The first Kanye song I heard was back in 2005, several months after the release of The College Dropout. “Through the Wire” on a compilation of Grammy nominees. Shortly afterwards, I read an article about Kanye’s mercurial personality. I became intrigued and checked out the rest of the album. I enjoyed it, but not enough to…
Read Part 1 of this Retrospective To start 2009, Kanye was basking in the sales and critical acclaim of his strange fourth album, 808s and Heartbreak. After a fateful 2008, it seemed Kanye’s world was starting to settle down again. But more upheaval and controversy were just around the corner. He spent the middle part of…
Damn, ‘Ye, it’d be stupid to dis you Even your superficial raps is super-official -Kanye, “Gone” Kanye West is the most controversial, paradoxical musician of the past quarter century. He’s brilliant and a moron, refined and vulgar, self-conscious and gregarious, beloved and hated. He’s the best and the worst, and that’s a big part of…
The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a deeply flawed novel. The central high school romance, between a gawky freshman guy and a popular senior girl, is implausible wish-fulfillment. Its conflicts are often short and choppy, and the plot is driven by a laundry list of hot-button adolescence issues: suicide, abuse, drugs, closeted homosexuality, etc.…
Kids, I’ve long wanted to write a retrospective of How I Met Your Mother for this site. Then Grant wrote one and, of course, it’s fantastic and way better than what I would have written. But I’ll take a crack at it, even though I no longer feel pressure to hit all the major points:…
My brain is kind of fried and scattered right now, so this is not going to be the most cohesive of posts. In fact, I’m not even going to try. This entire post is going to be a series of mini-articles and lists. Enjoy! Six Reasons Batman is Intrinsically Awesome and Badass 1. He’s a…
I sat down to my computer last week, ready to write the next entry in my Top 100. “Oasis? I can probably sum up my feelings in — what, 1200 words? 1500?” But, remember: I always a) underestimate things, and b) overdo things. So here I am sitting with almost 4000 words about one of my favorite…
READ PART 1 OF THIS ARTICLE: Oasis Retrospective 1991-1995 During 1996, Oasis continued to blow up, selling out a quarter million-attendance concert and climbing the charts with each single. But the band was on the verge of combustion: Liam routinely skipped concerts for the hell of it, leaving Noel with vocal duties. Noel (not for the first…
Here’s a fun game: Name the greatest one-year “peak powers” for any band or artist — considering quantity of production, quality of production, and overall transcendence. At the top of the list is probably whichever mid-‘60s Beatle year you prefer (1965, thanks – or 1966 if I can take the singles recorded in ’65 but…
Shortly after we got married, Katy and I were reading a whole lot and started a “book blog” called Readers by Night. It’s been inactive for about a year now, but we’ll bring it back some day. Promise. Anyways, one of my dreams has always been to own and read all of the Newbery Winners,…