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Jun 1, 2023 | 
tinyurl.com | Marc Edelstein |Jeremy Levine |Will Layman |Chris Osmond
Go back and revisit the first season of several fondly remembered television shows – Seinfeld and Star Trek: The Next Generation being good examples – and prepare to be disappointed. Neither the writers nor the cast knew their characters well enough to explore them with any depth, producing overrated debut seasons hamstrung by derivative plots and forced action.
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Jun 1, 2023 | 
tinyurl.com | Christopher Lee |Jeremy Levine |Will Layman |Chris Osmond
Water From Your Eyes’ whip-smart sixth release, Everyone’s Crushed, is their debut on Matador Records. This is an excellent move for both sides. Let me start with Matador. Matador have been a pivotal arbiter of taste in the indie rock landscape since the early 1990s. Established by Chris Lombardi and Gerard Cosloy, both of whom had worked at the pioneering Homestead Records label, Matador signed a host of acts that defined the alternative music scene as grunge receded.
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Jun 1, 2023 | 
tinyurl.com | Jeremy Levine |Will Layman |Chris Osmond |Michael Barrett
I find it funny that Succession and Ted Lasso had their series finales 48 hours apart. The former is a chronicle of the world’s wealthiest, most horrible people, degrading the humanity of everyone around them for profit. In the lead-up to the finale, everyone was asking, “Who do you think is going to win?” as if becoming CEO of the World’s Worst Company could count as winning.
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Jun 1, 2023 | 
tinyurl.com | George de Stefano |Jeremy Levine |Will Layman |Chris Osmond
Willy DeVille had all the goods to be a major rock star: striking looks and a theatrical yet streetwise stage presence; a powerful, soulful voice; songwriting chops; and a genre-transcending versatility that encompassed early ‘60s rock and R&B, the blues, New Orleans R&B, French chanson, country, and Latin pop. As the leader of the band Mink DeVille (1974-1986) and then as a solo artist, he earned the praise of critics and the admiration of many of his peers.
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May 31, 2023 | 
tinyurl.com | Upasana Dandona |Will Layman |Chris Osmond |Michael Barrett
The family drama Pinky Memsaab focuses on the story of a young Pakistani woman, Pinky, who leaves her village in Pakistan and migrates to Dubai, where she can work for a wealthy and influential family. In spite of focusing on the empowerment of its protagonist, the film reduces her identity to a mere South Asian girl who must be modernised to be accepted in upper-class Dubai society.
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May 31, 2023 | 
tinyurl.com | Adam Sobsey |Will Layman |Chris Osmond |Michael Barrett
This review of Lana Del Rey‘s new album, Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, is somewhat laggard, coming as it does two months after its release. It’s probably better to have waited, though, for two reasons. One is that when a musician is as famous and newsmaking as Del Rey is—in common parlance, a brand—it’s hard to hear the actual music until the hype passes and the headlines change.
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May 31, 2023 | 
tinyurl.com | Will Layman |Chris Osmond |Michael Barrett |Fiona McQuarrie
Ahmad Jamal’s Influence and Artistic LegacyIn April, pianist Ahmad Jamal passed away. I came to adore his music — his touch and the big spaces he created in his music — because I impulsively bought his 1974 release Jamal Plays Jamal on a Sam Goody run in my jazz-crazed adolescence. No one thinks that this is Jamal’s peak period except for me.
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May 31, 2023 | 
tinyurl.com | Rick Quinn |Will Layman |Chris Osmond |Michael Barrett
The baby-faced visage of the Woodstock-era rocker is now weathered by the years but in ways that enhance rather than mar his disarming handsomeness. The abundant hair—striking even amongst the long hippie troubadours of Laurel Canyon—is still plentiful, now a neatly coiffed shock of white.
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May 31, 2023 | 
tinyurl.com | Steve Horowitz |Will Layman |Chris Osmond |Michael Barrett
In the trailer from Paul Simon‘s latest release, Seven Psalms, the singer-songwriter explains his latest work is an “argument about belief or not”. The musician confronts his mortality head-on and wonders about God, the reasons for existence, and death. When he’s done, Simon hasn’t found any answers to his questions, or maybe he’s discovered too many responses that leave him more confused than when he started. The answer is there is no answer until perhaps it is too late.
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May 30, 2023 | 
tinyurl.com | Rick Quinn |Will Layman |Chris Osmond |Renee K Nicholson
Proof of LifeAmigo / Verve Forecast / RepublicIs Joy Oladokun making worship music for a diverse, scattered, and traumatized world? I think so. In the lead-up to the release of her fourth studio album, Proof of Life, singer-songwriter Joy Oladokun posted frequently on her creative and entertaining TikTok account. In a March 2023 posting, she acted out a playful conversation between her current self and herself ten years in the past.
