This week, I’ll be writing about some a cappella songs I like. I’m sorry this week doesn’t have a catchy tagline like “Get Pitch Slapped.” A few years ago Brian ranked his favorites commercial jingles for this site, and it’s one of my favorite articles in the history of the site. I can’t quite put my finger…
This week, I’ll be writing about some a cappella songs I like. I’m sorry this week doesn’t have a catchy tagline like “Get Pitch Slapped.” One of the biggest hits of 2013, “We Can’t Stop” is an anthem for partying and rebellion and self-medication. It’s a compelling track, but I find the studio version’s production…
This week, I’ll be writing about some a cappella songs I like. I’m sorry this week doesn’t have a catchy tagline like “Get Pitch Slapped.” Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been a sucker for boy bands. (This shouldn’t be a surprise; I grew up in the early Max Martin era, have an ear…
While many aspects of 80’s pop have always flown a little bit over my head, such as the over-reliance on drum machines and stodgy arrangements that favor filler noise over tasteful craft, one fad that I am bummed to have missed is power ballads. In fact I am 100% in favor of power ballads making a comeback. Bonnie…
There’s always a fuzzy line between tasteless and hilarious (just ask It’s Always Sunny, the essence of that line). Somewhere in the ten years or so since I first heard “Scotty Doesn’t Know,” it’s flipped from one side of that line to the other. Maybe it’s just because I’m married, but the premise of someone bragging to a boyfriend that…
When a musical artist dies in their prime, it becomes easy to exaggerate their strengths and rationalize their flaws in sentimental retrospection. But Amy Winehouse was the real deal: A truly great songwriter and performer who introduced new ideas to the pop music paradigm. Winehouse, with the help of a few producers like Mark Ronson, crafted…
Thanks to the movie I Walk the Line, Johnny Cash’s story and unexpected rise are well-known. It’s certainly true that there is a grim austerity to his music that you don’t often hear popular country music. And nowhere is that more evident than in “Folsom Prison Blues.” The song’s signature line is “I shot a man in…
When I was a kid, I loved “Great Balls of Fire” for its piano fireworks and its raucous chorus. Twenty years later, I still appreciate those aspects. Indeed, this is a barnstormer. But I also have come to admire how Jerry Lee Lewis was a precursor to the punk movement. Certainly, he doesn’t resemble early punk in…
I know they’re basically the urtext of the genre, but, to my ears, The Ramones don’t sound like a punk band. They’re much closer to what we we’d call garage rock two decades later. While they reject pretense and overbearing complexity as punk bands are supposed to — and they play shit fast, of course — the anger and…
When I was first getting into the habit of reading, one of the books I read was the epochal YA book, The Perks of Being a Wallflower. At least, I thought it was epochal at the time (it placed highly in my Top 100 Everything) — perhaps I’ve rated it so generously just because it was…