially old-fashioned and melodramatic, with Sam Worthington as a fugitive who was wrongly convicted of murder and trying to clear his name. 
 
A British miniseries about the harrowing true story of a 2-year-old boy who was the only witness to his mother's murder, hadn't heard about this before so I'm watching it curious how it ends, pretty good so far. 

I spent a chunk of the first season of "Sugar" just trying to figure out whether it was simply a derivative noir detective story or if there was something more high concept. And I found the eventual big reveal of what was really going on to be pretty underwhelming. Now that they've continued with that story in the second season, though, with Colin Farrell as a detective who's learned pretty much everything he knows from old detective movies, I have to admit the show is finally growing on me a little, especially since they added Sasha Calle and Laura Donnelly to the cast. 

I think "The Bear"'s decline has been a little slower and more gradual than other people do, but I think it's pretty undeniable that the fifth and final season is a huge step down from how good the show used to be. Maybe they're self-conscious about criticism of the show, because it feels like an attempt at a course correction -- six tight half-hour episodes building to two longer climactic episodes, all focusing on the day-to-day restaurant operations. The 7th episode even basically reruns of the 7th episode of the first season, with the restaurant accidentally accepting more reservations than they can handle instead of more online orders than they can handle, and it just feels contrived. The most jarring thing, though, is that they completely stopped with the evocative alt-rock needle drops that felt like a key part of the first four seasons, it's all generic instrumental score now. The only thing I liked about this season is that Carmy and Syd's relationship remained platonic, the shippers always seemed way off base about them. 

This Hulu thriller about a Hong Kong yacht feels a little like "The White Lotus" meets Crazy Rich Asians, first episode does a really good job of introducing all the characters and setting the story in motion, pretty promising. 

This Spanish series on Netflix is about more rich people on vacation, less interested in the plot but everybody's ridiculously beautiful and some of the characters are pretty charming. 

People often talk about how a time travel story can really depending on whether you're a minority that was more oppressed in the past. And this Thai series takes that idea in an interesting direction, with a modern day queer pop star who's transported into the body of a closeted 18th century nobleman. 

Another 'timeslip' show, this one from Japan. A CEO is pushed down some stairs and dies, and then is reincarnated as one of his employees 14 years earlier and tries to solve his own murder, just a very convoluted concept and really irritating direction and storytelling. 

This Thai series has a pretty boilerplate legal drama premise -- an unscrupulous defense attorney has to clear the name of someone who's actually innocent for once -- but I feel like the title "The Evil Lawyer" is appropriate for how much fun they're having with the story and the characters. 

This South Korean action show, where school 'inspectors' are authorized by the government to use physical force to discipline teenagers, I dunno, it's better if you don't think too much about it but even then it's not great.  

A pretty charming Indonesian show on Netflix about two K-pop fans working together at a convenience store. 

I feel like in America, the superhero movie glut got to the point where nobody even has a fresh take on superhero comedies/satires anymore. But this Korean show, where some awkward young social outcasts get superpowers, is pretty good, feels character-driven and not as concerned with dunking on the genre. 

This Netflix docuseries narrated by Martin Sheen feels like a pretty boilerplate attempt to look at early American history, most of the talking heads are academics, but they also have modern day politicians, including Mike Pence, and seeing his ugly fucking face in there trying to be respectable really ruined my mood. 

There are so many true crime miniseries about cults and predators and con men these days, but American Movie director Chris Smith really goes for a stylized mood piece while still looking deeply at the sordid details. It's pretty compelling and refreshing compared to the more dominant artless tabloid style. 

Another true crime doc about people getting pulled into a world of manipulation and exploitation, in this case even more depressing because it's plus-size women who thought they were going into a supportive body-positive community. 

This miniseries from the same team that made "Walking With Dinosaurs" looks at more extinct prehistoric species, including a lot of large mammals, and it's interesting subject matter but I just hate the visual style, everything looks hideous and kind of fails to spark the imagination of what these animals actually would've looked like at the time. 

This is another weird animated Netflix thing about animals from 2020 that my son found on Netflix after he'd watched docs about dogs and cats. But pretty impressive because Jonathan Jones apparently made this in his home studio in a month as a COVID lockdown-era project. 

My son also found this documentary about South African penguins narrated by Patton Oswalt that I missed when it came out a few years ago, really cute stuff. 

My son has always loved "Octonauts" and watched every episode multiple times, he's started watching "The Creature Cases," which feels like an "Octonauts" knockoff, he likes it but I really hate the animation style. 

Another thing my son found on Netflix that's described as a "'Black Mirror' for kids"-style horror anthology. He likes things like The Nightmare Before Christmas so I'm kind of hoping as he gets older I can watch horror movies with him and nurture his love of creepy stuff, so I like that there are gateway shows like this. 

Among Us is so popular with kids that I'm a little baffled why Paramount+ went the 'adult animated sitcom' route with this show, it's definitely not for my son but I don't really feel like it's for me either. 

1:00 PM

Monthly Report: June 2026 Singles

Monday, June 29, 2026

 






1. In Color - "Headlights"
The Nashville band In Color makes super sleek alternapop that reminds me of stuff like The 1975, or maybe even Taylor Swift's "Style," partly because their debut single "Headlights" is also about someone driving to a nighttime rendezvous with their headlights off. "Headlights" came out over a year ago and recently creeped into the top 5 on alternative radio, they have some other good songs but this is definitely the one. Here's the 2026 singles Spotify playlist I update every month. 

2. Dexter and the Moonrocks - "Freakin' Out"
This is the third year in a row that Texas quartet Dexter and the Moonrocks have had a big alternative radio hit, but "Freakin' Out" is the huge crossover one that's all over the internet and spending the last few months on the Hot 100. I wouldn't have guessed this would be the one to do that, but it's nice to see a young band that sounds like this (they call themselves "western space grunge") blow up like that. Even my wife, who doesn't listen to much radio anymore and puts a lot of songs on her playlists that she hears on reels and TikToks, knows this one. 

3. Riley Green - "Change My Mind" 
Riley Green's Ella Langley duet "You Look Like You Love Me" was the song that really got me to appreciate his voice, and I think this is my favorite solo single of his to date, love that guitar sound. 

4. Ella Langley - "Be Her" 
"Choosin' Texas" is obviously going to be hard to top, but I've been impressed at how well Langley's follow-up single has done. It's the only other country song to spend 10 weeks in the top 10 of the Hot 100 so far this year, even outperforming her Morgan Wallen duet. It's a little funny to think that Langley's two biggest hits that made her a huge crossover star are both are about envying another woman. 

5. Ella Mai - "100" 
Mustard sampled Gladys Knight & The Pips on this track, but I like how Ella Mai's lyric feels like an extended riff on Teddy Pendergrass's spoken bit at the end of "When Somebody Loves You Back." 

6. Taylor Swift - "I Knew It, I Knew You" 
Taylor Swift has notched a few minor country radio hits since she her "first documented, official pop album" 1989, enough to make it feel like the country establishment hasn't held a grudge but aren't falling over themselves to maintain ties. But her song for Toy Story 5, which has a small bit of harmonica and a sweet little melody that takes me back to some of her early albums, debuted right in the top 10 of the Country Airplay chart, her first song to get there since "Red" 12 years ago. 

7. Ludacris - "Pull Over"
As a middle-aged rap fan, I don't really sit around waiting for the stars of my youth to have comebacks, I know the genre is going to keep moving forward with a new generation of rappers. But I'm happy that some of the early 2000s rappers that helped make southern rap a major commercial force have been doing well lately, T.I. and Juvenile have had some of their biggest hits in ages. And Ludacris took me back a couple decades with this fun recent single produced by one of T.I.'s longtime collaborators, DJ Toomp. 

8. MGK f/ Fred Durst - "Fix Ur Face"
Last year Limp Bizkit also made their best single in over 20 years, "Making Love To Morgan Wallen." And while I hate to give Machine Gun Kelly credit for anything, his Durst collab feels like a follow-up to that, I was actually surprised that Wes Borland didn't play on "Fix Ur Face" because it really nails the sound of vintage Bizkit. 

9. Madonna f/ Sabrina Carpenter - "Bring Your Love"
Anytime a young blonde woman ascends to serious pop stardom, the Madonna comparisons inevitably follow. But I feel like Sabrina Carpenter has really reminded me of Madge's classic run pretty strongly in the last couple years, especially the way she both courted and defused controversy over the cover of Man's Best Friend with humor, so I really like hearing them together. I don't think "Bring Your Love" would stand up with the best singles from Confessions On A Dancefloor, or for that matter Short n' Sweet, but it's a pretty catchy little song to set up the release of Confessions II, and I love the sentiment of the lyric. It's the most "Vogue"-sounding song on the charts since...the Lady Gaga song I wrote about last month. 

10. Ariana Grande - "Hate That I Made You Love Me"
There are lines in this song that could be addressed to an ex, but I feel like the ambiguity breaks down pretty quickly and it doesn't feel like anything but a celebrity addressing her fans, detractors, and fans-turned-detractors. In fact it feels pretty dark if you follow any of the increasingly loud discourse about her health and love life. I'm not very parasocial about that stuff, I'm mostly here for the music and continue to enjoy hers, but that context looms over this song in a way that makes it sound almost ominous, I have no idea how differently this song will sound years from now as this saga unfolds. 

The Worst Single of the Month: Yung Miami - "Spend Dat" 
I feel like people really lean into performatively enjoying a catchy song when it's made by someone with very little talent, and people will say I hate fun for not liking "Spend Dat." But man, this song sucks, it's depressing that it's so much bigger than JT's solo stuff. 

5:01 AM