Nothing about U2’s new album Songs of Innocence makes any sense. Suddenly foisted on everyone this September, the album is the group’s 13th and first since 2009’s largely ignored No Line on the Horizon, which was the first since 2004’s largely terrible How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. Despite working with a smorgasbord of producers for…
I’m a half decade behind on this, but I finally watched the legendary fan-made musical A Very Potter Musical put on by StarKid Productions, a troupe noteworthy for the talent they bring to musicals with parody-based or otherwise intriguing premises. Inspired by the praise from both my wife and fellow Earn This writer Brian (read his Starkid…
“Where the hell are they?” “The appropriate question is, when the hell are they?” -Marty & Doc, Back to the Future If you’ve read many of my articles here on EarnThis, there’s a good chance you already knew that Brian Likes this one. Of the hundred entries in my Film Favorites Countdown, fully 10% include…
In ascending order, here are the top six reasons I consider Dragon Age: Origins one of my two or three favorite video games ever. 6. World After working with Star Wars and D&D worlds for a decade, BioWare entered Dragon Age with a clean slate, eager to create a massive world with a sustainable franchise.…
It has a title that sounds like a pulpy radio serial from the 1930s. Its premise — two cousins team up to create a comic book centered around a superhero called The Escapist — hardly sounds special or deep. And yet, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is probably the finest novel I’ve ever…
I took a summer hiatus from putting together my Top 100 Everything, as my full-time job has a considerable uptick in stress and effort. But now that it’s back-to-school season, I can start planning my autumn free time, which will include a significant number of hours wrapping up my seemingly interminable countdown. Here’s a refresher on…
As I’ve been putting together my Top 100 Everything, I’ve thought about not only where items place in the “Everything” but in its own specific “Thing.” Thus, I decided to make this page, a breakdown of the Top 100 Everything by each medium. I will be updating this list as I count down to #1.…
I have no logical reason for Ned’s ranking so highly. The notion that it’s “better” than many of the shows ranked lower on the list is ridiculous — mainly because the show is ridiculous. And yet I must follow my heart. I must chase that flutter of joy I get when I hear its cheesy…
What is the most pervasive, systematic flaw in mainstream movies and television? What’s the common thread? Everyone bemoans Hollywood’s over-reliance on existing source material. We criticize the general soullessness of many movies, the predictably sophomoric humor of many sitcoms, the disaster porn in action movies. I think the biggest problem is none of those, and it…
As most music fans know, rock music is hardly the most popular kid at the table these days. Yet even while rock as a whole has lost some of its prominence in our culture, one strand has recently flourished : pop-emo, a ’90s/2000s movement that crystallizes the transformation of emo from Rites of Spring’s thrashing…