By The S&N Staff. All things must end. And even though it took almost as long to count down our favorite albums of the 90s as it did to actually make it through the 90s, we’re finally ready to give you our top five. While it should come as no surprise that bands like Nirvana and Radiohead top out our list, you just may be surprised at which order they placed once the final votes were tallied. Continue reading
By The S&N Staff. Over the past few months, S&N has been counting down our list of the essential 90s albums. So far, we’ve seen historic albums from Nine Inch Nails, Biggie, Green Day, Beastie Boys, Counting Crows, Rage Against The Machine, Oasis, and plenty of others. Today, we finally reach the top 10, and it should comes as no surprise that there’s hip-hop, nerd rock, and of course, plenty of grunge. We start with a band better known for their 80s output—and a 1992 masterpiece that may (or may not) be their best work. Continue reading
By The S&N Staff. Continuing with S&N’s countdown of the 25 most essential albums of the 90s, we’ve already tackled #25-21 and #20-16. Today we roll out the next five, and just like the decade they came from, they’re full of hope, sadness, and a little Rage: Continue reading
By The S&N Staff. Earlier this month, the S&N staff began our countdown of the 25 most essential albums of the 90s. Number 25-21 featured groundbreaking works from Nine Inch Nails, Modest Mouse, Beastie Boys, Elliott Smith, and The Notorious B.I.G. Today, we continue the list with numbers 20-16: Continue reading
By The S&N Staff. There may be some generational bias at play here, but the 90s just might’ve been the peak of the album experience. In that gap in time between the MTV and radio dominance of the 80s and the Napster and iTunes takeover of the 2000s came a wave of rock and hip-hop artists who saw music as more than just a collection of singles. Whether fueled by nostalgia for the classic rock era of the concept LP, or a reflexive cynicism of “selling out,” these artists had ambitions toward a higher level of creativity. Continue reading
By Jeremy. “That’s what I think country music sounds like, Jason Aldean, and you can tell him that I said that!”
This was the proclamation of Ketch Secor, co-founder of the Old Crow Medicine Show, near the end of their one-hour set at the first annual Buckle Up Music Festival. On this evening it was a tale of two cities, or rather a tale of two countries – music that is. At its home on Pete Rose Way, The Great American Ballpark was hosting contemporary country music stars Jason Aldean, Miranda Lambert, and the Florida Georgia Line. And a few blocks away from that, hugging the banks of the Ohio River, Sawyer Point Park served as the backdrop for a three-day festival celebrating a different kind of country music. While only a short walk separated these venues, an apparent schism existed between the mass popularity of country-pop and the diverse representation of the Buckle Up Music Festival. Continue reading
1. Josh Ritter – The Golden Age Of Radio
2. Fiona Apple – When The Pawn…
3. Josh Rouse – Nashville
4. Freedy Johnston – Can You Fly
5. ZZ Top – ZZ Top’s First Album
Contributed by: Jeremy
By Jeremy. Full Disclosure: I am a nerd and am completely comfortable owning that label. Everyone should be a bit nerdy; it’s a necessary component for being a well-rounded person. There has always existed a stigma around being a nerd, but recently (meaning the last 3-4 years) it has become quite cool to be nerdy.
Television shows like Game Of Thrones and The Walking Dead have broken down the wall and now are fixtures in mainstream media. Historically, the genres of these shows, fantasy and zombies, have been regarded as nerdy. Now the masses have adopted them. The trend is even more prevalent in theatrical films; the popularity of The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit trilogies prove that fantasy stories have become cool. And there is a larger steam engine that is driving this movement — comic book movies. Comic books are dominating the box office and this trend is not going to stop any time soon. Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, The Avengers, and X-Men: Days Of Future Past have completely redefined what is popular at the box office. With Disney’s acquisition of Marvel Entertainment, it is expected that comic book movies will continue to dominate.
“The book was better than the movie.” This statement is common whenever a film attempts to recreate the same experience as the book. I remember reading comic books as a kid, but I only had the ability to read issues sporadically. My first exposure to comic book films was Tim Burton’s Batman and I had no frame of reference. I walked away from the film ignorant of the accuracy of the story. Does one really need to understand the original material in order to be entertained? With those questions still in mind, I’ve decided to conduct an experiment: I am submersing myself into reading nothing but comic books for the summer. Continue reading
1. Pulp Fiction (1994)
2. The Graduate (1967)
3. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
4. Rushmore (1998)
5. Goodfellas (1990)
Contributed by: Jeremy
Shadows & Noise 