The strange life of Michael Jackson: In the end, the music speaks loudest (Commentary)
Michael Jackson proclaimed himself the King of Pop, but the label caught on because he earned it. I can’t think of any other artist whose death could prompt MTV to actually cover music again. Obituaries about MJ necessarily note the weird, tabloidish aspects of his life after his music career wound down (most notably, the
I wish it was 1996 again, or 1985, or 1979 (Commentary)
On Tuesday, new albums by Dinosaur Jr. and the Lemonheads came out, as my Facebook friend Matt reported. “It’s like it’s 1996 again,” he happily noted, and I agreed. Last week, I was hanging out with my Minnesota friend Jake and he was reminiscing about getting a KISS cake and a KISS T-shirt for his
A belated nod to great music: Christophe Beck’s ‘Buffy’ score is available on CD (Music review)
From the “better late than never” file, Christophe Beck’s “Buffy” score is finally available on CD. It actually came out in 2008, and I just stumbled across it the other day in Best Buy. But 2008 was still five years after the series ended and seven years after Beck left the show. (He now primarily does film
I’m completely smitten with Tracyanne Campbell (Music review)
Like many overly sensitive guys in their (extremely) late 20s, I have a long-distance crush on Camera Obscura lead singer/songwriter Tracyanne Campbell. Yeah, I know I have to get in line, especially after the release of the band’s fourth album, “My Maudlin Career,” which came out in April.
Remembering Brainerd … and moving on to the next adventure (Commentary)
I’m moving to Sedalia, Mo., to start a new job, so I’ll soon be racking up new positive and negative experiences. (Based on my first dalliance with the town and the job, it will be positive, but that’s balanced out by my naturally pessimistic attitude.)
5 random observations (Commentary)
Here are five random observations: 1. I’ve been listening to a lot of Minnesota Twins games on the radio this year and for some bizarre reason, the chorus of The Cranberries’ 1994 hit “Zombie” often plays over the loudspeaker at the Metrodome. Regardless of the game situation, it strikes me as an odd time to
State of Television Address, Part 3: ‘Glee’ provides a ray of hope for the fall (TV review)
This is the post where I’m supposed list the new fall shows I’m looking forward to, but after watching clips of the five networks’ 28 newcomers over at Zap2It (scroll down the list to find the pages for each network), I can’t say that anything really jumped out at me.
5 random thoughts (Commentary)
Here are five random thoughts. 1. What does pop singer Adele mean when she asks, “Should I give up, or should I just keep chasing pavements?” As I understand it, the British phrase “chasing pavements” means “giving up,” so that would make the lyric redundant, wouldn’t it?