Smashing Pumpkins, around the pivotal turn of the millennium, did what any logical band would do: played a farewell show, and then proceeded to keep cranking out albums for the next 15 years and beyond. And really, thoughts of the world without the Pumps never really made sense, even to me, a 16 year old … Read more“Dolby’s Top 10 Smashing Pumpkins Songs of All Time”
For the composition of this post I’ve enlisted my older cousin who teaches art in Indianapolis. The post was inspired by my listening to the Meat Puppets’ “Plateau” and staring in awe at their album cover for Meat Puppets II, just thinking how perfectly it went with the music. This is sort of a problem … Read more“Dolby’s Top 10 Album Covers of All Time (Ask an Art Teacher)”
I’ve got the CD of Lou Reed’s 1987 album New York right here. The liner notes read: “This album was recorded and mixed at Media Sound, Studio B., N.Y.C. in essentially the order you have here. It was meant to be listened to in one 58 minute sitting as though it were a book or … Read more“Dolby’s 10 (No Particular Order) Songs That Sound Better in the Context of the Full Album”
Firstly, and this is a phenomenon I’ve noticed with various artists such as Rivers Cuomo (the unabashedly Green Day-adoring) and Ted Leo, but it’s not unheard of for a discography to actually become less mature, or starkly FINAL, as it goes on. Consider, for instance, Weezer (1994) and The Tyranny of Distance. Listen to the … Read more“Compositing a Green Day Mix and Examining Motifs of Time as Being Pliable or Erroneous”
I’m not sure, but I think, that we’re entering a time of year now when a forest of genius typically matriculates up onto canvas — from the dregs and doldrums of still, stultified and scene-less winters. Realities have to exist in a person’s own mind in these environs, and so the imagination necessarily, and defensively, … Read more“Dolby’s Top 10 Songs about Paintings or Painting”
We’re sort of in a paradoxical time now in music, because on one hand, while there are more people in the world than ever, it makes evermore sense for the main message of music to feature and revolve around spoken diction. At the same time, our increasing reliance on technology obviates the appropriateness of electronic … Read more“Lyrics as Poetry”
Moving west is pretty common in America. It’s just kind of what you do. But if you move out west and hate it, or if your parents moved you to the overcrowded yuppie city of San Francisco and you hate it, then you rock out. Punk rock is the opposite of America. [1] It does … Read more“Punk Mix”
Ok, here’s a snapshot of me in the ’00’s, 2005: my friend is making fun of me because I’m sitting in my room smoking weed and listening to Muddy Waters’ His Best: 1947-1953. Most of the songs are just Waters with his guitar, playing perfect blues licks, and VERY scant percussion: I’m talking like rain … Read more“Dolby’s Top 10 Mainstream Radio Hits from the ’00’s”
It’s a shaaaame that this is necessary, but ambition has eclipsed evaluation in certain arenas here, and it’s time to take a stand. .. 10 Robert Frodeman/Adam Briggle – “When Philosophy Lost its Way” (New York Times) . “Before (philosophy’s) migration to the university,” argue Frodeman and Briggle, “Philosophers could be found anywhere — serving … Read more“Dolby’s Not-Top-10 of 2015.”
10 Wu-Tang Clan – Forever . Polymorphousness, polymorphousness, polymorphousness. Hell, your double LP BETTER have it. “It’s Yourz” follows heroically the world-concerned, mucky “A Better Tomorrow,” and synopsizes things into a nice anthemic chorus of success: “It’s yourz the world in the palm of your hand / It’s yourz 23 million on useful land / … Read more“Dolby’s 10 Most Underrated Albums of All Time”