10. Jessi J, Ariana Grande, Nicki Minaj – “Bang Bang” I would call this my “guilty pleasure” selection, but, as Colton and I have repeatedly noted, there should be no guilt in the pleasure of a finely-crafted pop number. The Max Martin-produced “Bang Bang” is probably my favorite pop radio staple this decade, with a sizzling beat,…
Billboard.com currently has a poll running for readers to vote on who they want to play at the next Super Bowl. They’ve selected fifteen potential artists, most of whom would be semi-reasonable selections. I’ve decided to rank them in terms of which ones I think would be the most sensible choices, with the second factor being which ones would put…
Okay. Here’s the lowdown, ladies and gents. I know you haven’t heard from me in a while. My TV countdown is currently ongoing over at my Brian Terrill Movie Night page, but even there posts have been sporadic. The pace should pick up a bit come June. But I didn’t want the good readers of EarnThis to…
In the fourth entry of our ongoing Mixtape series — in which one or more writers picks about twenty songs from under a single umbrella — we’re digging deep into some of our favorite non-singles from well-known artists. As always, we’ve included a Spotify playlist to listen to as you read. Someday’s Gone – All-American…
So, what is it that makes Taylor Swift appealing? What is it about her music that drew me in enough to make her the most embarrassing entry on my top 100 (or maybe runner up)? Before I try to answer those questions, let’s take a quick walk through her career to date. Swift burst on…
My friends and I did a “fantasy rock band” draft about a year ago. We set up a “roster” of frontman, guitarist, bassist, keyboardist, drummer, songwriter, and “wildcard” for a mythical band. Then, like a fantasy football draft, we took turns choosing musicians to fill up that roster. The rule was you get that musician…
When I was in sixth grade, my parents decided the female teen idols that were sweeping the charts — specifically Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears — were too sultry and suggestive for my young ears. This censorship would have made most pre-teen boys become obsessed with them, but I was a good, obedient kid. I…
Welcome to the teens! The aughties have reached their end and all of us who smugly ignored 2000 and celebrated the new millennium as 2001 rolled in are psyched about the new decade. Why? Because a new decade means that it’s prime time for retrospectives on the last decade! So, just in time for the…
Goodness knows there are more active musical artists today than there were thirty years ago – or five years ago, or yesterday. Just like the global population, the “band population” has a birth rate that exceeds its mortality rate. (Don’t ask for an analogue for shifting line-ups or new group formation – it gets gruesome.)…
As far as I’m concerned, there’s no greater loss to music than the suicide of Ian Curtis at the age of 23. There’s no one I’d rather bring back for a couple decades of recording than him. That’s because the heights reached by him and his band, Joy Division, in their brief existence, are both…