TV Diary

Thursday, April 30, 2026



























a) "Widow's Bay" 
Apple TV's "Widow's Bay" is so completely up my alley, a horror comedy about a creepy New England town (I think they tiptoe around every specifying a state), created by "Parks & Recreation" writer Katie Dippold and primarily directed by "Atlanta"'s Hiro Murai. Matthew Rhys, starring as a mayor who's skeptical about the town's legends and superstitions and trying to drum up more tourism, has really growing on me as more of a cantankerous character actor type since his turn in "The Beast in Me." And the moment it transitioned from a scene with Stephen Root as a paranoid fisherman to Toby Huss as a laid back reverend, I was like yeah, this is a show for me. 

b) "The Audacity"
AMC really changed direction after the success of "Walking Dead," it was weird to realize while watching their new series "The Audacity" that it's just about the only drama they have right now that's not on a horror/sci-fi/fantasy/thriller tip. I don't think it would lure back people who love "Mad Men" or "Breaking Bad," feels like we've seen this kind of satire of Silicon Valley hubris before. It's not even the first time I've seen Billy Magnussen play an unethical tech CEO, although his character in this isn't otherwise too similar who he played in "Made For Love." Good cast and clever premise, though, it has potential. 

c) "Margo's Got Money Troubles" 
I was just recently griping that Michelle Pfeiffer's recent Paramount+ vehicle "The Madison" is really boring and it's a shame she doesn't star in one of her husband David E. Kelley's shows, and then what do you know, here they are finally working together. I'm only a couple episodes in and they are very slowly integrating Nick Offerman into the story, but Elle Fanning and Pfeiffer have a great complicated mother/daughter dynamic, it's a really sweet, funny, character-driven show beyond the 'broke young mom does OnlyFans' premise. And it was nice to hear Haute & Freddy's "Shy Girl" in the second episode, that's such a good song for TV syncs

d) "The Testaments" 
The first season of "The Handmaid's Tale" was great television but I never really felt motivated to stick with it for the long haul. But they got Chase Infiniti in a spinoff for her first post-One Battle After Another role and she's just such a promising star right now, I had to check out the first couple episodes and it's pretty good. 

e) "Man On Fire" 
The 2004 adaptation of the novel Man On Fire was one of Denzel Washington's great action movie roles, I think I saw that one in the theater. Putting Yahya Abdul-Mateen in that role for a series just feels like setting him up to fail or underwhelm, even if the show seems pretty solid and well made, after "Wonder Man" I'm really interested to see more of Abdul-Mateen's range now that I know he can do comedy. 

f) "Daredevil: Born Again" 
I adore Deborah Ann Woll so I'm glad that she ended up being a bigger part of the "Daredevil" revival series than it seemed like she was going to be after they (sigh) killed off another major character. It's nice to see some of the other characters from the Netflix Marvel shows, too, although I still have yet to really enjoy this one as much as the old "Daredevil" show, there are fewer and less impressive action scenes. 

g) "Running Point" 
Really glad this is back for a second season, Mindy Kaling is probably the most consistent creator in sitcoms right now after Bill Lawrence, and it's a pleasant surprise that Justin Theroux's role is now in every episode. 

h) "The Boys" 
I'm a little ready for "The Boys" to end, it probably didn't need five seasons. But Antony Starr as Homelander is really one of the great TV roles of this decade, I'm excited to see a bit more of that performance. And I kind of like that they gave another character a nice little redemption arc before they died. 

i) "Ghosts" 
I still kinda enjoy this show, but I feel like I only like half the cast and the other characters/performances are just too broad and hacky, I might finally check out on it this season. 

j) "Beef" 
I thought the first season of "Beef" that won 5 Emmys was a little overrated, and was skeptical about it becoming an anthology series with a different set of characters in conflict for the second season. But they got a great cast and I think a more gripping story, with Cailee Spaeny and Charles Melton as employees at a country club and Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan as their boss and his wife. The first episode that sets all the drama in motion felt a little contrived to me but just how dark and tangled the story gets is really engrossing. 

k) "The Comeback"
I remember a little of the first season of "The Comeback" 20 years ago and being unimpressed, but I was kind of anti-mockumentary sitcoms at the time. But Lisa Kudrow is really one of her generation's best comedic actresses and this is one of her signature roles, so I decided to give it a try and watched the whole thing up to the current third and final season. And it's grown on me, but so far I don't like the third season as much, both Robert Michael Morris and his character Mickey passed away after the second season and it's just not the same without him. 

l) "Bob's Burgers" 
Season 16 of "Bob's Burgers" has had a weird schedule with a long midseason break from December to April, I don't know if that's just a delayed reaction to the strikes. But man, this show is still at peak form, Sunday's episode was the funniest yet for Will Forte's recurring teacher character Mr. Forte. 

m) "Kevin" 
Aubrey Plaza co-created this Amazon Prime show about a cat named Kevin, voiced by Jason Schwartzman. I have pretty low expectations for animated sitcoms these days but this is growing on me, partly because John Waters plays a Persian cat and it definitely feels like they work to give him the best lines. 

n) "Molang" 
A weird little cartoon about a rabbit that's been on Netflix for a decade now and has over 300 episodes, my younger son just got into it and it's amusingly silly, I like the animation style. 

o) "The House of the Spirits"
The Chilean novel The House of the Spirits was apparently a huge hit in the '80s that sold tens of millions and was translated into over 20 languages. I enjoyed the first episode I watched but I'm curious to see how they tell a story that spans a century in 8 episodes, considering that shows like "The Crown" and "For All Mankind" have had to really leap through the chronology to tell stories that span a few decades over multiple seasons of television. 

p) "Flunked" 
This French sitcom on Netflix has a fairly absurd premise with a con man being forced to go undercover as a substitute math teacher at the high school he went to in order to avoid prison time. Pretty charming cast and reasonably snappy dialogue, though, it's not bad. 

This is a South Korean show about eight filmmakers who became friends in college and stayed in touch, and the main character is the one guy in the group who still hasn't made his debut film. Definitely one of the best imports I've seen on Netflix lately, kind of a black comedy, I think a lot of people would enjoy it. 

Another South Korean show on Netflix about an ex-judge who becomes a lawyer at a nonprofit, reminds me of like a '90s David E. Kelley show. 

s) "The Prosecutor"
This docuseries is about the director of the new Femicide Bureau in Mexico that investigates violence against women, some pretty sobering subject matter, partly just realizing that America is probably far behind Mexico on making something like this a law enforcement priority. 

t) "This Is A Gardening Show"
Zach Galifianakis's new show for Netflix feels like an indulgent little passion project where he just tries to turn his genuine interest in gardening into entertainment with mixed results. It's pleasant, though, reminds me of times of his very underrated first TV vehicle, "Late World with Zach."  

This Netflix talent search show doesn't feel hugely different from stuff like "Last Comic Standing" that's been done before, but I like that Kevin Hart is having everybody perform in these famous little comedy clubs instead of in a big TV studio, it gives it a different vibe and maybe feels a little more true to the live comedy experience. A few pretty funny contestants that I'm rooting for and Hart and the other judges sometimes give a little insight into what impresses them or what they think makes a set work. The weirdest thing about this show is that Keegan-Michael Key and Tom Segura are both on it, and in the dim comedy club lighting I keep mistaking one for the other. 

Jimmy Kimmel created this weed-themed Hulu riff on ESPN's "30 for 30," four 20-minute documentaries about things like High Times Magazine released on 4/20. I liked the one about the making of Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, it was interesting to get the whole unlikely tale of how that screenplay was thought up and got produced and kind of became a sleeper hit on DVD. It was a little odd, though, that they barely mentioned director Danny Leiner and then just quickly note at the end that he passed away in 2017. 

I know that Brazilian footballer Ronaldinho de Assis Moreira is one of the greatest soccer players of all time, but I didn't know anything beyond that, so it was fun to get into his story a bit with this Netflix docuseries. 

Hulk Hogan was interviewed for this Netflix docuseries before he died, I'd probably avoid watching it if he was still alive, but now I feel like okay, let's see what this thing has to say about his complicated legacy. I haven't gotten to later episodes yet to see if they deal with Hogan's flaws and controversies in a responsible way, but the perspective on his early career was pretty interesting. 

I've seen enough documentaries about boy bands and Lou Pearlman that I went into this expecting not to hear anything I hadn't heard before. But they ended up getting some fresh angles, it was especially fascinating to hear from Jason Galasso from the original lineup of N Sync about why he left, and his replacement Lance Bass spoke more frankly about what it was like for him to be in the closet during the group's run than I'd ever heard before. I also like that this one features members of Boyz II Men and gets into the very different expectations and attitudes towards Black boy bands and white boy bands. They even managed to make the 98 Degrees story interesting. 

I've been watching "The Late Show" a little more lately as Colbert gets ready to go off the air in a few weeks, and of course the circumstances of the show ending are ridiculous and infuriating. But I've also just been left with an odd taste in my mouth, remembering how much funnier he was 'in character' on "The Colbert Report" and what he lost in that transition to CBS. He is one of the best interviewers in late night, though, I like that he's almost always genuinely engaged with the guests and their work. 

7:05 PM

Deep Album Cuts Vol. 403: Shakira

Wednesday, April 29, 2026



























Shakira was nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year, and didn't make it all the way to the class of 2026. But I thought it was interesting that she got a nod, between that and Mana's nomination last year it seems like they're making a concerted effort to get more Latin American representation in the Hall. 

Shakira deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Pienso en Ti
2. Quiero
3. Si Te Vas
4. Donde Estan los Ladrones
5. Rules
6. Poem to a Horse
7. Fool
8. La Pared
9. En Tus Pupilas
10. Animal City
11. Costume Makes the Clown
12. Dreams for Plans
13. Spy f/ Wyclef Jean
14. Men in This Town
15. Long Time
16. Gordita f/ Residente
17. Devocion
18. Cut Me Deep f/ MAGIC!
19. You Don't Care About Me
20. Amarillo
21. Toneladas
22. Cohete f/ Rauw Alejandro
23. Como Donde y Cuando

Tracks 1 and 2 from Pies Descalzos (1995)
Tracks 3 and 4 from Donde Estan los Ladrones? (1998)
Tracks 5, 6, and 7 from Laundry Service (2001)
Tracks 8 and 9 from Fijacion Oral, Vol. 1 (2005)
Tracks 10, 11, and 12 from Oral Fixation, Vol. 2 (2005)
Tracks 13, 14, and 15 from She Wolf (2009)
Tracks 16 and 17 from Sale el Sol (2010)
Tracks 18 and 19 from Shakira (2014)
Tracks 20 and 21 from El Dorado (2017)
Tracks 22 and 23 from Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran (2024)

Shakira has been with Sony for over 30 years, releasing her debut at 14 years old in 1991, although her first two albums didn't chart and aren't on streaming services today. 1995's Pies Descalzos was the album that made her a huge star in Latin America, and it remains the album she's performed songs from the most. I remember when there was that big wave of Latin pop crossover success in the late '90s and early 2000s, the American media made Shakira out to be the Colombian equivalent of Alanis Morissette, and I can hear why that was the popular narrative when I listen to songs from Donde Estan los Ladrones?, but now that she's had decades of hits, Shakira just sounds like Shakira to me, she is who she is. Even her transition into a more dance-pop sound after those guitar-heavy early albums feels relatively organic compared to the way a lot of American singers just jump from one genre to another sometimes.  

As with my Mana and Bad Bunny playlists, I will cop to my ignorant American privilege that not being fluent in Spanish means that my comprehension of the lyrics of over half of these songs is limited to how much I'm willing to google English translations. I do like Shakira's odd sense of humor that really shines through on a lot of her songs, though, some of my favorites here are "Poem to a Horse" and "Costume Makes the Clown," which opens with a reference to perhaps her most famous lyric from "Whenever, Wherever" ("Told you I felt lucky with my humble breasts"). 

A few years ago I wrote a Billboard piece about collaborators who made one giant hit together and then reunited for another song or two later on. And I wish I'd noticed Shakira and Wyclef Jean's second collaboration "Spy" to mention it in the piece. I've actually never been a big fan of "Hips Don't Lie," so I like "Spy" a lot more, that bit where Shakira sings a 'trumpet' part is hilarious. I was also surprised to realize that Shakira has multiple songs with the Canadian band MAGIC! of "Rude" fame, and that I enjoy one of them. 

10:30 AM

Deep Album Cuts Vol. 402: Melissa Etheridge

Tuesday, April 28, 2026
















Melissa Etheridge was nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year, but when the class of 2026 was announced last week, she didn't make the cut. I'm glad she got a nod, though, she's kind of at that level where I think she could get in after a few tries. Etheridge also released her 17th album Rise last month, so I thought I'd go ahead and try to cover all her albums here. 

Melissa Etheridge deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Occasionally
2. I Want You
3. Brave And Crazy
4. Place Your Hand
5. Ruins
6. Yes I Am
7. I Really Like You
8. An Unusual Kiss
9. Breakdown
10. Heal Me
11. Secret Agent
12. I've Loved You Before
13. Light A Light
14. Nervous
15. The Shadow Of A Black Crow
16. Ain't That Bad
17. I'm A Lover
18. This Human Chain
19. Save Myself
20. Tomboy

Tracks 1 and 2 from Melissa Etheridge (1988)
Track 3 from Brave and Crazy (1989)
Track 4 from Never Enough (1992)
Tracks 5 and 6 from Yes I Am (1993)
Tracks 7 and 8 from Your Little Secret (1995)
Track 9 from Breakdown (1999)
Track 10 from Skin (2001)
Track 11 from Lucky (2004)
Track 12 from The Awakening (2007)
Track 13 from A New Thought For Christmas (2008)
Track 14 from Fearless Love (2010)
Track 15 from 4th Street Feeling (2012)
Track 16 from This Is M.E. (2014)
Track 17 from MEmphis Rock and Soul (2016)
Track 18 from The Medicine Show (2019)
Track 19 from One Way Out (2021)
Track 20 from Rise (2026)

I remember Melissa Etheridge becoming a big deal with Yes I Am, her first album after coming out publicly as a lesbian in 1993, but I was a kid so I didn't really know how much of a career she'd had before that. Her first three albums had gone gold, spinning off three Hot 100 entries and eight rock radio hits, and she won her first Grammy in early '93, before Yes I Am. But that album really blew up and went platinum six times, and pushed her first three albums to platinum as well, her debut even going double platinum. So she just sold a massive amount of records very quickly in the mid-'90s. K.D. Lang also came out the same year she released her biggest album in 1992, and the Indigo Girls were thriving then, so I suppose that was a real gamechanger era for queer women in music, . 

Melissa Etheridge is from Kansas, although they're something so Canadian-coded about her that I wasn't surprised at all to see that she won a Juno for International Entertainer of the Year in 1990. She's objectively a great singer and has written some great songs, but I never really gave her catalog a whole lot of thought, although I always liked her hits, and her enjoyed 2024 docuseries "Melissa Etheridge: I'm Not Broken" and got to know a bit more of her story then. 

Younger artists with classic rock and blues influences could be saddled with some pretty unflattering production in the '80s and '90s. But once I started digging in, I appreciated the sound of Etheridge's records, which are full of great sidemen and session players like Jim Keltner, Pino Palladino, Jon Brion, Matt Chamberlain, Waddy Wachtel, Scott Thurston, Josh Freese, and Kenny Aronoff. Actor Dermot Mulroney plays cello on "Place Your Hand," I had no idea he's actually an accomplished cellist who's played on the scores of more huge movies than he's acted it. Meg Ryan and Laura Dern also sang backing vocals on "Heal Me." 

This Is M.E. is a very good, clever album title for someone with Melissa Etheridge's initials, but her next album's title  was MEmphis Rock and Soul , which just looks stupid. The album after that was called The Medicine Show and not, thankfully, The MEdicine Show. A pre-fame Brandi Carlile sang backing vocals on 2004's Lucky. And Etheridge's new album Rise is her overdue pivot to stripped down country rock/Americana, produced by Shooter Jennings with a Chris Stapleton collaboration, it's pretty good.

10:09 AM

Monthly Report: April 2026 Singles

Monday, April 27, 2026

 







1. Tone Stith - "Fly" 
Tone Stith sang on Camper's "Waiting On You," one of my favorite 2025 R&B hits, and now his solo single "Fly" is getting even more spins. I guess he's been around quite a while and I just never noticed him before, apparently Tone Stith is 30 and over the past decade has written for Chris Brown, glad he's starting to really hit his stride. Here's the 2026 singles Spotify playlist that I add songs to every month. 

2. Bella Kay - "iloveitiloveitiloveit"
We've had big pop stars born in the 21st century like Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo for a while now, but it still makes me feel so old to see that one of the newest singers climbing the Hot 100 was born in 2006. "iloveitiloveitiloveit" is pretty much just vocals and acoustic guitar but it just has so much forward momentum that it almost feels like there's drums on it or more instrumentation, very catchy song. 

3. Trap Dickey f/ Key Glock - "Down South"
I love South Carolina, it's weird to realize that it's one of the only states in the deep south that's never really had a big impact on mainstream rap. They've got one with "Down South" though, love the way that Lafayette Afro Rock Band saxophone sample gets chopped differently from the way we've heard it in the past on songs by Public Enemy, Wreckx-N-Effect, and Jay-Z. 

4. Kacey Musgraves - "Dry Spell"
Outside of guesting on Zach Bryan's #1 hit, Kacey Musgraves has really never had much success as a singles artist, relative to her platinum sales and Grammy wins. "Dry Spell" is the first time in a while that I feel like country radio would be stupid not to play her, though, a really witty little song and a bit more overtly country-sounding than her last couple albums. 

5. Sabrina Carpenter - "House Tour"
Sabrina Carpenter has basically released hit after hit since "Nonsense" broke through three years ago, but I think "When Did You Get Hot" is the weakest link in that chain. So I felt a little vindicated when Carpenter didn't bother to make a video for it and instead made one for one of my favorite songs on the album, "House Tour." 

6. J. Cole - "Who TF Iz U" 
To his credit, J. Cole has not really patterned his career after Jay-Z's while becoming Roc Nation's biggest rapper, but it still surprised me that he teased The Fall-Off for 8 years and then didn't really seem to have a single that sounded like a single, like The Black Album did what it was supposed to do because you can remember "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" and "99 Problems" today. "Who TF Iz U" is pretty good as a default rap radio single, some of his best bars on the album and a great beat switch, but it's definitely not a career-defining hit that a project like this should have. 

7. The Neighbourhood - "Hula Girl" 
Spotify turned 20 years old last week and shared lists of the most streamed songs and artists in its history. And perhaps the most surprising thing on those lists is The Neighborhood's 2013 hit "Sweater Weather" being the 3rd most streamed song of all time, despite missing the top 10 on the pop charts while every other song with 4 billion plus streams was a #1. The Neighbourhood never really made another song that got remotely that big, but "Hula Girl" was recently their first real alternative radio hit in about a decade, pretty catchy song. 

8. Sam Fender f/ Olivia Dean - "Rein Me In"
I included the duet version of "Rein Me In" in my Remix Report Card last year, and as Olivia Dean's career has exploded, it's been cool to see it lift up "Rein Me In" to become Sam Fender's first #1 in the UK and first Hot 100 entry in America. This song is also how I learned that apparently British people pronounce "tinnitus" completely differently from Americans. 

9. Pitbull f/ Lil Jon - "Damn I Love Miami"
I love Pitbull, man, I think it's great that he's just got his niche and keeps making hits even long after that 2010s pop rap moment when he and Flo Rida were thriving. 

10. SIMIEN - "Utterly In Love"
It's been a long time since Akon was a hitmaker and the genius A&R that signed both Lady Gaga and T-Pain, but I realized he was still doing the label thing when I heard this song, which opens with that little tag of him saying "Konvict." The Simien sisters have three songs out that each sound pretty different, the other two featuring Akon, but "Utterly In Love" is by far my favorite, feels like kind of an R&B take on hyperpop. 

The Worst Single of the Month: Don Toliver - "E85"
Don Toliver always sounds like Kenan Thompson playing an old man in an "SNL" sketch, and I don't need to hear that over a beat. I never thought a Travis Scott protege would be a major star in his own right with even less interesting music. 

10:08 AM

Friday, April 24, 2026











This week on Spin, I ranked The Smiths' albums. I also wrote a Deep Cut Friday column about Jonathan Richman's "You Can't Talk to the Dude," a New Orleans Jazz Fest preview, and a blurb about "The Streets of Baltimore" for a piece about hometown anthems. 

7:27 PM

Movie Diary

Thursday, April 23, 2026

 








a) Outcome
I didn't think much of Jonah Hill's directorial debut Mid90s, and when I saw that a guy who's had some mild online backlash wrote and directed something about movie stars getting canceled, I really expected the worst. But Hill knows comedy and he made one of the funnier Hollywood satires I've seen in recent years, going a little over-the-top with his supporting role but at least making it entertaining (with a great Kanye joke to kind of respond to Kanye making Hill part of one of his non-apology apologies for antisemitism). The oddest part of Outcome is Keanu Reeves playing a guy with a pretty similar career to his but maybe a little better (his character has 2 Oscars). But whether it's bad acting or just too different from how we think of Keanu Reeves, it's neither convincing nor funnily ironic when we see him act like a paranoid, insecure diva, it's really one of the only aspect of the movie that just completely falls flat, there's a scene where he loses his temper that just rings so hollow. 

b) Is This Thing On?
Bradley Cooper is another actor-turned-director whose films tend to be about show business, and Is This Thing On? feels like kind of scaled-down and intimate after the other two big Oscar-friendly movie he directed. It has a bit of the same feel as A Star Is Born, Cooper is great at capturing a certain kind of quiet realism, but Will Arnett shines by playing someone who isn't as hilarious as we know Will Arnett can be and doesn't have overnight success, and instead finds something he wants to work at and get better at to express himself, which is actually more poignant. 

c) HIM
There was a buzz and anticipation around this movie, in part because Jordan Peele is an exec producer, that dissipated the moment people started to actually see it, everyone seemed to just hate it, which made me pretty curious. It was pretty dumb, I didn't hate it, but it just felt like a half-assed attempt at a disturbing Midsommer-type horror movie in the context of pro sports. 

d) Roommates
I don't like many Happy Madison productions that star Adam Sandler, but the ones that don't star Adam Sandler are the ones you really have to beware of, and this one also stars his daughter Sadie Sandler. It's got such a promising supporting cast (Sarah Sherman, Natasha Lyonne, Janeane Garofalo, Steve Buscemi) and there's a little seed of a decent comedy in there, but the writing is just horrible and unfunny, Nick Kroll is the only person who made me laugh in this movie. 

e) Thrash
2019's Crawl, about a young woman who has to evade alligators amidst a flood during a Category 5 hurricane, was one of my favorite thrillers in recent memory. Thrash, about a young women who has to evade sharks amidst a flood during a Category 5 hurricane, is not nearly as good, but it had a couple decent moments. 

f) War Machine
It would not surprise me if Alan Ritchson becomes the Schwarzenegger of his generation, but this feels a little too derivative of Predator. 

g) Omni Loop
There are so many 'time loop' movies now, and this one starring Mary-Louise Parker and Ayo Edebiri succeeds in not feeling like a knockoff of any previous one, and in fact goes for emotional resonance surprisingly well instead of being all knowingly silly and post-modern. 

h) Billy Idol Should Be Dead
A documentary that opens with the Live Nation logo feels a little too cleanly engineered to sell concert ticket. But I like Billy Idol, I'm happy for him that he made the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year, and this doc packages his story well with some great footage and interviews. I just wish there was a little more about his records and a little less about drugs, they act like he was just more addicted to heroin than anyone in the music industry had ever been and that's what makes him interesting. 

i) A Gorilla Story: Told By David Attenborough
It's funny to think that the events of this film and most of the footage is from forty-something years ago and Attenborough just got around to turning it into a film recently, pretty fascinating stuff though. 

j) Red Joan
This 2018 drama based loosely on the life of a British woman who was a KGB spy was pretty good, I just put it on one day while trying to find something to watch. Judi Dench plays the main character in the 21st century, but Sophie Cookson plays her in the 40s, and I was surprised that she really carries the movie more than Dench, it's not just occasional flashbacks, she's great and deserves more lead roles. 

k) Denial
Timothy Spall gives a great, infuriating performance in this as David Irving, a Holocaust denier who sued a historian for calling him a Holocaust denier in the early 2000s. 

3:49 PM

My Top 100 Singles of 1968

Wednesday, April 22, 2026

 





Here's the Spotify playlist of every song:

1. Cream - "White Room"
2. Marvin Gaye - "I Heard It Through The Grapevine"
3. The Jimi Hendrix Experience - "All Along The Watchtower"
4. Deep Purple - "Hush"
5. The Band – “The Weight”
6. Steppenwolf - "Magic Carpet Ride"
7. Big Brother and the Holding Company - "Piece of My Heart"
8. Joe Cocker – “With A Little Help From My Friends”
9. Aretha Franklin - "I Say A Little Prayer"
10. Sly & The Family Stone - "Everyday People"
11. The Rolling Stones - "Jumpin' Jack Flash"
12. Simon & Garfunkel - "Mrs. Robinson"
13. Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell - "You're All I Need To Get By"
14. Jeannie C. Riley – “Harper Valley P.T.A.”
15. Otis Redding - "(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay"
16. Johnny Cash - "Folsom Prison Blues (live)"
17. Arlo Guthrie – “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree”
18. James Brown - "Say It Loud - I'm Black And I'm Proud"
19. The Beatles - "Revolution"
20. Glen Campbell – “Wichita Lineman”
21. Cream - "Sunshine Of Your Love"
22. Iron Butterfly - "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida"
23. Stevie Wonder - "For Once In My Life"
24. The Rolling Stones - "Street Fighting Man"
25. Steppenwolf - "Born To Be Wild"
26. Aretha Franklin - "Think"
27. Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell - "Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing"
28. Tammy Wynette – “Stand By Your Man”
29. The Jimi Hendrix Experience - "Crosstown Traffic"
30. Simon & Garfunkel - "Scarborough Fair"
31. Richard Harris – “MacArthur Park”
32. The Beatles - "Hey Jude"
33. Merle Haggard and the Strangers – “Mama Tried”
34. The First Edition - "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)"
35. The Doors - "Hello, I Love You”
36. Wilson Pickett – “I Found A True Love”
37. The Delfonics – “La-La Means I Love You”
38. Status Quo - "Pictures of Matchstick Men"
39. The Kinks - "Days"
40. Donovan - "Hurdy Gurdy Man"
41. Creedence Clearwater Revival - "Suzie Q"
42. Bobby Taylor & The Vancouvers – “Does Your Mama Know About Me”
43. Sam & Dave - "I Thank You"
44. Tammy Wynette – “D-I-V-O-R-C-E”
45. The Chambers Brothers - "Time Has Come Today"
46. Dionne Warwick - "Do You Know The Way To San Jose"
47. Otis Redding – “I’ve Got Dreams To Remember”
48. Mary Hopkin – “Those Were The Days” 
49. The Human Beinz - "Nobody But Me"
50. James Brown – “I Got The Feelin’”
51. Elvis Presley with the Jordanaires – “A Little Less Conversation”
52. Aretha Franklin - "Ain't No Way"
53. Diana Ross & The Supremes – “Love Child”
54. Tommy James and the Shondells - "Mony Mony"
55. The Monkees – “Mary, Mary”
56. George Jones and Brenda Carter – “Milwaukee, Here I Come”
57. Jerry Lee Lewis – “What’s Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made A Loser Out Of Me)”
58. The Isley Brothers - "Take Me In Your Arms (Rock Me A Little While)"
59. Steppenwolf – “Rock Me”
60. The Beach Boys – “Do It Again”
61. Marvin Gaye – “Chained”
62. Nazz - "Open My Eyes"
63. Sly and the Family Stone – “Sing a Simple Song”
64. The Velvet Underground – “White Light/White Heat”
65. Leonard Cohen – “Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye”
66. The Impressions – “Fool For You”
67. Andy Kim – “Shoot ‘Em Up, Baby”
68. The Who – “Dogs”
69. Johnny Nash – “Hold Me Tight”
70. The Easybeats – “Good Times”
71. Marva Whitney - "Unwind Yourself"
72. The Grass Roots – “Midnight Confessions”
73. George Jones – “When The Grass Grows Over Me”
74. Al Green – “Don’t Hurt Me No More”
75. The Turtles – “Elenore”
76. Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell – “Keep On Lovin’ Me Honey”
77. The Bee Gees – “I’ve Gotta Get A Message To You”
78. Willie Nelson – “Little Things”
79. O.C. Smith – “Little Green Apples”
80. The 1910 Fruitgum Company – “1, 2, 3, Red Light”
81. Herb Alpert – “This Guy’s In Love With You”
82. The 5th Dimension – “Stoned Soul Picnic”
83. Jerry Butler – “Hey, Western Union Man”
84. The Crazy World of Arthur Brown – “Fire”
85. Max Frost and the Troopers – “Shape of Things To Come”
86. The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band - "I'm The Urban Spaceman"
87. Clarence Carter – “Slip Away”      
88. The Kinks – “Wonderboy”
89. Joni Mitchell – “Night In The City”
90. Aretha Franklin - "The House That Jack Built"
91. The Monkees – “Porpoise Song”
92. James Brown – “Licking Stick”
93. The Doors – “The Unknown Soldier”
94. Gary Puckett and the Union Gap – “Over You”
95. The Beatles - "Lady Madonna"
96. Merle Haggard – “I Take A Lot Of Pride In What I Am”
97. The Who – “Call Me Lightning”
98. Dionne Warwick - "(Theme From) Valley of the Dolls"
99. The O’Kaysions – “Girl Watcher”
100. Glen Campbell – “Gentle On My Mind”

Now I'm really getting into the era where it was common for people to release covers of recent hits and sometimes turn them into bigger hits. What really struck me after I started putting together the list is that half of the top 10 here (2, 3, 7, 8, and 9) are covers of songs first released in 1967 that have somewhat or completely eclipsed the originals, including arguably the greatest Dylan and Beatles covers of all time. 

Previously:
My Top 50 Albums of 1968
My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1969
My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1970
My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 1971
My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles 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 
My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 2024
My Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Singles of 2025

10:22 AM

Deep Album Cuts Vol. 401: Billy Joel

Tuesday, April 21, 2026

 







It's been almost a year since Billy Joel canceled his usually robust concert schedule because of his diagnosis of a brain disorder called normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH), but he played two songs with a Billy Joel cover band in January, so I hope he's doing better and still has some good times ahead of him, whether performing or not. 

Billy Joel deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. I Can Tell (with The Hassles)
2. Amlifier Fire (with Attila)
3. You Can Make Me Free
4. Stop In Nevada
5. Los Angelenos
6. Summer, Highland Falls
7. Get It Right the First Time
8. Everybody Has A Dream
9. Stiletto
10. Half A Mile Away
11. Sleeping With The Television On
12. Close To The Borderline
13. Laura
14. She's Right On Time
15. Christie Lee
16. Running On Ice
17. Why Should I Worry
18. Storm Front
19. Famous Last Words
20. Suite For Piano (Star-Crossed): Delusion

Track 1 from The Hassles with The Hassles (1970)
Track 2 from Attila with Attila (1970)
Track 3 from Cold Spring Harbor (1971)
Track 4 from Piano Man (1973)
Track 5 from Streetlife Serenade (1974)
Track 6 from Turnstiles (1976)
Tracks 7 and 8 from The Stranger (1977)
Tracks 9 and 10 from 52nd Street (1978)
Tracks 11 and 12 from Glass Houses (1980)
Tracks 13 and 14 from The Nylon Curtain (1982)
Track 15 from An Innocent Man (1983)
Track 16 from The Bridge (1986)
Track 17 from Oliver & Company (Origional Motion Picture Soundtrack) (1988)
Track 18 from Storm Front (1989)
Track 19 from River of Dreams (1993)
Track 20 from Fantasies & Delusions (2001)

I wrote a Deep Cut Friday column for Spin last year about "You Can Make Me Free," and how it ended up on streaming services today in an edit that's less than half as long as the original album version. There's a YouTube of the full 6-minute song in my article, it's awesome, but I had to settle for the shorter one in this playlist. At the end of the piece I singled out "Stiletto," "Sleeping with the Television On," and "She's Right On Time" as some other essential deep cuts, while also mentioning a variety of Joel album tracks that felt kind of too famous to include in this playlist because of their contemporary popularity on rock radio, streaming services, and/or at Joel concerts: “Captain Jack,” “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant,” “New York State of Mind," “Zanzibar,” and “Miami 2017." There are still some fairly famous songs on the playlist, because I didn't want to whittle away the presence of certain top tier Joel albums, so it was ultimately a gut thing. 

Billy Joel recorded three albums with his early bands, two with The Hassles and one with Attila, and there's a handful of tracks from before Joel's solo career on his 2005 box set My Lives. So I grabbed the one Attila song that's on My Lives and a song from the resequenced reissue of The Hassles' debut that's on streaming services. I've long been fascinated by Attila, Joel's psych rock duo with Hassles drummer Jon Small, where he played heavily distorted organ. I really like that album, it would be nice to pick any track of my choosing, but I still enjoyed including "Amplifier Fire." 

I recently watched and enjoyed the movie Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice, which opens with Ben Schwartz singing Billy Joel's song from Oliver & Company, "Why Should I Worry." I have a very vague memory of seeing that movie as a child, possibly in the theater when I would've been 6 years old. And I'm pretty sure I loved the song then before I had any idea who Billy Joel was, because the memory just came rushing back when I heard that song again, for the first time in 30-something years. "Running On Ice" is a pretty good Police song, but it is 100% a pastiche of The Police to an almost eerie degree. 

It's funny to think that the piano is such a central instrument of western pop music, and yet there are few enough major stars known primarily for singing behind a piano in the last 60 years or so that Elton John and Billy Joel kind of stand apart as the token piano guys. I wish I had seen one of the tours they did together back when they were buddies, it made me sad that they've fallen out to enough of a degree that they didn't appear in each other's recent career-spanning documentaries (Billy Joel: And So It Goes is a great watch, though, see it on HBO if you haven't). I mentioned this in another recent post, but I grew up thinking of them as guys who were both just generally active and successful at the same time. It was only later, upon looking closer, that I realized that Joel's first really huge album The Stranger came out less than a year after Elton John's career started to cool down for the first time with Blue Moves. Maybe there wasn't even room for two token piano guys at a time, just one. 

One bone of contention between Billy Joel and Elton John was that Joel stopped writing songs and making albums after River of Dreams and happily transitioned into just performing his back catalog, releasing only a classical album in 2001 (a pretty good new single, "Turn the Lights Back On," came out two years ago, but it appears to be a one-off). Since River of Dreams, Elton John has made 7 solo albums, 4 albums of duets and collaborations, and 5 film soundtracks or stage musical scores. And I've listened to all of that stuff and really like some of it and respect Elton's creative drive and passion for championing new artists. But I don't think he's significantly added to his legacy in that time in ways Joel hasn't, Lion King aside. Plus, not to take anything away from the Elton John/Bernie Taupin partnership, but Billy Joel doesn't have a dedicated lyricist sending him pages of new words to get him started on songs if he's not feeling inspired (Joel says something in the doc about freeing himself from "the tyranny of the rhyme"). 

And to simply stop recording after a huge album that went platinum 5 times over, continuing to live and perform but never going back to the well trying to extend that time on top, is kinda badass. I don't know if anybody else has really done that in popular music. Some albums sold more than others, but he never really had a flop after The Stranger made him a major star. And River of Dreams isn't his best but it ain't a bad one to go out on. I'm generally not very into covers albums, but it could be cool for Billy Joel to do one, his voice is in much better shape than most stars his age. 

10:08 AM

Monthly Report: March 2026 Albums

Monday, April 20, 2026























1. Raye - This Music May Contain Hope
British retro divas have been a staple of popular music for decades now, and Raye is conscious of her place in that lineage, referencing comparisons to Amy Winehouse a few minutes into her second album. And while Raye has a great voice and a solid command of a few different styles of mid-20th century popular song, This Music May Contain Hope is just bursting at the seams with words and humor and big ambitious ideas, it reminds me more of Kendrick Lamar's good kid, m.A.A.d city than Adele's 21. It's very earnest and heart-on-its-sleeve in a way that I can see being offputting to some people, but I really get swept up in the emotion of "I Know You're Hurting" and "Goodbye Henry" and "Nightingale Lane" and even the 6-minute closing track where she thanks every person who worked on the album, including every single member of the London Symphony Orchestra, which is oddly kind of beautiful and affecting. 
I remember saying a year ago that I expected big things from Raye's next album, and I'm very happy that I was right. Here's the 2026 albums Spotify playlist that I'm constantly putting new releases in. 

2. Leven Kali - LK99
A dude named Joe from Twitter who's put me onto some good R&B told me this was his favorite album of the year so far, so I moved it up in my queue of new releases to listen to, and it was definitely worth it. Leven Kali is a Dutch-born multi-instrumentalist and singer based in L.A. whose father's the bassist in the underrated '70s band Mother's Finest. Kali had credits on some big albums (Drake's More Life, four of the best songs on Beyonce's Renaissance) and put out a couple albums on Interscope that I somehow missed. But his new one, his first for Def Jam, is just absolutely killer, deep grooves and gorgeous production. The album really hits its stride for me with the middle stretch of "Starlet," "Grab It," and "Just a Lil' Bit," but the whole thing is so smooth and enjoyable. 

3. Ty Myers - Heavy On The Soul
Austin teenager Ty Myers is probably my favorite new country star to emerge in the past year, a really promising songwriter with great taste. He recorded his second album in the legendary FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, and it just has a great relaxed sound and "Songs For You" and "Me Neither" are some of my favorite songs. But what really cemented my love of this album is the cover of Little Feat's "Two Trains" with Marcus King, it's just awesome to hear a couple of talented guys born in 2007 and 1996 play a deep cut from Dixie Chicken and totally do it justice, 

4. Darsombra - SYZYGY
After Darsombra's Ann Everton died in a car crash last year, I spent a week talking to people who knew her for a Baltimore Banner piece. And at first I didn't even have any expectation of talking to Brian Daniloski, who survived the crash, just because I had no idea what state he was in physically or emotionally. But I let people who knew him pass my number along, and one morning my phone rang, and I spent an hour talking to someone who'd just lost their wife and bandmate, and I'm really grateful that Brian was willing to give me some of his time in the aftermath of that tragedy and share happy memories of Ann. A few weeks ago there was a two-night Ann Everton tribute concert at the Ottobar, I only got up there from D.C. for the very last set of the second night by Celebration, which was awesome, and soon after, Brian released a new Darsombra album. Brian told me about how excited he and Ann were about the next album they were planning to make together, but SYZYGY is a collection of more minimal ambient work from their fertile 2020-2022 COVID-era sessions, and I love this really spacey 'slowly drifting in the ether' side of their catalog. 

5. Underscores - U
April Harper Grey aka Underscores has toured with 100 Gecs and makes music in a somewhat similar 'hyperpop' style, lots of different influences mushed together with AutoTune vocals and glitchy post-dubstep sonics. And I'm generally not hugely into that stuff, at this point it just sounds like a dated 2010s concept of 'the future of music' to me. But Grey is a really gifted songwriter, U has hooks for days, "Bodyfeeling" and "Tell Me (U Want It)" would put a lot of Top 40 pro songwriters to shame. And the idiosyncratic laptop production never gets in the way of the tunes, really just enhancing them with energetic, unpredictable arrangements. 

6. Charlie Puth - Whatever's Clever! 
Charlie Puth is one of those Top 40 pros that it's easy to sneer at, but he really broke down my skepticism and won me over with his second album, 2018's Voicenotes, and his fourth album is even better. Whatever's Clever! is his first album since Taylor Swift famously declared "Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist" on The Tortured Poets Department's title track two years ago, and the sympathy shoutout from a superstar doesn't seem to have given his boost to his career, if anything he's even less commercially successful now. The album is co-produced by BloodPop, a guy who started his career working with Grimes before making huge hits with Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga, but the electronics are pretty subtle on Whatever's Clever!, it's mostly high gloss '80s pop and soft rock, but there's more feeling in the tracks than just nostalgia, like the tracks featuring Kenny G and Michael McDonald are genuinely great songs. 

7. Haute & Freddy - Big Disgrace
Michelle Buzz and Lance Shipp are both veterans of the big pop song machine who have written for people like Katy Perry and Britney Spears, and when I interviewed them for Spin last year early in the launch of their alt-pop duo project Haute & Freddy, they were pretty disinterested in talking about that part of their careers, although I would've loved to pick their brains about it. But I dig the way they've carved out a different niche with Haute & Freddy that's still very pop and makes sense as a major label album. I think that the early single "Shy Girl" is still my favorite song on Big Disgrace but I like the whole thing, "Showgirl at Heart" and "Sweet Surrender" are really good, Buzz does the pouty, stylized Cyndi Lauper '80s pop diva vocal style so well. 

8. Terrace Martin - Perspective
L.A. jazz/soul/hip-hop producer and multi-instrumentalist Terrace Martin amazed me with the 8 albums or EPs he released in 2023, and it feels like he might have an even more prolific 2026 based on the pace he's set so far with four albums in the first three months of the year. Perspective is my favorite of those releases, which kinda feels like a mostly instrumental R&B record with lots of retro synth and drum machine sounds and occasional saxophone and vocals, sometimes vocoded, great chillout music. 

9. Kim Gordon - Play Me
I loved Kim Gordon's sort-of first solo album, 2019's No Home Record, and thought the wildly acclaimed 2024 follow-up The Collective was a bit overrated by comparison. But going back to both as well as the new one, Play Me, I just like what Gordon and producer Justin Raisen are doing together in general, I like when there's a bit more guitar in the mix and the beats aren't so "trap," but she's doing something that's in conversation with her Sonic Youth work but also pretty different and it's awesome to see. 

10. Harry Styles - Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally. 
I observed recently that since winning the Grammy for Album of the Year, Harry Styles is uncool and overexposed in a way that even One Direction never was, and some people thought I was just insulting him outright. But I think all his solo records are good and in the same rough ballpark of quality (although none as good as One Direction's Four), I was just observing the fluctuations in public opinion. Styles isn't the typical ex-boy band superstar who's an irrepressible born entertainer like George Michael or Justin Timberlake, and he's not on some kind of journey off the beaten path like Scott Walker either. He just makes these gently hooky, unassuming records with Kid Harpoon and Tyler Johnson, even the new one that is far more overtly danceable than his previous records is a relatively mellow take on those influences. 

The Worst Album of the Month: Jack Harlow - Monica
In the early 2020s, Jack Harlow released two platinum albums driven by hit singles that swiftly expanded his audience and made him the latest in a long line of white rappers that have seduced America. And then, for whatever reason, he decided to decouple his album efforts from his single efforts, and his last two albums will probably never go gold. 2023's "Lovin On Me" was an absolutely enormous hit, #1 on the Hot 100 and #5 on the year-end Hot 100 for 2024, and if he'd put it on an album of similar material he'd have probably had a blockbuster on his hands. Instead, that song was not on 2023's Jackman, 10 songs of 'serious' raps with no guests or crossover-friendly hooks, or on 2026's Monica, 9 songs of mumbly half-assed R&B that have been widely ridiculed over a rollout that included Harlow proudly saying "I got blacker" to two white music critics. Maybe he'll bounce back from this, maybe he won't, I really don't care because always been kind of a dull middleweight talent. But it's grimly funny to watch someone who had a winning formula dismantle it for a couple of really misguided, unsuccessful plays for musical credibility and acclaim. 

10:07 AM

Friday, April 17, 2026

 





I wrote about Lady Gaga's "Jewels N' Drugs" for Spin's Deep Cut Friday column this week.

3:49 PM

TV Diary

Thursday, April 16, 2026

 







Dan Levy's first feature Good Grief was a decent little dramedy, but I'm glad he's back with a new Netflix series he co-created with Rachel Sennott that feels a little more like his proper follow-up to "Schitt's Creek." Levy and Taylor Ortega, who I've adored since "Welcome To Flatch," play a pastor and his sister who piss off some mobsters and cartels and get mixed up in a bunch of dangerous shit. The story just keeps jumping through all these tangents that don't always make sense, I think "Search Party" did this kind of thing with a little more energy and gleeful absurdity, but overall I really like it. Every scene with Ortega and Jack Innanen is hilarious, they have this great dynamic as a very specific kind of dysfunctional couple. And Levy just plays a bit more of an earnest protagonist here, he's more the anchor of the story than he was on "Schitt's Creek" but not as funny as he was on "Schitt's Creek." 

This reminds me of Alexander Payne's Downsizing in that it's got some impressive writing and acting that feels at odds with the wacky Honey, I Shrunk The Kids-style premise and visual effects. Certainly that's a deliberate choice to some extent, but it still results in a weird mix of tones and some inevitably corny physical comedy revolving around one character being shrunk down to a few inches tall. The meat of the show, though, Elizabeth Banks and Matthew Macfadyen trapped in a bitter, loveless marriage, is pretty well done. 
 
c) "Rooster" 
As someone who has always enjoyed Bill Lawrence's sitcoms, I'm happy to say that 2026 feels like peak Bill Lawrence -- "Shrinking" has hit its stride and is I think one of his best shows to date, the "Scrubs" revival was better than I thought it'd be, his biggest hit "Ted Lasso" is returning soon, and "Rooster" had HBO's biggest ratings for a new comedy in over a decade. "Rooster" has a completely different HBO-y look from Lawrence's other shows (even the episodes directed by Zach Braff!), but the tone is familiar, Steve Carell and John C. McGinley are hilarious as always, and it's cool to see Charly Clive in something like this after her star-making role in "Pure," she's great. Michael Stipe did the theme song, which is a pretty cool get, but I wouldn't have even guessed it was him if I didn't know. 

I love horror movies, but the trope of repeated fakeouts where you're led to anticipate a scary or violent turn of events long before they start happening, is not my favorite thing about horror movies, although it can be done well to comedic effect. Netflix's "Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen," true to its title, has a whole lot of that, I find it a little exasperating, but otherwise it's pretty good. I thought "The Magicians" had one of the best casts on television in the 2010s and I'm annoyed that those actors aren't all over the place now, so it's nice that at least Adam DiMarco is staying booked. 

Scott Speedman always seemed to me like a super generic early 2000s actor that never left a strong impression in his various roles in the Underworld franchise in other stuff. But now he's in the title role in a hit ABC show based on Carl Hiaasen novel and I feel like it's the first time I've found his performance charming and memorable, he's good as a hardscrabble private investigator down on his luck. And he has good chemistry with Jaina Lee Ortiz, who I previously loyally watched in another crime drama set in Miami, "Rosewood." 

Last month I complained about the style of murder mystery that's in vogue on TV when I wrote about "DTF St. Louis," but "Imperfect Women" is really a better example of how boring these kind of flashback-heavy mystery shows can be. One of the weakest Apple TV shows I've seen to date, big waste of Kerry Washington and Elizabeth Moss. 

I've heard people complain that The Count of Monte Cristo isn't actually very well written for a classic book, so I'm going to selfishly take that as an excuse to watch an adaptation without having read the source material. But I know the gist of the story, of course, and this miniseries with Sam Claflin and Jeremy Irons, which aired on Swiss television in 2024 but just recently came to PBS in America, has some pretty good atmosphere and production values. 

I adore Minnie Driver and always thought she deserved a few Emmys and a career resurgence for "Speechless." So it's depressing that she's been in three TV series already in 2026 and two of them are among the worst shows I've seen this year, "Run Away" and this Fox miniseries of Bible stories (the third is a Canadian show that I think is coming to America on some obscure streamer I don't use). We as a society are failing Minnie Driver! At least this one had one hilarious scene where she yells at God about her womb. 

i) "Malcolm in the Middle: Life's Still Unfair"
"Malcolm in the Middle" was a reasonably entertaining show for its time, although even as a teenager I thought it was clear that Bryan Cranston and Jane Kaczmarek were carrying the show. This revival was initially going to be a 2-hour TV movie and then they decided to make it a 4-episode miniseries, and either way I think a bite-sized trip down memory lane is all that's really warranted here. Unfortunately, it feels like a lot of other revivals of old shows where they put a lot of focus on new cast members playing the old characters' kids, in this case Malcolm's daughter who's now the narrator. It's fun enough, though, Cranston steals a few scenes. 

j) "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters"
This spinoff of some forgettable 2010s movies that started in 2023 has just now returned for a second season, it's not terrible but it really just feels like a big lumbering waste of Apple TV money. 

k) "Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord"
This has gotten rave reviews from people who are fine with the visual style of animated Star Wars shows, but I am not one of them, just hate the way this stuff looks. 

l) "Invincible" 
I'm a few weeks behind on the fourth season of "Invincible" and it seems like the latest episode was one of those really action-packed ones that gets everybody talking and makes the show worth following. But it kind of feels like most seasons of this show are like that, not every episode leading up to the climax is very entertaining. I like that there's been maybe a return to a bit more humor this season, though. 

m) "The Ramparts of Ice" 
A new Netflix anime series, a very introspective and sensitive sort of teen soap opera. 

n) "Little Lunch" 
My 10-year-old very rarely takes an interest in watching anything that's not animated, but lately he's been binging this Australian live action sitcom that was made about a decade ago about kids roughly his age, it's pretty charming, reminds me of some of those Nickelodeon sitcoms from the '90s. 

"Crap Happens," or "Kacken an der Havel," is a Netflix sitcom about the career struggles of a white rapper from Berlin. It's like a German version Lil Dicky's "Dave," but not even as good as that comparison implies. 

I'm used to a lot of the international fare on Netflix being crap like, well, "Crap Happens," so I was pleasantly surprised by this moving series based on Orhan Pamuk's 2008 novel. 

This is an HBO miniseries about an Italian TV host who was accused of being part of a crime syndicate in 1983, I'm only a couple episodes in but it has a great lead performance by Fabrizio Gifuni.

She hasn't posted on Twitter in a year or two, but it still matters a lot to me that Padma Lakshmi is probably the most famous person that follows me on social media. Her new show on CBS is really good, kind of a corrective to the formula of "Top Chef" and a lot of cooking competition shows where people have to do what they can with a limited set of ingredients and/or resources, instead a bunch of award-winning chefs are given everything they need to do their very best work. And some of the dishes they come up with look so delicious and unique, but there still plenty that old school reality show tension and suspense, because of course there's time limits and some people kind of scramble to finish their dishes. 

A riff on the title of "That '70s Show" in 2026? Timely! But this is a cute show. 

A kind of depressing but good and necessary nature series about how various animals and communities have adjusted to life in the time of extreme climate change. 

I love bees and this new National Geographic docuseries is fascinating, some of the footage they got of inside beehives or bees protecting themselves from a hornet are just amazing. 

Oh man, this true crime doc about a polygamist sect in Utah is just so unsettling and gross, I did not want to watch more than one episode of it. 

Another really stomach-turning true crime series, this one about a Spanish tour guide who assaulted countless tourists. 

I'd never heard of the famous and controversial rock climber Dean Potter, the first episode of this HBO docuseries was pretty gripping, but then I was like well now I have to look up how he died and stuff, why live in suspense about the other episodes. 

This dating reality show produced by the "Call Her Daddy" podcast lady is just kind of cartoonishly absurd, with some contestants living it up on a yacht while other contestants work hard below deck. I don't know if some degree of class consciousness or social critique is going to seep into this thing, deliberately or by accident, but the execution seems largely shamelessly stupid. 

Apparently Byron Allen has been hosting this show for hundreds of episodes over the last 20 years, but I've only started to see it pretty recently, kind of by accident if I still have CBS on after Colbert ends. It's just absolute dogshit, feels almost more like an infomercial than a comedy show, and of course it was recently announced that this is what CBS is putting in Colbert's timeslot after his show ends next month.

3:48 PM