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…
One of the immutable axioms of music: every song sounds great mashed up with the Space Jam song. I don’t know what it is about the song and its ridiculous beat and rapping by the Quad City DJ’s, most famous otherwise for the song “C’mon and Ride It.” But it’s like lead to an alchemist:…
Rising singer-songwriter Sam Behymer was gracious enough to talk with EarnThis.net, following up on our recent post about her competing on NBC’s The Voice. Since that post, Behymer was knocked out of the televised competition but has garnered many new fans from the experience. And, as you’ll see below, she appears to be revitalized in…
In our last post, Lionel Richie told us to let the music play on. So let’s do just that. Toward the end of my first year at TJ, my class scheduled a talent show to be part of the “Lock-In,” an overnight event for Freshmen held at the school. More or less out of the…
This is part 5 of Will’s countdown of the top 100 ska-punk songs 60. Status – Rx Bandits The Rx Bandits started off as a mediocre ska band before becoming a much better alternative/hard rock band. Status, which is a song on their second album, is their strongest ska song, boasting a fantastic drum part,…
Chances are good you’ve at least SEEN these dudes before. Even if you haven’t, you’ve almost certainly witnessed some of their handiwork. Rhett McLauglin and Charles “Link” Neal were two of the first “YouTubers” to rise to prominence and successfully make careers out of what they call “Internetainment.” Best known as a musically-inclined comedy duo,…
This is an Earn This Mixtape For the sixth entry in the Earn This Mixtape Series, Grant and I came up with twenty songs that give us serious cognitive dissonance. The first half of this mixtape is a list of songs where the chorus overpowers the rest of the song. The second half…
Tonight, at 8/7c, I will be watching The Voice. NBC probably expects to net a fair number of 25-to-35-year-old males every week with their elaborate talent show, even if their ideal viewer is younger with longer hair. But how can any self-respecting independent music blogger be caught tuning into such a commercialized, pop-centric circus of…
I got into Taking Back Sunday and Brand New completely at the wrong time. When I was in high school, I listened to music for 20somethings. Now that I’m in my mid-20s, I spend an inordinate amount of time listening to stuff written for, consumed by, and most heavily applicable to high schoolers. And few groups…
Alone in the car, we can sing as loud as we want. Highway//Catharsis is a series in which I share the albums that get me all worked up when I’m behind the wheel. To earn a post, the CD must bring me to tears while I’m screaming along. That means every drive is an audition.…