125 Black Milk – “Interpret Sabotage” When I think of the whole “jazzy” movement in hip-hop of this decade, and I’m talking about the production especially on Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly, and I’m talking about pretty much the totality of Anderson .Paak’s catalogue, it seems warranted and welcome on the whole but also […]
250 The Black Keys – “Gold on the Ceiling” The Black Keys make me feel old. First there was the relentless spunk of Rubber Factory (and don’t get me started on an album called Thickfreakness) and now this basically CPR album for mainstream rock, El Camino, an LP with a dangerous Midwestern blues-rock grit but […]
When I first saw the semi-famous quote from Frank Zappa, that “Government is the entertainment division of the military-industrial complex,” [1] [2] [3] I have to admit it was a hefty step ahead of me: I still believed in, if nothing else, at least our leaders’ proclivities for acting as good role models for young […]
Score: 9/10 . Boy, when El Paso’s Greg Gonzalez sat down and comprised the concept for his band Cigarettes after Sex, he must have really thought he was the best thing since sliced bread. He must have been like, wow, my sexual escapades really have an endless amount of poetic qualities and idyllic musical vistas […]
Score: 8/10 . I think I speak for everyone when I say every time I listen to a new piece of Jimmy Eat World material there’s part of me that wants to condescendingly call it cute and another part that’s like horrified that Jim Adkins is going to bare his teeth and take us on […]
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The thought occurred to me a couple of years back, being reinforced by the fact that we’ve seen no new styles materialize, that the enterprise of visual art, as in creative art paintings, and its cultural efficacy, or power, deteriorated right before or with the onset of the pop culture icon Madonna. Wikipedia has it […]
Spotify playlist. .
Score: 9.5/10 . This new Wilco record Ode to Joy is an eclectic record. Now, this is an important fact, discursively, and it’s also an ironic fact, because just the same Ode to Joy is a very brooding, personal record, in every way an akin companion piece to Jeff Tweedy’s solo album WARM of last […]
Score: 8/10 . If this new Sturgill Simpson record is any indication, then maybe an autocratic government ain’t a half bad way to run things. That is, I have to admit, while not being adverse to this dude, prior to researching this album I had no idea he even had a “band,” let alone one […]