I just watched the pilot for The Wonder Years on Netflix, and I thought it was fantastic, so I felt inspired to write a response to it here. This may be the only episode I write about, or I may do the entire series. You’ve been warned. What I loved most about this pilot was…
“I know what I’m needing And I don’t want to waste more time I’m in a New York state of mind” -Billy Joel, New York State of Mind Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5) There’s a beautiful scene near the end of the 2009 movie Adventureland in which Jesse Eisenberg takes a bus-ride to New York City,…
Rating: ★★★ (out of five) Piano Man is such a satisfying album in part because it’s so obviously a full-hearted, emotionally-draining effort. That makes it less surprising — though no less disappointing — that Streetlife Serenade sounds exhausted and depleted. Streetlife Serenade crystallizes the faint western hints on Piano Man and ends up with a…
Rating: ★★★★½ (out of 5) The first minute and a half of Billy Joel’s sophomore album is tremendously revealing, and also a little bit deceiving. The most obvious development in that opening minute and a half is Joel’s tremendously colorful sound provided by a diverse instrumentation. Where Cold Spring Harbor relied almost entirely on piano…
Rating: *** (out of five) Billy Joel’s solo debut, which he released at the age of 22 after taking part in a few failed bands, is something of a mixed bag. Compositionally, this is a 4-star album, showcasing a young songwriter coming into his own emotionally and poetically. Performance-wise, this is a 2-star album, with…
Billy Joel is my favorite musical artist of all time. I’ve enjoyed his music literally longer than I can remember, and I still do. There’s a Billy Joel CD in my car’s CD player. That’s not to say he’s always been my “current favorite” — I’ve fallen in love with plenty of other bands and…
Due to my summer-heavy work cycle drastically opening up, I’ll have a lot more free time during September than I have in many months. One way I plan to take advantage of this (along with quite a bit of doing nothing, reading, and catching up on TV shows) is to write a bit more for…
Rating: 3 stars (out of 4) If you were to watch this based on the show’s premise as advertised by MTV — “a high school nerd accidentally reveals he has a long penis, and his social life turns around!” — you’d be disappointed. That one trait of the central character (despite being referenced in the…
Suck It and See: 4 stars (out of 5) One of these days, Alex Turner and the Arctic Monkeys will release a bad album. At least, that’s what history and convention would tell us. One might have predicted that the mediocrity would have come with Favourite Worst Nightmare, the follow-up to their debut monster Whatever…
I know we don’t write much about sports here at Earn This, but I’m going to file it under the “pop culture” part of our description. Let’s rewind a decade. A dominant Shaq-Kobe Lakers team stifled MVP Allen Iverson in the Finals to go 15-1 in the playoffs. Chris Webber and Gary Payton were still…