Earn This

As we approach the 18-month mark for our web-site, we’ve decided to revisit a few of the best articles from our annals. Each of the three main writers for this site have chosen a few of their own favorite articles. There’s also a list of the most popular articles in the history of the site.

Thanks to our readers, our guest writers, and everyone else who has somehow played a role in this site. Here’s to many more successful year-and-a-halves. Without further ado, our favorite articles:

The Best of Earn This: Dan’s picks

The Best of Earn This: Grant’s picks

The Best of Earn This: Colton’s picks

The Best of Earn This: Readers’ picks

For the past few months, I’ve been meaning to do a sweeping revision of everything I’ve written for Earn This. I finally waded through the archives, polishing and trimming and clarifying to make my writing stronger. I’m notoriously bad at picking up every grammar or wording error before I publish an article, but my archive of articles should be pretty clean now.

The revision process also allowed me to figure out what has worked for me as a writer and what hasn’t. I was pleased to find that I did not hate my writing quite as often as I expected to. Here are ten of the articles I most enjoyed writing and re-reading, sorted loosely by how highly I regard them:

• Relient K: Reach out to me, make my heart brand new

Most of my favorite articles have been about topics I’m particularly passionate about, so I’ll start with my retrospective on my favorite band of the 2000′s. I had a lot of fun digging deep in to Relient K’s seven albums. The result is, as far as I’ve been able to find, the most extensive critical analysis of Relient K’s artistic growth ever written. Clocking in at nearly 5,500 words, it’s among longest and most detailed pieces I’ve written for Earn This.

• Pixar Retrospective: Ten films into redefining animation

I’m an unabashed Pixar fanboy — as everyone should be — so it was a real pleasure to revisit and break down exactly what’s so magical about these films. My biggest regret with this article is that I didn’t space it out into multiple articles like I would with the Relient K retrospective; 4,000 words is easier to process in ten chunks than one.

• Disney’s Golden Age – part 1, part 2

While I’m on the note of animation, I should probably point out that I attempted to spend an entire month writing every day about animation. Though I aborted the endeavor  – and the notion of a themed month — about halfway through the month, it was still a learning experience. I spent dozens of hours reading books and watching movies to write this retrospective on Disney’s Golden Age. It was a lot of effort but a lot of fun, and I’m pleased with the output.

• The Moonlighting Fallacy; or, Why I Hate Gutless TV Plotting

I’m a huge fan of TV comedies that take their characters and plots seriously. The best TV shows are funny and substantial. That’s why I get bummed when sitcoms that verge on brilliant slip backwards into inanity. During a spring when a couple of my favorite shows made some serious plotting missteps, I wrote a post recounting a few of my least favorite examples of “The Moonlighting Fallacy.”

• Seven thoughts on the past ten years

Towards the end of 2009, I sat down and started riffing on some of my favorite albums and artists of the past decade. The result is goofy but still one of my favorite articles I’ve written for the site.

• How to Train Your Dragon (2010) – Flying away with my heart

While I’ve tended towards features and retrospectives, I’ve written some reviews for Earn This, too. The review that I had the most fun writing was a 3.5 star appraisal of How to Train Your Dragon. I actually saw the film twice and did a lot of research on the making of the film prior to writing this. My goal was to take a more analytic and deep look at the film — which I adore — than any of the other critics did.

• Avatar: The Last Airbender, Book 1 (2005) – The tip of the iceberg

Despite my love of animated features, I’ve never been impressed with animated TV series, with a few exceptions — The Simpsons and Batman: TAS, mostly. This year, I added another entry to that list. Avatar: The Last Airbender is streets ahead of any other kids-oriented animated television show I’ve ever seen. Everything about it — the plot, the characters, the animation, the world, the attention to detail — is phenomenal and worthy of attention from serious TV fans. I never got around to reviewing the second or third seasons of the show (I’d like to some day), but I did get to overview a bit of what makes this show stand out in my review of the first season.

• A Goofy Movie (1995) – Why it deserves to be considered a Disney classic

I’ve been a lifelong admirer of the 1995 Toon Disney film A Goofy Movie. It’s not perfect, but it’s a funny, engaging, heartwarming classic as far as I’m concerned. I loved writing this piece not just because I got to defend that long-held opinion of mine, but because I had the chance to go through the movie and pick out screenshots from a few of the movie’s most representative scenes. It was the first time I tried taking my own screenshots to include with a post, and I enjoyed it so much that I’ve repeated this several times since.

• Community is “streets ahead” of the rest

I’ve had multiple people read this article and tell me “you should write more articles like that.” I asked them to clarify, and they said they meant: concise, well-researched, entertaining stories about currently relevant topics. I find its warm reception strange, because I wrote it in about a half hour between classes.

• Dan’s Top 25 of 2010

A stupid article for many reasons: It compares items from different, apples-to-oranges forms of media. The article is more than 6,000 words long; nobody would ever want read that in one chunk. Plus, the holes in my movie/music/games/etc. knowledge are glaring. And yet, I don’t think any article has been so much damn fun to write.

Jay Mathews writes, logic cries

Shutter Island: Live as a monster or die as a free man?

James Bond: Dying another day, film after film

The Raveonettes: Noisy Summer, in every season

Green Day, Live and Under Review

Joy Division: Don’t walk away in silence…

U2 – War (1983): Welcome to the big leagues

Brothers: Diffidence disguised as melodrama

Cruel Intentions: Actually, they’re too nice

Friday Night Lights: Football, not life

When I was first invited to submit content to Earn This, I saw it as an opportunity to express some of my worldview and to attack personal hotbutton issues in the context of discussions about arts and entertainment, specifically music.  My eagerness led me to kick things off with two didactic soapbox stands in a row.  These truly represented my most ardent beliefs at the time and still do so.

First, I spelt out as best as I could my understanding of what biases are most important for the sake of interpreting critical reviews.  Again, my focus is on music, but I have a hunch that a similar argument could be made in other areas of aesthetics.

Jupiter Sunrise, Band X, and the Wooden Beam in Your Eye (8/27/09)

Next, I attempted to express just how broad the span of “music” is.  By using frequent examples as stepping stones, I hoped to encourage readers to investigate something outside of their ken.  Adventuresome music inspires me personally but often garners little fame since it lies outside the mainstream, which naturally consists of those musical forms thoroughly practiced until they occupy the most favorable and deepest ruts.  And there’s nothing wrong with that.  Still, I would be listening to rock radio for the rest of my life if nobody had ever shown me the extreme variety available elsewhere, so I give importance to the task of exposing others to the same.

The Borders and Frontiers of Music Itself (9/4/09)

Beyond those lectures, my best discussions have all sprung from captured moments of surprise.  I can point you to three particular instances of my mind expanding.  These are the exciting discoveries in life that keep me seeking new adventures in music.

Aurally, my favorite experience was the pre-concert demonstration of instruments and methods invented and modified by NiCad, a squad of curious European virtuosos.

NiCad: In Search of Sound (9/9/09)

Visually, my first Goo Goo Dolls concert takes the cake.  Only after writing the review did I allow myself to read up on the band’s history, members, and discography.  That led to more hilarity for me, because, as knowledgeable readers will recognize, some of my assumptions about the group were… a little misplaced.

The Goo Goo Dolls Experience (4/22/10)

Finally, defying categorization was my reception of the new, old, or forthcoming album May the Box Burn Down Around You.  I would call that day unforgettable except that it’s not even a memory yet: as of today, the whole thing still has not been explained and there have been no enlightening updates via Jupiter Sunrise’s (shockingly active) Twitter feed.

Jupiter Sunrise: Comeback from the Future (2/4/10)

Here’s hoping the future is full of discovery!

Since August 2009, we’ve had more than 35,000 readers. More than half of our 128 posts have been read at least 100 times. Here’s a list of readers’ top twenty favorite articles, ranked by total numbers of readers as of 1/20/2011.

1. Community is “streets ahead” of the rest
2. Placebo: Without You I’m Nothing
3. Despicable Me (2010): It’s so fluffy!
4. The Top 20 Most Influential Animated Features of All Time
5. A Goofy Movie (1995): Why it deserves to be considered a Disney Classic
6. Spock’s Beard – X (2010): Riding High on a Second Wind
7. Joy Division: Don’t walk away in silence…
8. Shutter Island: Live as a monster or die as a free man?
9. The Departed: Gangsters and cohesive plots are both lost
10. Radiohead: Pride cometh before the fall
11. Fugazi: A steady diet of greatness
12. The Arcade Fire: Purify my mind
13. Relient K – Forget and Not Slow Down: More backstory, more catharsis
14. Disney’s Golden Age of Animation: part 1, part 2
15. Avatar: The Last Airbender, Book 1 (2005): The Tip of the Iceberg
16. Cruel Intentions: Actually, they’re too nice
17. Garden State: It’s in it
18. The Kills: I want you to be crazy ’cause you’re boring, baby, when you’re straight
19. Emancipator – Soon It Will Be Cold Enough: Off the beaten path
20. Arctic Monkeys: From the Rubble to the Ritz

We are celebrating at the Earn This office because we just broke 25,000 viewers a few days ago!

A big thank you from the bottom of my heart to Grant and Colton for agreeing to put their wisdom into digital ink for this blog, to the many readers, to the few subscribers, and to Google for the generous placement for search terms like “spock’s beard x review” and “influential animated films.”

Sorry for the inconsistent publishing frequency during our 15-month history. We have some good stuff on the way. Promise.

I love you all.

–Dan

To the loyal readers of Earn This, few and far between though you may be, I have a confession to share: in spite of the few dozen articles and reviews I’ve written for this site, which I am overall quite proud of, I have fallen into something of a rut recently. Bear with me now as I attempt to analyze this breakdown and present my solution.

Of the last fifteen articles I’ve started writing for this site, only one has resulted in a finished product. From these aborted reviews and features, I have assembled some conclusions on why I’ve been struggling with my role on this site in recent weeks:

• I really only like to discuss and analyze what I like. In fact, many of my mixed and negative reviews have been written with the thought “well, I don’t want readers to think I like everything” in mind. I get bored writing about music and movies I don’t like.
• This site has been appealing to me in part because it’s so broad; essentially any entertainment or arts topic that catches my fancy can become a feature or review. But this also has made it difficult for me to focus on specific topics in great depth. Aside from my a few extended projects, all of my writing has been general, overview writing.
• I lack the comprehensive mastery of all of cinema and music to comment on any piece’s place in the grand scheme of each medium. But I do feel I have a mastery of smaller spheres that I feel I can provide genuine insight into.
• Much of my favorite writing is more academic, in that I like to bounce my theories off of others’ that I find through research online and in books. But the style of writing that traditional reviews use does not really benefit from this kind of approach.

And so, I’ve decided to come up with a mechanism that will help me deal with all of these problem: themed months.

The premise is this: Each month (or at least, for this pilot month) I will choose a single, relatively small field of music or movies, and write exclusively about that topic for that entire month.

My hope is that this will cure many of my struggles. Assuming I choose a field that I find appealing, I’ll be writing largely about what I like and understand well. The constraint of writing about a single topic will allow me to pursue it with deep analysis.

The preliminary goal will be to write (not necessarily publish) a thousand words per day on the topic, which is significant but doable, I believe. The hope is that I’ll have something to publish about five days a week.

My topic for July is animated movies. I have already written quite a bit about animation on Earn This – and written more in early drafts for this themed month – but I will try to tread on different topics from those I’ve already written about.

I’ll start with some articles outlining the fascinating history of animation, then some features on some phenomena and trends in the style. Reviews should be sprinkled in there. Lastly, I hope to have some culminating posts to close the month.

I run the risk of alienating some readers by expounding so much on a single topic, but also gain the potential of catching some new eyes by looking at something in such depth, more depth than my previous posts have had. Plus, I expect Colton and Grant to continue pursuing their broad spectrum of topics, so there will be some variety.

Though there’s the distinct possibility that I’ll give up on this within a couple of weeks, I hope to at least stick it out for a month. If you have some input on this experiment and how I can make it more valuable to readers, please let me know.

Our readers have come to expect content produced with an inconsistent frequency. Yet, they deserve an explanation!

The main reason is that the three of us are extremely busy people, and we do this in our spare time, which is extremely limited.

But there is at least one other semi-legitimate reason for infrequent posting: One of our very own writers (me) has been recruited by his student newspaper and has been writing arts and media articles elsewhere!

I know a pulp and ink publication may be a bit old fashioned for you newfangled “blog” readers, but fortunately the newspaper has an online edition with links to each of its articles.

I don’t plan on sharing every link to my writing for The Cavalier Daily, but figured a few readers might be interested to read some of my published articles – most of which have been about television. Here are a few. Tune in to CavalierDaily.com this Thursday (and most Thursdays!) to read my next article, a reflection on cult classic Freaks and Geeks.

• On the declining quality of The Office (S06) and How I Met Your Mother (S05) [link]
• On the brilliance of new show Community [link]
• My picks for the Emmy’s [link]
• On the Oasis breakup [link]
• An overview of the greatness of HIMYM [link]
• On the great but overrated Abbey Road [link]
• An overview of the greatness of The Office, and discussion of S05 [link]

Everybody wish Colton a most wonderful birthday. Your present can be reading some of his wonderful posts.

“My body feels young, but my mind is very old” – Noel Gallagher