Monday, September 15, 2025

 


Tamara Palmer interviewed me about Tough Breaks: The Story of Baltimore Club Music for Music Book Club. 

Charles Aaron, Oliver Wang, and Chuck Eddy all generously took the time to read the book and write blurbs about it, I've been meaning to share those here as well. 



7:06 PM

Friday, September 12, 2025

 





This week I interviewed Haute & Freddy and wrote a Deep Cut Friday column about Harry Nilsson for Spin. 

11:21 AM

Thursday, September 11, 2025

 




One of my editors from the Baltimore City Paper days, Lee Gardner, has a podcast called Essential Tremors, and they have a recurring event called the Selector Series, with a guest choosing an album for a hi-fi vinyl listening experience. 

On September 24th, I'll be the guest for a Selector Series at Idle Hour, where we'll be listening to Think (About It), the 1972 debut album by Lyn Collins. The title track is sort of the Rosetta Stone of Baltimore club music, and I devote a chunk of my book to the importance of the "Think (About It)" breakbeat to the genre. But the whole thing is great, produced and primarily written by James Brown. Since the event has a cover charge, I'll have copies of Tough Breaks for a reduced price. 

11:20 AM

Reading Diary

Wednesday, September 10, 2025


 





















a) No Sense in Wishing, by Lawrence Burney
Lawrence and I both started out our writing careers at Baltimore City Paper and did some cool shit together when he was on staff at the Baltimore Banner. There's always been lots of mutual respect there, so I love that his first book and my first book were published just a few weeks apart, we're both appearing at the Baltimore Book Festival this weekend so hopefully I'll see him there. Lawrence really excels at writing about music and Baltimore and Baltimore music from a personal perspective and explaining why he likes what he likes or how it shaped him, and this collection of essays really plays to that strength.  You get these engrossing vignettes about how he became a Three 6 Mafia or Lupe Fiasco fan and what their music means both to him and to the rest of the world, or his personal memories of family crab feasts set against the context of Black history in Maryland and how slavery shaped the state. Nobody's ever written better about Young Moose and the late Lor Scoota and it's interesting to see how he looks back now on how they redefined Baltimore hip-hop in the 2010s and influenced what came after them. 

b) Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture, by Simon Reynolds
When I was working on Tough Breaks, I read a lot of books about dance music and house music, partly because I came to Baltimore club via hip-hop rather than dance music and wanted to make sure I had the right grounding and context. And this one is definitely deservedly regarded as one of the great dance music books, I really appreciated Reynolds giving this very detailed account of how the raves and club culture took over in the UK in the late '80s, the way all these different factions and legal and cultural forces shaped where people danced and what they danced to. 

c) Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Since I was reading non-fiction books about music most of the time that I was working on mine, I was kind of ready to jump into fiction again, and when we went on vacation a few months ago I asked my wife, who reads over 50 novels every year, to recommend me a couple things to take. Children of Time is pretty good, although it's the first in a series and I don't know if I have the appetite to read the others, it has some pretty interesting ideas about how humanity could try to colonize the rest of the universe after the destruction of Earth by basically spreading intelligence as a virus to new species, including a race of large spiders. Tchaikovsky does a good job of jumping between the human plotline and the spider plotline and communicating how the cognition of an intelligent nonverbal spider would differ from ours. 

11:19 AM

Saturday, September 06, 2025

 




The 500th issue of The Wire magazine is out, and I am thrilled to say that Derek Walmsley wrote an insightful review of my book Tough Breaks: The Story of Baltimore Club Music for the issue. 

The Baltimore Book Festival also just a few days away!

11:25 AM

Friday, September 05, 2025


 













This week on Spin, I interviewed Theo Croker, ranked Rihanna's albums, wrote about Death Cab For Cutie for Deep Cut Friday, and picked The Geraldine Fibbers' Lost Somewhere Between the Earth and My Home for a look back at great 1995 albums. 

11:24 AM

My Top 50 Movies of 2019

Wednesday, September 03, 2025

 





1. Parasite (Bong Joon Ho)
2. Sound of Metal (Darius Marder)
3. Midsommar (Ari Aster)
4. Knives Out (Rian Johnson)
5. Us (Jordan Peele)
6. Crawl (Alexandre Aja)
7. Ready Or Not (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett)
8. Doctor Sleep (Mike Flanagan)
9. Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)
10. Uncut Gems (Josh Safdie and Benny Safdie)
11. Hustlers (Lorene Scafaria)
12. Fighting With My Family (Stephen Merchant)
13. Booksmart (Olivia Wilde)
14. The Farewell (Lulu Wang)
15. Honey Boy (Alma Har’el)
16. The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Joe Talbot)
17. Portrait Of A Lady On Fire (Celine Sciamma)
18. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)
19. First Cow (Kelly Reichardt)
20. The Assistant (Kitty Green)
21. Rocketman (Dexter Fletcher)
22. The Vast Of Night (Andrew Patterson)
23. Blow The Man Down (Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy)
24. The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers
25. High Flying Bird (Steven Soderbergh)
26. The Report (Scott Z. Burns)
27. Lying and Stealing (Matt Aselton)
28. Anna (Luc Besson)
29. Them That Follow (Britt Poulson and Dan Madison Savage)
30. Blackbird (Roger Michell)
31. Little Monsters (Abe Forsythe)
32. The Dead Don’t Die (Jim Jarmusch)
33. Zombieland: Double Tap (Ruben Fleischer)
34. Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese (Martin Scorsese)
35. Shazam! (David F. Sandberg)
36. Detective Pikachu (Rob Letterman)
37. The Kitchen (Andrea Berloff)
38. Avengers: Endgame (Anthony Russo and Joe Russo)
39. Blinded By The Light (Gurinder Chadha)
40. The Gentlemen (Guy Ritchie)
41. Alita: Battle Angle (Robert Rodriguez)
42. Jojo Rabbit (Taika Waititi)
43. Dolemite Is My Name (Craig Brewer) 
44. Buffaloed (Tanya Wexler)
45. Joker (Todd Phillips)
46. Her Smell (Alex Ross Perry)
47. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)
48. Captain Marvel (Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck)
49. Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark (Andre Ovredal)
50. Ma (Tate Taylor)

As I start to go back a few years in this series, it's starting to irritate me to be reminded of good debut or breakthrough films and then realize that Darius Marder and Lulu Wang and Kitty Green and Andrew Patterson haven't directed a feature since 2019. It's also pretty bittersweet to remember that I watched The Last Black Man In San Francisco and immediately said "I hope Jonathan Majors gets a lot of roles off this movie," real monkey's paw situation there. 

Previously: 
My Top 50 Movies of 2020
My Top 50 Movies of 2021
My Top 50 Movies of 2022
My Top 50 Movies of 2023
My Top 50 Movies of 2024

5:17 AM

The 2025 Remix Report Card Vol. 3

Tuesday, September 02, 2025

 






Here's Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 from earlier in the year, and the Spotify playlist of every remix I've covered in 2025: 

"Actin Up With Sexyy Red" by Tommy Richman featuring Sexyy Red
Tommy Richman's first post-Coyote single spent one week in the lower reaches of the Hot 100 after Sexyy Red added a verse to it, which is good considering that none of the songs on the album charted. It wouldn't have occurred to me before they did a track together, but Richman and Big Sexyy are kind of similar in the unvarnished amateurism that hasn't really left their work since they hit the mainstream -- I guess it's charming to an extent, but I personally find them both a little one-dimensional and tiresome. She brings the right energy to this track, though, it's an improvement on the original. I think I'd like Tommy Richman more if his music was all self-produced, it's weird to think that he pays someone for beats that sound like this. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B 

"Aura (Remix)" by Bri3 featuring Star Bandz
Bri3 is a 17-year-old girl from Waldorf, Maryland, about an hour from where I live, who released her debut single "Aura" last year. She's got some talent, I'm interested to see where her career goes. So far she's collaborated with several other viral teen rappers like BabyChiefDoIt, BAK Jay, and Star Bandz, a Chicago rapper who I don't think really adds much to the "Aura" remix. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C+

"Back to the South (Remix)" by Zillionaire Doe featuring Yo Gotti
"Stuntin' Like My Daddy" is one of my favorite Lil Wayne records, I'm cool with people sampling it. But NLE Choppa had a hit with a nice beat flipping the "Stuntin'" beat and a good Wayne verse just two years ago, while Dallas rapper Zillionaire Doe's breakthrough single just sounds like the original "Stuntin'" beat slightly distorted like someone's playing it on their phone, with terrible rapping, it sucks ass. So I was pleasantly surprised that Yo Gotti, who makes good songs but isn't really the kind of guy who does memorable guest verses often, and seemed like an odd choice to be on a Cash Money remake record, had a solid verse with an entertaining little tangent: "I need to speak to Trump/ I need to let him know that ICE been slowin' up the plug/ I need a favor 'cause I still been tryin' to run it up/ Need you to open up them borders, let my people flood." 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B+ 

"Banned From NO (Remix)" by Lil Wayne featuring Nicki Minaj
Speaking of Wayne, I didn't hate Tha Carter VI like a lot of people did, but it was certainly a little underwhelming. One of the better tracks was "Banned From NO" with Wayne spazzing on a "Triggaman" flip of the beat from N.O.R.E.'s "Banned From TV." And a few days after the album's release, a remix with Nicki Minaj was added to the album, which sounded like a good idea on paper. But Nicki doesn't really do the animated "female Weezy" flow anymore and she just kinda brings a weird subdued energy to a track this uptempo. Her 24-bar verse has some good moments, but I feel like she blunts its impact by doing a weak AutoTune hook before and after the verse, which appears in addition to Wayne's hook from the original song. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C

"Blue Strips (Remix)" by Jessie Murph featuring Sexyy Red 
I have mixed feelings about Jessie Murph's breakthrough hit, and her whole schtick in general, I feel like it's so close to being something compelling or unique but it doesn't quite get there. And putting Sexyy Red on the remix to a white singer's (semi-ironic?) strip club song, I dunno, I thought I'd hate it. But Sexyy Red really cracked me up starting her verse singing "I just bought a fast car so I can run over you" with a bunch of "skrt skrt skrt skrt pyoom" ad libs, I think I actually like this version more than the original. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B

"Bop Bop Bop (Remix)" by Rassy Bugatti featuring Zoe Osama and OTM
Rassy Bugatti is the lake Drakeo The Ruler's cousin who's released a lot of music while incarcerated and I guess is still behind bars. So maybe his delivery on "Bop Bop Bop" is kind of flat and subdued because he was trying to record in a cell without getting caught, but I don't know what OTM's excuse is -- the first two minutes of this remix are so monotonous that I'm not even sure if both members of OTM are on this or just one of them. Zoe Osama comes in last and brings the energy way up and salvages the remix. 
Best Verse: Zoe Osama 
Overall Grade: B-

"Boy Crazy (Remix)" by Kesha featuring Jade
Kesha's latest album is alright but "Boy Crazy" isn't really one of my favorite songs. But I like Jade from Little Mix's recent solo stuff and she really sounds more natural on this track than Kesha. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B 

"Crash Out RMX" by Lihtz featuring Meek Mill and Fridayy
"Crash Out ATL RMX" by Lihtz featuring K Camp
Lihtz is a Philly rap singer whose first high profile song was a feature on Meek Mill's 2017 album Wins & Losses (where was credited as Lihtz Kamraz). "Crash Out" is pretty much just vocals over three guitar chords over and over, I can see while Meek and Fridayy wanted to jump on this song because they just had a hit together with no drums, "Proud of Me." But this song has a much lighter vibe (the "Crash Out" single cover art is the late Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes's mugshot, which I think is in poor taste). K Camp's voice feels like a more natural match for this song.  
Best Verse: K Camp
Overall Grade: B

"Ecstasy (Remix)" by Ciara featuring Normani and Teyana Taylor
Ciara and Teyana Taylor released albums on the same day last month, and the latter appeared on the remix to the former's single. I remember the first time I heard "Ecstasy" on the radio and I was like hey, this new Ciara song is pretty good. And then I heard her rhyme "You got on that Dolce & Gabbana" with "I'm tryin' to see what's up with that banana" (and also "hibachi" with "punani") and just rolled my eyes so hard, I can't stand Theron Thomas's lyrics. The remix is an instant improvement just for not including those lines, but I also really like how Normani and Teyana Taylor's voices sound on this song. Normani hits a cool fast flow on this, I hope this is an indication that she's coming out with more R&B-leaning music. The pitched-down "shawty this the remix" refrain is a nice addition, too. 
Best Verse: Normani.  
Overall Grade: B+

"FUN (Soma Remix)" by Cortisa Star featuring Venusgrl! and Soma
Cortisa Star is a 20-year-old trans woman who was born in Baltimore and grew up in Sussex County, Delaware, two places I've lived, so I'm pretty interested in her career. Her breakout song is a self-produced 71-second burst of hyperpop-ish noise called "FUN," and the remix puts Cortisa's vocal over a new beat by Soma with a new verse from Philly rapper Venusgrl! and it's still pretty distorted and weird. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B-

"Get Umm 2" by Keon K.O.K featuring Connie Diiamond
Little known New Jersey rapper Keon K.O.K's most popular track, "Get Umm," sets the Continent Number 6 vocal loop that Kanye sampled on "Power" to a drill beat, it's not bad. I'm not a huge fan of Bronx rapper Connie Diiamond, whose music I only know because I keep stumbling upon it in remixes for this column, but her voice sounds good on this track and she adds a little more energy to it. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B 

"Gnarly (Ice Spice Remix)" by Katseye featuring Ice Spice
"Gnarly (Lara of Katseye x Lancey Foux x Slush Puppy Remix)" by Katseye featuring Lancey Foux and Slush Puppy
I praised the original "Gnarly" last week and I'm pleased that both of these remixes keep the song's hyper sensory overload vibe going with some new production. The Ice Spice remix switches to kind of a drill beat for her verse, it appears to be produced by the same four people that did the original. And then the other remix with British rapper Lancey Foux has a completely new instrumental by San Diego producer Slush Puppy. 
Best Verse: Ice Spice
Overall Grade: A-

"Goodbye, Sunshine (Eternal Summer)" by Coheed and Cambria featuring Nick Hexum
"Goodbye, Sunshine (The Scientist Dub Version)" by Coheed and Cambria featuring Nick Hexum
Coheed 
The original "Goodbye, Sunshine" on Coheed and Cambria's latest album is a charging rock song in their usual sound, but for the single release they completely re-recorded it as a reggae song with a horn section and some vocals from 311's lead singer. It's a pleasant little genre pastiche, I guess, but they go one step further with a version by Jamaican dub legend the Scientist, I respect and enjoy that track a little more. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B- 

"The Greatest Bend Over (Take It Easy) - Chloe & Moliy Remix" by Full Blown and Yung Bredda featuring Chloe and Moliy
I remember when Chloe Bailey posted a clip of her verse from this remix on Twitter and a lot of people on there, who have generally scrutinized Chloe's career in a really uncharitable way, were nitpicking it and saying she's trying to be like Tyla or jumping on the Afrobeats bandwagon. But Full Blown and Yung Bredda are Soca artists from Trinidad, this is a pretty good version of a pretty good song. 
Best Verse: Chloe
Overall Grade: B

"Hell Woods 2" by Queen Key featuring GloRilla
Chicago rapper Queen Key is I guess best known now for being on "Love & Hip-Hop ATL," I find the original "Hell Woods" kinda boring but this is one of GloRilla's best guest verses I've ever heard, she's still on a hot streak and really elevates a song that may not deserve it. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B+ 

"House Again (Remix)" by Hudson Westbrook featuring Miranda Lambert
"House Again" is one of my favorite country singles of 2025, and when I wrote about it a few weeks ago I mentioned that Hudson Westbrook released a duet version with Miranda Lambert along with a cover of Lambert's "The House That Built Me." Lambert's voice sounds lovely on this, I'm glad the original was the one that became a hit but I wouldn't have minded if this was the version that country radio played. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B 

"JAT (Remix)" by Connie Diiamond featuring Stunna Sandy
Another generic drill track with Connie Diiamond, this time featuring a Brooklyn rapper with the hilarious name Stunna Sandy, who is extremely beautiful and makes unfortunate Ice Spice-type music. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C-

"The Longest Goodbye (Remix)" by Role Model featuring Laufey
Role Model is from Maine, Laufey is from Iceland, they're both young people making vaguely old-timey music and are very popular, and in both cases I don't feel like I totally understand their deal, although I like some of the songs. I'm kind of indifferent to this song but it does feel like the best choice for them to sing as a duet, it's pleasant and cute. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C+ 

"Miami (Remix)" by Morgan Wallen featuring Lil Wayne and Rick Ross
"Miami" was the 27th most popular song on I'm The Problem at the time that the remix was released in July (out of 37 songs...goddamn Morgan Wallen's albums are too fucking long). And even now, if you included the streams for the remix, it wouldn't be in the top 10 most popular songs on the album, but I imagine Wallen feels like he needed another crossover collaboration to follow up the song with Tate McRae on pop radio. Not a particularly good song and I wish rappers weren't so eager to work with Wallen, especially when Wayne repeats a Wallen lyric and replaces "redneck" with the n-word. But I still kinda enjoy Wayne talking about his history in Miami and almost marrying Trina on this song. I also chuckled at the part in the chorus where Wallen says "I can't keep my gun in my trunk" (unlike in Nashville) but Lil Wayne ad libs "I still keep my gun!"
Best Verse: Lil Wayne
Overall Grade: B-

"MLB (Make Love Baby) [Remix]" by Tim Gent featuring Akeem Ali
I had never heard of Nashville rapper Tim Gent or Jackson, Mississippi rapper Akeem Ali, but I enjoy this easygoing melodic rap song full of silly baseball-themed sex puns. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B

"Other Side of Love (Remix)" by Coco Jones featuring Alicia Keys
Why Not More? is one of the year's best R&B albums, and the deluxe edition released a couple weeks ago adds some pleasant stuff but nothing really essential. The original "Other Side of Love" was the shortest song on the album and didn't stand out at all, so the remix with Alicia Keys extends it from 2 minutes to 3 minutes long and makes it feel a little more like a complete song. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B 

"Party On The East Cide PT. 2" by Zoe Osama featuring Jayson Cash, P1, and Ab-Soul
"Party On The East Cide" is more of a throwback '90s West Coast beat than any of these artists usually rap on, kind of fun to hear Ab-Soul kick a pretty straightforward verse on a track like this. 
Best Verse: Jayson Cash
Overall Grade: B-

"Piano Tiles 2" by Armani West featuring 6arelyhuman and Cortisa Star
"Piano Tiles" is kind of noisy underground girly rap in the same vein as the other Cortisa Star track I wrote about earlier in this post, "FUN," but it's a little more accessible and has blown up on TikTok. As much as I make fun of 6lack's name, I rolled my eyes pretty hard at the existence of an artist named 6arelyhuman. 
Best Verse: Cortisa Star
Overall Grade: B 

"The Rising Son Pt. 2" by R-Mean featuring Conway The Machine and Scott Storch
R-Mean's bio on Genius: "As the first rapper of Armenian descent to achieve his level of international and national acclaim, R-Mean is heading towards the ranks of his fellow Armenian icons System Of A Down and Kim Kardashian." I guess! Scott Storch has some produced some great songs in the 2020s, but "The Rising Son" is one of those really dated tracks that sounds like something he could've made in 2004, with a Biggie sample for a hook. So it's not really an ideal track for a guest like Conway The Machine, but he still outshine's R-Mean's corny self-aggrandizing new verse. 
Best Verse: Conway The Machine
Overall Grade: C+

"Tip (Remix)" by Ayetian featuring Nitzz, Shenseea, and DJ Mac
"Tip (Remix)" by Ayetian featuring Nttzz and Skillibeng
Moliy's "Shake It To The Max" remix with Shenseea and Skillibeng turned out to be an absolutely huge record, which I did not anticipate at all when I reviewed it in this space a few months ago. Unsurprisingly, the same two artists have been drafted for remixes to a recent dancehall hit, in this case by Jamaican artist Ayetian. And I don't mind that Shenseea is becoming ubiquitous, I adore her and still hold out hope that "Puni Police" will become a hit. 
Best Verse: Shenseea
Overall Grade: B

"Type Dangerous (The Brazil Funk Remix)" by Mariah Carey featuring Luisa Sonza
"Type Dangerous (The Remix of the Gods)" by Mariah Carey featuring Redman, Method Man, and Busta Rhymes
"Type Dangerous (Sean Don Remix)" by Mariah Carey featuring Big Sean
I like to give Big Sean a hard time as much as anybody, but credit where it's due, this is one of the best guest verses I've ever heard from him, the part where he incorporates a bunch of Mariah song titles into the lyrics is clever but the verse was really strong even before that. I can't rank him ahead of Redman, but I'll still give him props. And the beat on the Brazil Funk Remix is pretty cool. 
Best Verse: Redman
Overall Grade: B+

"Way Back (Remix)" by Kay Anthony featuring Westside Boogie and RunItUpDay!
Kind of a pleasant but unremarkable relationship rap song, good verse from Boogie. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B-

"We Outside (Cali Remix)" by Murkemz featuring Coyote, EastSide K-Boy, Dazy Lyn, and Fedie Demarco
"We Outside (Plug City Remix)" by Murkemz featuring Jungle Da Boss, Sluggah2Times, and Chris Coke
I'd never heard or heard of any of the rappers on these remixes, but Murkemz is from Arizona and he did one posse cut version of his single with some obscure California rappers and another with Phoenix rappers, who may very well be the biggest MCs in that scene, I have no idea. A pretty generic song but I think every verse on the Plug City Remix is better than every verse on the Cali Remix, it's no competition. I really hate EastSide K-Boy's verse with those tasteless punchlines about Lizzo and homeless encampments. 
Best Verse: Jungle Da Boss
Overall Grade: C-

"We Pray (Jasleen Royal Version)" by Coldplay featuring Jasleen Royal, Burna Boy, Little Simz, Elyanna, and Tini
"We Pray (Twice Version)" by Coldplay featuring Twice, Burna Boy, Little Simz, Elyanna, and Tini
The second single from Coldplay's latest album was one of those big global utopian gestures they love, a song featuring Nigerian, English, Palestinian, and Argentinian artists, but it was unfortunately kind of a lousy song. They upped the ante with a couple new versions, and I think Indian singer Jasleen Royal sounds by far better on here than any of the other guests. Chris Martin also sings a nice bridge on the version with the K-Pop group Twice that I wish was on every version of the song.   
Best Verse: Jasleen Royal
Overall Grade: C+

"Wrangler (Remix)" by Austin Walker featuring Chingy and JD Walker
Chingy is probably smart to follow in his old hometown rival Nelly's footsteps and join the country/rap collaborations bandwagon, this remix is the only track he's done in the last 15+ years that has over a million streams. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: D

"WTHelly (Remix)" by Rob49 featuring G Herbo
Back in April when "WTHelly" was blowing up, Rob49 teased four different remixes for the song: one with G Herbo, one with Latto, one with Big Sean, and one with Justin Bieber and an additional 'surprise' feature. The G Herbo remix came out in June, and now months later none of the others have materialized, which is more or less fine with me, the snippet of the Bieber remix sounded stupid and I can only see maybe the Latto one actually being good. "WTHelly" has a great beat and I kinda wish there was a posse cut with some really talented MCs on it, but Rob49's chaotic energy on the original is pretty fun as it is, and G Herbo is just kind of a shitty rapper at this point but not in a fun way. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: F 

"Yacht Party, Pt. 2" by RTM MB featuring Skilla Baby
It drove me crazy how Skilla Baby had a 10-bar verse with some odd clusters of rhyming lines on Rob49's "Mama," and he does a similar thing with his 15-bar verse here, just a really unserious rapper. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: D

5:16 AM

Saturday, August 30, 2025

 



I will be appearing at the Baltimore Book Festival a couple times next month to talk about Tough Breaks: The Story of Baltimore Club Music! 

On day one on September 13th, Red Emma's will present my panel with Ducky Dynamo, DJ Scottie B., DJ Booman, and Diamond K at 5pm. 

On day two on September 14th, I'll be at Normal's Books and Records at 5:15pm. 

Both stores currently have signed copies of the book and there will of course be more copies available at the Book Festival. And if you're not around here, I encourage you to buy the book online anywhere books are sold. 

These last two weeks have been fantastic, you can see footage of our first event at Motor House on Facebook (the conversation starts around the 41-minute mark), I'm excited to get out there and do more events in the weeks and months ahead! 




6:01 PM

Friday, August 29, 2025

 





This week on Spin, I interviewed three members of the New Orleans band Cha Wa about their new album Rise Up, which is out today, the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall. I also ranked Sparklehorse's albums and wrote about a Jeff Buckley live track for the Deep Cut Friday column. 

12:38 PM

Thursday, August 28, 2025

 











I interviewed Lafayette Gilchrist for the Baltimore Banner about his new album Move With Love, his release party tonight at Keystone Korner, and joining the Sun Ra Arkestra earlier this year. 

12:37 PM

Monthly Report: August 2025 Singles

Tuesday, August 26, 2025

 




1. Summer Walker - "Spend It"
A while back I wrote about the kind of wacky remix single for Summer Walker's "Heart of a Woman" that featured one version of the song with fireplace sound effects and another with rain sounds. The follow-up "Spend It" is also a little creative with the alternate mixes -- "Spend It - Rent Is Due Version" is slightly sped up and "Spend It - Diamonds & Pearls Version" is just like the original but with the drums removed. The last time I heard the song on WPGC, they actually played the "Rent Is Due Version," which I found a little concerning. It sounds good with the tempo picked up a little but I don't like the higher-pitched vocals, it's not quite nightcore but it feels weird for R&B radio to follow sped up TikTok trends. In any case, "Spend It" is probably my favorite song of Summer Walker's career (barring maybe "Girls Need Love" before it was remixed with Drake). I made a record once called Materialistic that was partly about how people are dismissive of the way hip-hop and R&B songwriters describe a world that is driven by money, and "Spend It" is a great example of a kind of darkly funny, poignant song about how someone can just feel defeated by prioritizing love when they decide to pursue purely transational relationships. Here's the 2025 singles Spotify playlist that I update throughout the year. 

2. Chappell Roan - "The Subway"
Chappell Roan released her first music video in almost two years for "The Subway," essentially the first one she's made as an established star. And it's good, but I'm a little bitter that "Good Luck, Babe!" didn't have a video and that "The Giver" didn't get promoted more in general. I think it's cool that she's leading the next album with a ballad where she can really belt, though, I feel like "The Subway" retains the personality of her other songs a little more than the slower songs on Midwest Princess. And I'm really enjoying the "she's got a wig" memes. 

3. Badflower - "Paws"
Writing a power ballad about a dying pet could really go either way as moving or cheesy, but "Paws" is fantastic, great follow-up to "Detroit," one of my favorite rock radio hits of the last few years. I wish Badflower's latest album wasn't so Hot Topic, though, they're one of those weird bands that makes great singles but indulges in their worst instincts on their album tracks. 

4. Steve Lacy - "Nice Shoes" 
Steve Lacy released a single with a sample of "Think (About It)" by Lyn Collins a few days before the publication of my book, which has a lengthy passage about the importance of the "Think" breakbeat to Baltimore club music. I love to see it! It doesn't seem like Lacy is really very concerned with capitalizing on "Bad Habit" becoming a #1 hit, coming back nearly three years later with something that doesn't sound too similar, but I dig it. 

5. Kehlani - "Folded" 
Another Baltimore link: "Folded" was co-produced by D.K. the Punisher, who I interviewed 10 years ago when he was first starting to get major label credits with Jill Scott and Justin Bieber. One of the other producers on "Folded" is his mentor, Andre Harris of Dre & Vidal fame. Kehlani released two projects last year and it feels like she's really building on that momentum, "Folded" is already on its way to being probably the biggest solo track of her career. 

6. Zara Larsson - "Midnight Sun" 
Zara Larsson's biggest hit in America, "Never Forget You" with MNEK, is now a decade old, but she's continued to make some pretty awesome music. In fact, so has MNEK, who co-produced the title track from her forthcoming fifth album Midnight Sun, which is kind of incredible, it's like what I always wished the Madonna song "Ray Of Light" sounded like. 

7. Tate McRae - "Revolving Door"
After my favorite promo single from Tate McRae's latest album, "2 Hands," got ignored by pop radio in favor of an annoying "I'm A Slave 4 U" knockoff, I'm pleasantly surprised that another great song from the album, "Revolving Door," has grown into a hit. I found it kind of surprising when McRae pivoted from slow sad songs to uptempo dance pop a couple years ago, but "Revolving Door" kind of combines those two sides of her sound in an interesting way. 

8. Role Model - "Sally, When The Wine Runs Out"
The first time I heard this song I just assumed Role Model was a band. But Role Model is a solo artist, a guy from Maine named Tucker Pillsbury who started out as a rapper whose early stuff sounded like Mac Miller (the first big star he collaborated with), before he focused more on singing and got his pop breakthrough with this catchy little country song. So I guess he's in the "white rapper to country singer" pipeline with Kid Rock and Post Malone that I wrote about a couple months back, I'll call him Jelly Roll Model. 

9. Charli XCX - "Party 4 U"
When an old album track becomes a surprise hit years later, I'm always interested to see whether it's something I put on one of my Deep Album Cuts playlists. I don't know whether to be embarrassed if it's something that I passed over, or whether I should remove it now that it's no longer a deep cut. "Something In The Way" isn't in my Nirvana playlist, for instance, and "Sparks" wasn't on my Coldplay playlist. "Party 4 U," however, was track 3 on my Charli XCX playlist, although I really never would've pegged that as the old song that would blow up post-Brat. 

10. Katseye - "Gnarly" 
Katseye debuted last year as an 'international' girl group with members from three different continents that was assembled by a K-Pop company and made its public debut with a Netflix reality show, "Popstar Academy: Katseye." I think most of their music so far is pretty good, above average pop, but "Gnarly" is the goofy noisy curveball they threw to stand out a little more, and it worked in the sense that it became their first Hot 100 entry. It seemed to serve to clear the way for a more conventional follow-up, "Gabriela," to do better, but I'm still stuck on "Gnarly," it's really grown on me. 

The Worst Single of the Month: Blackpink - "Jump" 
I like what Blackpink has done over the past year -- each member of the group released solo projects (three albums and one EPs) that have been all over the place musically and have spun off some pretty big singles, and then the group reconvened for a forthcoming world tour and third album. Unfortunately, the first Blackpink single in three years just kinda sucks and doesn't really feel like it's built to capitalize on the momentum from the solo hits. "Jump," co-produced by Diplo, references the Spice Girls' hit "Spice Up Your Life" but the vibe of the song is more Vengaboys, it's loud and obnoxious but not in any fun weird ways like "Gnarly." Meanwhile, Huntr/x from the animated film Kpop Demon Hunters is eating Blackpink's lunch -- the first K-Pop girl group to hit #1 on the Hot 100 is a fictional group of cartoon characters. 

5:15 AM

Friday, August 22, 2025

 




This week on Spin, I wrote a Deep Cut Friday column about Oasis's "Cast No Shadow" and ranked Garbage's albums. 

7:27 PM

Tuesday, August 19, 2025

 





Today is the big day, Tough Breaks: The Story of Baltimore Club Music is out. You can buy it directly from Repeater Books or anywhere books are sold, but I'm going to boost independent book stores that stock it whenever possible. I will be at Ducky Dynamo's Baltimore Club Music Town Hall this Saturday at Motor House with copies of the book, and there will be more events in the weeks ahead! 

I've been writing things and making things and putting them out into the world for 20 years without much concern about who clicks, subscribes, or purchases anything, but just this once, I'll tell you: please buy the book! It's $15 and represents the biggest single project I've ever undertaken, with over 50 interviews to bring Baltimore music and culture to life in the pages of the book, I'm enormously proud of it and grateful to everyone who had a hand in it (there's a great big shout out post on Facebook). 

12:33 PM

Monthly Report: July 2025 Albums

Monday, August 18, 2025























1. Madeline Kenney - Kiss From The Balcony
I started listening to Oakland-based singer-songwriter Madeline Kenney when she released her second album and first for Carpark Records, 2018's Perfect Shapes, and she hasn't let me down since, she's four for four. 2023's A New Reality Mind might still be her masterpiece, but Kiss From The Balcony is close, it feels like she's continually expanding her songwriting and aesthetic in interesting, unpredictable ways. Kiss From The Balcony is a trio record with the rhythm section she toured for her last album with, Ben Sloan and Stephen Patota, but it doesn't necessarily sound like it, "I Never" and "Slap" are such lush, textured studio creations. Here's the 2025 albums Spotify playlist I'm constantly updating with new releases. 

2. Clipse - Let God Sort Em Out
It's always controversial when I say that I was never that impressed with Hell Hath No Fury, I really don't think Pharrell's production was on point for that album, it just sounded flimsy and at odds with the bars. So I've just never been into post-Lord Willin' Clipse as much as most rap fans, and I ranked Clipse as the 9th best rap duo of all time for Complex a while back (Pusha and Malice gave the ranking their stamp of approval, which was pretty cool). This album hits hard, though. Pharrell made sure he had a darker palette of sounds, Malice is back with a vengeance, and I was never super into G.O.O.D.-era solo Pusha but I feel like he's a little more grounded and focused with his brother there, "So Be It" and "All Things Considered" are great. 

3. Tyler, The Creator - Don't Tap The Glass
The music industry's obsession with extending the lifespan of albums with deluxe editions has turned into artists like SZA releasing entire new albums as bonus discs for their last album. But Tyler, The Creator put forward a more exciting alternative: releasing a new album in the middle of the tour for last fall's Chromakopia that has its own title and its own distinct aesthetic, notching another #1 album with 28 minutes of some of his most physical beats and some of his most brazen verses with relatively little conceptual window dressing. 

4. Cam - All Things Light
Almost exactly a decade ago, Camaron Ochs released "Burning House," an incredible song that reached #2 on country radio, was nominated for a Grammy and a mess of CMA and ACM awards, and was my 21st favorite country single of the 2010s, as well as a gold-selling album. Nothing Cam has released since "Burning House" has made remotely as much of an impact, and she's kind of a one hit wonder, but last year I was very happy to see that she had writing credits on five songs (as well as some production and vocal credits) on Beyonce's Cowboy Carter, including "Tyrant" with Dolly Parton. On her new album, Cam is still working with her "Burning House" collaborators Tyler Johnson (Harry Styles, Miley Cyrus) and Jeff Bhasker (Fun., Bruno Mars), and "Alchemy" and "Everblue" have really interesting artsy production, some of it's country and some of it's almost jazzy and Joni Mitchell-ish. 

5. Rip Van Winkle - Blasphemy
The dozen albums Guided By Voices has released in the 2020s have their moments, but I have to say Robert Pollard's newer band with members of Joseph Airport that released an EP last year and now a full-length is really a breath of fresh air. Pollard never really abandoned lo-fi recording, but there's a really fuzzed-out basement jam quality, songs that take this sudden left turns or loud bombastic drum solos, really enjoyable stuff. Favorite song: "Shit-heel Man." Favorite song title: "This Is My Thriller." 

6. Justin Bieber - Swag
I've always found Justin Bieber to be pretty hit-and-miss for a ubiquitous pop star, and it felt almost more like damage control than an album rollout when he very quickly announced and released an album in the midst of a lot of chatter about his public behavior and his marriage. But then I heard "Daisies" on the radio and it was so clearly the best thing he's done since what I consider to be his one unqualified classic, 2015's "Sorry." And then I found out that Dijon (who started out with the Baltimore duo Abhi//Dijon) did some writing and producing on that and several other great tracks on Swag, including "Devotion" and "Yukon," and the whole thing has this really appealing mix of '80s gloss and muddy indie pop textures. The "Soulful" interlude, which features popular internet comedy personality Druski telling Bieber that he "you sound Black" and "your soul is Black," is one of the most pathetic things a major recording artist has ever put on an album, it's frustrating that he still does thirsty shit like that, and ending the album with a clip of Marvin Winans singing a gospel song, instead of just having confidence in the album he made. 

7. Splitsville - Mobtown
I didn't realize until a few years ago that there was a Baltimore band in the Power Pop Hall of Fame (which is just a website, but still, a pretty selective canon of about 30 bands). And Splitsville's old records have some great stuff on them, but they hadn't released an album since 2004 until their recent return. Mobtown is basically a love letter to Baltimore, full of references to local geography, history, and culture, my favorites so far are "On Federal Hill" and "Fallsway."

8. Lafayette Gilchrist & The New Volcanoes - Move With Love
I recently interviewed Baltimore jazz pianist Lafayette Gilchrist about his new album, watch this space for that piece when it's published. The New Volcanoes was a quartet when Gilchrist started it the band in the '90s, but on this album there are 8 and sometimes 10 musicians and he really uses the whole ensemble really well. Guitarist Carl Filipiak has been a staple of the New Volcanoes in recent years, and he was kind of the first Baltimore jazz musician I was aware of, because my dad used to go see him play in a bar in Fells Point all the time and had some of his CDs. And I really like what Filipiak brings to the New Volcanoes, his solos on Move With Love's title track and "Basta" are great. Gilchrist also recently joined the Sun Ra Arkestra, basically sitting in Sun Ra's spot playing the keyboards, which is totally badass. 

9. Half Japanese - Adventure
Jad and David Fair formed Half Japanese in Carroll County, Maryland about a half century ago, and the band hasn't been based there in a while. The annual Shakemore Festival has been held on a Carroll County farm for almost 20 years now, it used to be kind of a 'Half Japanese and friends' affair but it's kind of grown into its own little community full of a lot of Baltimore indie weirdos I know and love. I went to Shakemore a few weeks ago and Half Japanese was not part of the bill, I believe Jad Fair, who moved from Texas to Michigan this year, was not even there. But it still very much felt like Half Japanese's spirit looms large over the festival, and the band had actually released a pretty excellent album a week beforehand. I didn't really understand the Jad Fair thing at all the first time I heard him on the Mosquito album in the '90s, but he's grown on me, and I like the backing band he has now, some pretty cool arrangements on "That's Fate" and "Lemonade Sunset." 

10. Ben Folds - Ben Folds Live With the National Symphony Orchestra
For the last decade or so, I've been working a lot of events at the Kennedy Center, and it's really been one of my favorite places to work in D.C., I've seen so many cool shows and met some amazing performers, and worked with some really wonderful people on the stage crews. So while there are much bigger, scarier things happening with the Trump administration right, what's happening at the Kennedy Center really stings for me in an acute, personal way. For most of that decade, Ben Folds was appointed an artistic advisor to the Nasional Symphony Orchestra, until his recent resignation, and he was part of many events I worked. I scroll teleprompter, mostly lyrics for special shows or tributes where people are singing songs they don't usually sing, and Folds was usually performing one or two of his own songs (a lot of "Not The Same," a lot of "The Luckiest"), so I never really had any reason to interact with him directly, although when he'd walk by me backstage I'd sometimes consider gushing about how some of the best concerts I've ever seen were Ben Folds Five from 1996 to 1999. I wasn't there the night Folds recorded this album, but I almost feel like I was because I saw him do some of these songs with the NSO on multiple occasions, and it feels like a nice little keepsake of better times at the Kennedy Center. 

The Worst Album of the Month: Gelo - League of My Own
Gelo's "Tweaker" was a fun little unexpected viral hit when it came out back in January, and I don't begrudge the guy for capitalizing on it by signing to Def Jam. But hearing about the millions the label spent to sign Gelo is just kind of funny considering that nothing he's released since then has made remotely the same impact, and his album didn't even break into the Billboard 200. The most annoying thing about the album is how he leans into the 'Y2K Louisiana rap tribute act' vibe with diminishing returns, "Watcha Gon Do" is basically a fake Mystikal song and he does not have the talent to pull that off.  

12:03 AM

Friday, August 15, 2025

 





I had a lovely conversation with Elbow frontman Guy Garvey for a Spin profile of the band this week. I also wrote about a John Mellencamp/Rickie Lee Jones collaboration for the Deep Cut Friday column. 

7:45 PM

TV Diary

Thursday, August 14, 2025

 






a) "Demascus"
AMC developed and produced "Demascus" with one of the producers from "Breaking Bad" and then decided to cancel it two and a half years ago before it even aired to make it a tax writeoff. Tubi recently picked up the six episodes that were made, and it's a pretty creative and offbeat sci-fi comedy created by playwright Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm. I'm glad it finally got out there, even if it doesn't feel like it would've reached a huge audience even if it had come out as originally intended. The title character, played by Okieriete Onaodowan, is in a form of immersion therapy where he gets to briefly live in alternate timelines, it's kind of all over the place in terms of tone but in an interesting, deliberate way. Martin Lawrence, the only really big name involved, has a pretty funny recurring role in some episodes but I don't really mind that the episodes without him tend to be a little more emotional or cerebral. Also nice to see Tyrel Jackson Williams from "Brockmire" in this. The episode titles are all playfully meta and the last episode is called "Second Season Prequel," but who knows if they'll get to do more. 

b) "Butterfly"
This Amazon Prime thriller series gets off to a great start with the first episode, where a young spy (Reina Hardesty) is chasing down a mysterious figure who turns out to be her father, a spy who faked his own death 9 years earlier when she was a teenager. I'd seen Hardesty in a couple things before (including "Brockmire"!) but this is the first time I'm seeing her in a lead role and suddenly going wow, she's got a real star quality , equally great in the action scenes and the more dramatic moments, and extremely beautiful. 

c) "Alien: Earth"
I've been kind of a vocal Noah Hawley skeptic over the years, but if he's going to play around in an existing fictional universe, I feel like Alien is a good choice. My wife recently proposed that we go through all the Alien movies in the order of the story chronology, but so far we've only gotten through Prometheus and Alien: Covenant because those are a couple of deeply flawed and frustrating movies that can really sap your interest in the entire franchise. So Hawley almost can't make a prequel worse than Ridley Scott himself already did, so fuck it, man, go nuts. The first two episodes are moderately promising, although I thought it was kind of rude to me personally that they killed off Richa Moorjani after a few scenes. I liked that the episodes ended with Dio-era Ozzy and Tool, respectively. Metal in action/sci-fi can be kind of corny when there's a lot of it, but it can hit pretty hard when used judiciously. 

Jason Momoa's passion project about 18th century Hawaii is alright. I saw some sad idiot ranting and raving that they made the show less accessible by having most of the dialogue in Hawaiian, but I really like hearing their language, it makes the whole thing feel more immersed in its own world, and it feels kinda necessary for the contrast when British people do show up and speak in English. 

e) "Twisted Metal"
It's funny to watch a TV show based on a video game that's a transparent Mad Max knockoff, it's a smart move that they lean into the comedy so it doesn't feel like just an imitation. I think the show's better when Anthony Mackie has Stephanie Beatriz as a scene partner so hopefully there's more of them together on the way after they've been separated for a bit. 

f) "Platonic" 
Seth Rogen currently stars in two Apple TV+ series. The first season of "The Studio" recently received 23 Emmy nominations, while "Platonic," which just returned for a second seasons, has received zero nominations for any awards whatsoever. But I think these shows are in the same ballpark of enjoyability, even if "Platonic" is a bit less ambitious or distinctive. It feels almost regressive to premise an entire show on it being weird or inherently troublesome for a straight man and woman in relationships to have a close platonic friendship, and Rogen/Stoller productions have a history of plots where  
I really like Rachel Rosenbloom in this show, it's a shame they have her in this very one-note role and made it very obvious that she's not going to last very long as Rogen's character's fiancee. 

g) "Wednesday"
I like "The Addams Family" and Jenna Ortega and Tim Burton (or at least Burton back in the day), and putting those things all together in a series looks great on paper and I understand why it's a big hit, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Giving Wednesday psychic powers and putting her in a school with other ghouls and monsters is so corny. At least a little fun seeing Steve Buscemi in these episodes though. 

h) "Eyes of Wakanda"
The animated MCU shows all feel like ephemeral little optional side quests, but this one was decent.  

i) "Wylde Pak"
A recent Nickelodeon cartoon that my youngest has gotten into, similar to some other contemporary cartoon sitcoms (with the divisive "bean mouth" visual style) but pretty cute and charming. 

j) "King of the Hill"
This may be a somewhat controversial statement, but I've never really loved "King of the Hill." Like I'm generally pro-Mike Judge, and Office Space and "Beavis and Butt-Head" make me laugh (the latter more when I was 12 than now, but still), but "King of the Hill" is the show that I always kind of quietly sat and tolerated while other people watched it or I was waiting for "The Simpsons" or something to start. There are a few characters that I often found pretty funny, but many of them or absent or changed in the new Hulu revival of the show. Brittany Murphy is gone, so Luanne isn't around. Johnny Hardwick is gone, so Dale is now voiced by Toby Huss, who does a decent job but there's kind of an 'uncanny valley' quality to the slightly detectable difference in voices. Huss also no longer plays Khan, who's now voiced by an actual Asian actor, Ronny Chieng, which is a bit more understandable. And Bobby is now 21 years old, but basically looks the same with stubble and Pamela Adlon's same weird little child voice, which just feels bizarre. There's even a Chuck Mangione gag in the episode that feels a little bittersweet since he also just died. And on top of that, a lot of the humor in these episodes is derived from putting terms like 'nepo baby' or 'canceled' or 'female-presenting' in Hank or Peggy's mouth, it all just has a dreadful vibe to me. 

k) "The Summer Hikaru Died"
This Netflix anime series is a very intriguingly creepy story about someone realizing that their best friend has been replaced with some kind of bizarre inhuman imposter. 

l) "Glass Heart"
This Japanese series on Netflix is about a young woman who's kicked out of her band in the middle of a music festival, so she sets up her drums backstage and starts jamming, and a mysterious pianist starts playing along with her, and then she gets invited to join his band. It feels like a weird fable with a tenuous relationship to how the music industry works anywhere, including Japan, but some of the music is pretty cool and I like the whole sweeping emotion of the thing, the direction is very stylish and the actors are compelling. 

This Netflix show is about a disgraced Korean rugby player making a comeback, and I didn't even know they had rugby over there, charming little show. 

Those letters students are asked to write to themselves or people in the future? This Turkish show on Netflix is about a teacher's daughter finding those letters 20 years later and uncovering a dark secret in them, which feels like just too contrived and goofy a premise for me to really get into the story. 

Another sort of 'a dark secret unravels everything' sort of story, this one a very slow moving Japanese show about a lawyer and an art teacher's marriage, couldn't get into it. 

I enjoy a good love story centered around cooking, and this Korean romcom about a chef and a food executive is charming. 

This show has such a cool concept, guests make kind of an open-ended order at this restaurant and the chef sort of interprets it to create a custom dish on the spot while they have a conversation. 

I'm forever complaining about the trend of actors hosting reality shows, and this is another one, although I don't care as much if Simu Liu is taking time away from doing movies. And this is another derivative show where a bunch of annoying people from other reality shows try to outsmart each other in a generic mansion. 

The whole 'theme' of this show is that 10 Japanese singles are secluded together without any access to phones or internet devices, which seems kind of a dumb 'hook' because I think there are already a good number of dating shows like "Love Island" where the participants are offline while they're taping. 

I interviewed some New Orleans musicians the other day who had been displaced by Katrina, it's still such a shameful chapter in American history and it feels like we're doomed to repeat it in some fashion with the current administration's FEMA cuts. This recent Nat Geo docuseries, directed by Traci A. Curry ane exec produced by Ryan Coogler, 

It feels like very week there's a new true crime doc about some infamous murder I'd never heard of, which really just goes to show how much violence is constantly happening in this country. Apparently four teen girls were killed in a yogurt shop in Austin in 1991 and it's never been solved, pretty grisly stuff. 

Another doc about a mystery I hadn't heard of, a woman who disappeared on a cruise ship in 1998 and her family still doesn't know if she fell overboard or was sex trafficked. 

I do think I might have heard about this when it was in the news, a dentist murdered his wife on safari in Zambia and tried to make it look like an accident. Man, people are stupid and evil. 

These things are so often American stories that it's kind of novel to hear about a pair of British serial killers, again a pretty crazy story I can't believe I'd never heard about. 

This show has a good concept, each episode looks at one murder or missing person story that drew a ton of media interest, like Laci Peterson or Chandra Levy, and examines a similar story that got less attention for whatever reason, so it's delving into these stories with a side of media criticism. 

This is an inconsequential little reality show where a few minor celebrities vacation together in Vietnam. I barely know who any of them are besides Tammy Rivera, Waka Flocka Flame's ex-wife from Baltimore who used to be on "Love & Hip Hop" with him, I like her. 

2:45 PM

Friday, August 08, 2025


 










For Spin's Deep Cut Friday column, I wrote about a Lalo Schifrin track famously sampled by Portishead. I also ranked and wrote about every Public Enemy album this week. 

2:45 PM

My Top 50 Movies of 2020

Thursday, August 07, 2025

 





1. Shiva Baby (Emma Seligman)
2. The Invisible Man (Leigh Wannell)
3. Da 5 Bloods (Spike Lee)
4. Pieces of a Woman (Kornel Mundruczo)
5. Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman)
6. Tenet (Christopher Nolan)
7. The Hunt (Craig Zobel)
8. Palm Springs (Max Barbakow)
9. I’m Your Woman (Julia Hart)
10. Nomadland (Chloe Zhao)
11. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (George C. Wolfe)
12. The Empty Man (David Prior)
13. Mank (David Fincher)
14. Another Round (Thomas Vinterberg)
15. The Night House (David Bruckner)
16. Anything For Jackson (Justin G. Dyck)
17. Spontaneous (Brian Duffield)
18. Horse Girl (Jeff Baena)
19. She Dies Tomorrow (Amy Seimetz)
20. The Wolf of Snow Hollow (Jim Cummings)
21. Soul (Pete Docter and Kemp Powers)
22. His House (Remi Weekes)
23. I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman)
24. I Care A Lot (J Blakeson)
25. A Quiet Place Part II (John Krasinski)
26. Love and Monsters (Michael Matthews)
27. Emma (Autumn de Wilde)
28. Let Them All Talk (Steven Soderbergh)
29. Freaky (Christopher Landon)
30. Hamilton (Thomas Kail)
31. Come Play (Jacob Chase)
32. The High Note (Nisha Ganatra)
33. Books of Blood (Brannon Braga)
34. The Old Guard (Gina Prince-Bythewood)
35. Bill & Ted Face the Music (Dean Parisot)
36. Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (David Dobkin)
37. Birds of Prey (Cathy Yan)
38. The King of Staten Island (Judd Apatow)
39. Onward (Dan Scanlon)
40. I Used To Go Here (Kris Rey)
41. The Way Back (Gavin O’Connor)
42. Charm City Kings (Angel Manuel Soto)
43. The Witches (Robert Zemeckis)
44. American Utopia (Spike Lee)
45. The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend A Broken Heart (Frank Marshall)
46. Work It (Laura Terruso)
47. Pixie (Barnaby Thompson)
48. Happiest Season (Clea DuVall)
49. Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan (Julien Temple)
50. The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Aaron Sorkin)

Looking at the lists I've made so far in this series and the ones I've started drafting, I think I probably saw fewer features released in 2020 than any other year in at least the last decade or so, even after catching up on a few recently that I hadn't seen. So this list was harder to make, for that reason, and also because 2020 was of course the year that COVID-19 hit and disrupted and delayed the production and/or release of a ton of movies. My family recently had a dinner conversation about our favorite Pixar movies (highly recommended conversation starter for just about any group of people!) and my 15-year-old son had Soul in his top 5, which surprised me, but I respect that, it's a good one that I forget about sometimes. 

Previously: 
My Top 50 Movies of 2021
My Top 50 Movies of 2022
My Top 50 Movies of 2023
My Top 50 Movies of 2024

2:44 PM