“The reason American art is so good and holds one’s attention is that it is built on the underlying psychosis that results from truly fending for oneself,” said a guy I was talking with at a bar in Amsterdam a… Read More
15. Megan Thee Stallion – Good News [1501 Certified/300] When a rising rap personality graduates from the mixtapes to the event studio album, they often exchange their established and uncompromising street flow for easy pop hits, gaining mainstream success while… Read More
15. Dan Deacon – Mystic Familiar [Domino] Mystic Familiar, Dan Deacon’s latest record, fits right in with the composer’s catalog of shimmering, welcoming electropop. The product of meditation and Brian Eno’s creative-inspired card set, the album follows the titular character,… Read More
In 2019 I was targeted by Facebook ads; the algorithm knows I’m a sucker for a Netflix romantic comedy promo. I watched the trailers for two Netflix Christmas movies, The Knight Before Christmas, starring Vanessa Hudgens and Josh Whitehouse, and… Read More
Gracie Abrams Precocious, LA-based singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams came to the fore in 2020 with the shimmering, delicate heartbreak of her debut EP, Minor. It’s a cathartic slice of teen angst that demonstrated a keen ear for melody, a wellspring of… Read More
20. Iggy Pop and the Stooges – You Think You’re Bad Man: The Road Tapes ’73 – ’74 [Cherry Red] In 1969, the Stooges were a truth serum, forcing hippiedom to belch up the reality that flowers and hope had become just… Read More
When Blinker the Star released their third album August Everywhere in 1999, the moment was ripe for project founder and mastermind Jordon Zadorozny to stake out his own niche by embodying both DIY and pop sensibilities in a way that… Read More
It’s not much discussed today, but the 1980s was a lesser golden age for American romantic comedies. There’s a strong case to be made that Norman Jewison’s Moonstruck (1987)—featuring an effortlessly charming star turn from Cher, an early glimpse at… Read More
In his new novel, One Simple Thing, Warren Read follows Anne Lamott’s precept in Bird by Bird, the renowned guide to writing (and life): a writer need only write as much as can be seen through a one-inch picture frame.… Read More
“A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead,” says Maurice Bendrix in Graham Greene’s novel, The End of the Affair (1951). It feels… Read More