This is Dan’s half of the Pinkerton point-counterpoint review. Read Grant’s half here. I have this funny image in my head of Rivers Cuomo, the bespectacled frontman and songwriter of Weezer, performing the music of his first album in neatly trimmed suit with a smile. Then, just as the fans start yawning “novelty” and move…
Everybody wish Colton a most wonderful birthday. Your present can be reading some of his wonderful posts. “My body feels young, but my mind is very old” – Noel Gallagher
Twenty-five percent of the songs on Three Days Grace’s debut album ended up Top-5 singles. Twenty-five percent of the songs on Three Days Grace’s sophomore album ended up Top-5 singles. Do we understand each other? There is no room to question the credentials of Three Days Grace. As Canada’s premier alternative-metal missionaries, they bring the…
Silent Alarm (2005) – 3 1/2 stars A Weekend in the City (2007) – 4 1/2 stars Intimacy (2008) – 4 stars Bloc Party exploded right out of the gate in 2005 as one of the most acclaimed bands in this decade’s post-punk revival phase. Their debut album, Silent Alarm, managed the tricky feat…
For this post, I wanted to try something new for the site: Discussing some TV. I know our tagline is (edit: was) movies and music, but TV is really an offshoot of film, and, in many ways, I think the serialized, episodic medium begets more interesting discussion. Here, I discuss the first season of Veronica…
How many diehard synthpop fans do you think live in Canada? Maybe enough to crowd one Toronto club, plus a few enlightened Inuits and a caribou. Yet this half-frozen nation has given birth to perhaps the genre’s greatest Myspace-to-riches story in Valerie Poxleitner, known to her friends and fans as Lights. At least, riches seem…
I have no right to review Slippery When Wet. I can’t break down Born to Run. To me, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Pet Sounds are beyond approach. I lack the bona fides to critique such eternal landmarks, not least of all because I wasn’t there to experience them. Awareness of the musical…
Rating: 2 stars (out of 4) I didn’t like the sixth Harry Potter movie. I really expected to; I’m an apologist for the series, and David Yates’ effort before this was my favorite yet. Unfortunately, Half Blood Prince let me down. I’m here to tell you why it got way too much positive press from…
Rating: 2 stars (out of 4) It’s easy to write Yes Man off as “Liar Liar 2″ as so many critics have. But Yes Man, a zany Jim Carrey movie about a man who can’t say no, has a more true and powerful center. Moreso than other high-concept Carrey comedies — Liar Liar, Me Myself…
So – alright, stop me if you’ve heard this one – a German, an Israeli, a Chilean, an American, and a Japanese guy walk into the Royal Conservatory of the Hague in Holland. They all pull out experimental, one-of-a-kind electronic instruments and start jamming. Then after four years of touring and recording they come to…