By Spencer. As pissed as much of the American public seemed to be at getting a free U2 album dropped into their iTunes library by surprise, no one must be more pissed about it than Radiohead’s Thom Yorke. He had probably been planning the surprise release via BitTorrent of his new solo album, Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes, for weeks or months, and now a band as unhip as U2 is beating him to the punch? What’s more, I’m sorry to say that U2’s album is a thoroughly better piece of music—more adventurous and way more entertaining. By comparison, Yorke’s latest sounds stuffy, uninspired, and may I say, a little boring? Continue reading
Spencer
The Projects: Silent Movies That Don’t Suck
By Spencer. If you’re anything like my friends, you saw 2011’s The Artist—the first silent movie to win the Best Picture Oscar since 1927—and were unimpressed. Obviously, a huge part of its win was the novelty and bravery of making a silent movie in modern times. But while critics raved, audiences yawned (if they went at all).
Even some classic film buffs have a hard time getting enthusiastic about the silent era. Yes, the pacing is much slower than we’re accustomed; the lack of dialogue requires overacting that comes off as unrealistic at best and shamelessly hokey at worst; and dammit, does there have to be so much reading? But if you’re willing to approach them with the right attitude, there are a handful of movies from the silent era that can actually be—gasp!—fun. You can’t just view these as movies; they’re pieces of living history. And best of all, since most of them are in the public domain by now, you can usually watch them for free in their entirety online! So if you’re feeling open-minded and you’re looking for a place to start, here’s your guide to silent movies that don’t suck. Continue reading
The High-Fiver: Remakes Better Than The Original
1. The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)
2. Ocean’s Eleven (2001)
3. Father Of The Bride (1991)
4. True Grit (2010)
5. The Thing (1982)
Contributed by: Spencer
The Mixologist: This Is Rock
By Spencer. If you missed last week’s post on whether rock is really dead, then you also missed our surprise, monster-sized, 50-song mix spanning the entire history of rock music. From what many would call the very first rock song (“Rock Around The Clock”) through all the greats—Zep, the Stones, Clapton, Sabbath, the Boss, Aerosmith, Queen, AC/DC, Jon Bon, GNR, Nirvana, Oasis, the White Stripes, and of course, Kiss—this one’s got it all. So whether you like the old stuff or the new stuff, punk or hair metal, grunge or Brit rock, Cobain or Grohl, S&N Mix 7 has something for you. Take a tour of rock history in just under four hours. Continue reading
The Theorist: Is Rock Really Dead?
By Spencer. By now, you’ve likely seen the quote making its way around the internet from the interview Kiss frontman Gene Simmons gave to Esquire Magazine: “Rock is finally dead.” If you read the interview in its entirety, you see that he’s not really eulogizing rock music as a genre; he’s speaking about all music, insofar as the record industry has passed into irrelevancy as a means of financing and distributing it, and he’s critiquing the role that internet file sharing has played in making songwriting and recording a virtually profitless enterprise for the aspiring musician. Simmons isn’t wrong about any of that, and he’s not exactly treading new ground in pointing out what a thousand writers for Slate and Salon have been saying for a decade and a half now. I’m not here to add to that tired storyline.
I was much more intrigued by the question I thought Simmons was addressing: is rock music, as we’ve always understood that term, dead? Continue reading
The High-Fiver: Texas Movies
1. The Last Picture Show (1971)
2. Days Of Heaven (1978)
3. Boyhood (2014)
4. Giant (1956)
5. Dazed & Confused (1993)
Contributed by: Spencer
The Mixologist: Mood Swings
By Spencer. A lot of the mixes we post on The Mixologist aim for some kind of emotional and sonic coherence — a common atmosphere, if you will. This is not one of them. See, one of the powerful things about music is the way it can swing wildly from pole to pole, and in that moment of transition, slap you in the face with a whole new sound or a jarring new feeling. These songs go from hate to apology, from manic to depressive and back again, and some of the fun is being lulled into one mood, only to be hit with its opposite. True masters like St. Vincent and Elbow can even do this within the same track. So embrace the change and listen. Continue reading
The Conversationalist: U2’s Songs Of Innocence
By Spencer and Antony. In the internet age, we rarely get true surprises when it comes to our entertainment. It’s a world full of spoiler alerts and leaked Instagram pictures from the set. The music industry doesn’t even try to keep anything under wraps for the most part; any moderately anticipated album is often available for streaming in its entirety some weeks or months ahead of its release date. So U2’s surprise release of Songs Of Innocence on Tuesday—as a free iTunes download, no less!—caught me completely off-guard. As Consequence Of Sound so aptly put it, U2 pulled off a Beyonce and a Radiohead at the same time! Continue reading
The Stagediver: The Ryan Adams Album Release Party @ The 9:30 Club, Washington, DC
By Spencer. The tickets sold out in ten seconds. I’ll say that again. Ten fucking seconds. Those kind of expectations are damn near impossible to meet. And Ryan Adams didn’t bother trying. For the official release party and the kickoff to his fall tour, he came to the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC—long considered one of the nation’s top venues—and acted like he was playing a frat party in his best friend’s driveway. The music was loose and the banter with the crowd was even looser, spanning topics from The Amityville Horror 2 to mushrooms to an imaginary cover band called the Dingo Infestation. (Trust me, some of this actually made sense in context). Continue reading
The Futurist: Upcoming Movies For October & November
By Spencer. In this edition of The Futurist we look at some upcoming movies I’m hugely excited about — including Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar — and another one I will be trying my best to ignore. Even if it does have Jennifer Lawrence in it. Continue reading
The High-Fiver: Boston Movies
1. Good Will Hunting (1997)
2. The Town (2010)
3. Gone Baby Gone (2007)
4. Mystic River (2003)
5. The Departed (2006)
Contributed by: Spencer
The Critic: Ryan Adams & The Meaning Of Ryan Adams
By Spencer. Ryan Adams has always been two artists: the hard-mouthed alt-country troubadour and the 80s rock nostalgia junkie. So what should we make of the fact that his latest album is simply named Ryan Adams? Is it a rejection of the duality I just described? Does he think this batch of songs represents the real Ryan Adams? Or after thirteen albums as a solo artist, has he just stopped giving a shit about naming these things? Whatever the answer, Ryan Adams the songwriter has clearly touched on something, because Ryan Adams the album is the first truly great rock record he’s put together. Continue reading
The High-Fiver: SNL Alum Movies
1. Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy (2004)
2. Animal House (1978)
3. Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery (1997)
4. Happy Gilmore (1996)
5. Bridesmaids (2011)
Contributed by: Spencer
The Historian: 25 Years After Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing
By Spencer. Brooklyn, New York and Ferguson, Missouri are 950 miles apart — but it’s a trip that takes 25 years. In the quarter century since Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing premiered in theaters, it feels like we’ve come such a great distance. Today, in Brooklyn, you don’t find race riots or policy brutality; you find hipsters and organic markets. Hip-hop is as common in suburbia as it is in the streets. Public Enemy, whose “Fight The Power” gave the the movie its soundtrack and its soul, is in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Even our choice of president, a man of both black and white heritage, seems to suggest that whatever the racial animosities Spike Lee exposed back in 1989, we’ve long since learned how to get along.
Yet the events in Ferguson last week can’t help but deflate that kind of confidence. Continue reading
The High-Fiver: Definitive 80s Albums
1. Michael Jackson – Thriller
2. Prince – Purple Rain
3. U2 – The Joshua Tree
4. The Clash – London Calling
5. Depeche Mode – Violator
Contributed by: Spencer
The Consumer: Spoon, Angus & Julia Stone, The Raveonettes, & Jenny Lewis
By Spencer. In this edition of The Consumer, we feature new releases from several old favorites — Spoon, Angus & Julia Stone, Jenny Lewis, and The Raveonettes. Continue reading
The High-Fiver: Essential Lauren Bacall Movies
1. To Have And Have Not (1944)
2. Key Largo (1948)
3. The Big Sleep (1946)
4. Dark Passage (1947)
5. How To Marry A Millionaire (1953)
Contributed by: Spencer
The Futurist: Upcoming Albums For September & October
By Spencer. This month’s Futurist looks at the most interesting music releases coming along in September and October. Heavy on solo albums and side projects, there are a lot of interesting possibilities on the horizon. Which of them will hit the sweet spot? Continue reading
The High-Fiver: Essential Robin Williams Movies
1. Good Will Hunting (1997)
2. The Birdcage (1996)
3. Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)
4. Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)
5. Dead Poets Society (1989)
Contributed by: Spencer
The Conversationalist: Marvel’s Guardians Of The Galaxy & The Future Of Comic Book Movies
By Sumeet & Spencer. This edition of the Conversationalist follows up on Marvel’s surprise hit, Guardians Of The Galaxy, and what it means for the state of Marvel’s on-screen universe and the wider superhero genre.
Sumeet: The Marvel Universe took a big leap this past weekend, adding a new intergalactic set of characters to their more well-known Avengers mix. As many film folks have noted, it was an interesting risk for the Marvel/Disney machine to take on Guardians Of The Galaxy. For those even less in the know than me (I know almost nothing about the comic book characters), the Guardians are a relatively obscure and off-beat superhero team. They appeared sporadically throughout various Marvel comics but only became featured in their own comic series relatively recently. In other words, I’m not the only one that didn’t know much about them before this weekend. Continue reading
The Confessor: Guns N’ Roses In The Use Your Illusion Era
By Spencer. As I wrote in the very first post on this site, S&N promises to take seriously both the artistic and the lowbrow. Hopefully you’ve seen that in some of the songs we’ve included in our Mixologist series, as well as in some of the topics we’ve taken on so far. But with our new series, The Confessor, I want to give our contributors the chance to come clean about some of their favorite guilty pleasures in movies and music. Because let’s face it, the line between bad and good has a funny way of moving around when it’s something you love. Continue reading
The High-Fiver: Worst Makeup Jobs
1. Mickey Rooney – Breakfast At Tiffany’s (1961)
2. Leonardo DiCaprio – J. Edgar (2011)
3. Jim Sturgess – Cloud Atlas (2012)
4. Shawn & Marlon Wayans – White Chicks (2004)
5. Al Jolson – The Jazz Singer (1927)
Contributed by: Spencer
The Mixologist: The Forgotten, Vol. 1
By Spencer. Great bands still make forgettable songs. And forgotten songs, sometimes, can still be pretty damn great. For this edition of The Mixologist, I’m featuring some lesser-known tracks from some of the best bands of the 90s. Some of them were singles that tanked. Some of them were album tracks that were wrongly overshadowed. Some were B-sides that only saw the light of day among the true fanatics. Whatever the case, these are songs that deserve your love, and hopefully when heard in a different context, they’ll get the audience they deserve. Continue reading
The High-Fiver: Songs About Texas
1. George Strait – “All My Exes Live In Texas”
2. Lyle Lovett – “That’s Right (You’re Not From Texas)”
3. Jackopierce – “Texas”
4. Pat Green – “Texas On My Mind”
5. Alabama – “If You’re Gonna Play In Texas (You’ve Gotta Have A Fiddle In The Band)”
Contributed by: Spencer
The Critic: Scarlett Johansson in Lucy
By Spencer. Most movies only use ten percent of their brain. Lucy is one of them.
It’s a dumb person’s idea of what a smart movie should be. I’m setting aside the fact that its most basic premise — we only use 10% of our brain — is a complete myth, because if I started worrying about stuff like that, I’d never be able to go to movies anymore. No, the stupidity of Lucy isn’t just in the science (though there’s plenty of that too) but in the nonsensical plot, the amateurish editing, and the way it interjects shallow armchair philosophy at every turn, like a college freshman on pot trying to impress everyone with how much he learned in his “Intro to Nietzsche” course. That such a moronically executed script happens to be a story about higher intelligence is the final irony, and if director Luc Besson (The Fifth Element, The Professional) were trying to make this film as some kind of a piece of satire on that point, it might have at least been worth the trouble. Sadly, he’s dead serious. Continue reading
The High-Fiver: 90s Hip-Hop Albums
1. Dr. Dre – The Chronic
2. A Tribe Called Quest – The Low End Theory
3. The Notorious B.I.G. – Ready To Die
4. Wu-Tang Clan – Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
5. Jay-Z – Reasonable Doubt
Contributed by: Spencer
The Historian: Smashing Pumpkins Discography, Vol. 4 (1998-2015)
By Spencer. “Everything ends badly. Or else it wouldn’t end.” — Tom Cruise, Cocktail.
By 1998, the Smashing Pumpkins were already falling apart. Their drummer, Jimmy Chamberlain — whose frenetic style had been a long-underrated X-factor in the band’s success — was gone. The famously frosty relationship between Billy Corgan and his bandmates, James Iha and D’Arcy Wretzky, was only getting worse. And for the first time in their musical career, they seemed spent. With every release bigger than the last, a bubble had been created, and bubbles always burst. It’s a tribute to the Smashing Pumpkins that, in such a time of turmoil, they created their most intimate, their most personal, and their most mature album. Continue reading
The High-Fiver: Horrendous Movie Accents
1. Kevin Costner – Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves (1991)
2. Nicolas Cage – Con Air (1997)
3. Keanu Reeves – Much Ado About Nothing (1993)
4. Cate Blanchett – Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull (2008)
5. Kevin Costner – Thirteen Days (2000)
Contributed by: Spencer
The Critic: Richard Linklater’s Boyhood
By Spencer. When you write movie reviews, there’s nothing more boring than finding new ways to heap praise upon a picture. So I’m sorry to say that Boyhood isn’t just the frontrunner for the Oscar this year; it’s one of the finest films ever made. The premise is simple: Richard Linklater (Dazed And Confused, Before Sunrise) filmed the life of a child (Ellar Coltrane in a star-making role) a little each year over the course of 12 years, capturing for the first time in movie history a truly realistic coming-of-age story. That’s the gimmick. But Boyhood is so much more than that. Continue reading
The High-Fiver: Movie Versions Of TV Shows
1. The Fugitive (1993)
2. Maverick (1994)
3. Wayne’s World (1992)
4. Mission: Impossible (1996)
5. The Addams Family (1991)
Contributed by: Spencer
Shadows & Noise 