The Case For Nickelback

Oh boy, here we go. Possibly the most reviled band in the world, at least until Imagine Dragons came into their own, they are typically disregarded and hated by the masses, even by those who have not spent very much time listening to them. It seems like the cool thing to hate on Nickelback; they are peak butt rock, being incredibly overblown, underwritten, overproduced and obnoxiously annoying. They are most certainly the worst band of the 2000s. Or… are they? I decided to sit down through their most popular album, 2005’s All the Right Reasons, and see if all of the hate truly holds up. I’ll be writing these notes as I listen in real time, track by track to break down if the popular opinions stands in my eyes. I would like to preface with two things, firstly: none of the lyrics are worth paying attention to. They are vapid, misogynistic and sometimes completely objectionable, and they barely deserve to be discussed and will not be mentioned much if at all, outside of some of the more interesting or funny or truly terrible cases. And second: I grew up with this album (tragic, I know) so there will most likely be some level of bias that carries me through this. But without further ado, it’s time for Nickelback.

“Follow You Home” - The album’s opener, “Follow You Home” has a cheesy ass guitar solo, and a really weird deep voice bridge at the end. However, the chorus isn’t terrible and is kinda catchy before the deep voice thing returns for the final chorus. Not a very good start to the album by any means, and hopefully there is improvement in the future.

“Fight for All the Wrong Reasons” - The start of “Fight for All the Wrong Reasons” sounds almost the same as "Follow You Home.” The usage of these weird, whispery backing vocals make me feel uneasy in an unenjoyable way, not quite nails on chalkboard but like a fork scraping along a plate. The chorus for this track feels like them taking a swing at nu-metal and it is not working, somehow feeling like an even worse version of Disturbed. The ending sounds terrible with the back and forth vocals and the semi-tremolo guitars not working for me at all, with this sound being repeated throughout the entire track and growing incredibly grating by the finale.

“Photograph” - Oh yeah baby, “Photograph” time. One of the all-time cheesiest songs I've ever heard, but the nostalgia definitely carries for me at the same time. Incredibly generic and bland but still a kinda fun song with a very catchy chorus that I will sing along to anytime I hear it. I know that I said I would not talk about the lyrics, but they verge on “so bad it's good” territory here, trying to paint some picture of his youth that makes him seem like a douche, which I am not even really convinced that he lived at all. There’s no way that there’s this much stuff to do in Alberta. The bridge at the end is the peak of the cheese with the backing vocals but I just can’t hate this song.

“Animals” - Oh god. This is the other side of cheese, trying to seem like the coolest guy possible with another story that most definitely did not happen, some sick fantasy that plays in Chad Kroeger’s head when he goes to bed at night. Sadly, it kinda fucking rips at the same time, with a solid guitar line and a very energetic performance from Chad despite the incredibly terrible lyrics in the second verse, and the regular terrible lyrics in the rest. This song felt like the least of a drag so far, despite the incredibly problematic contents of the track itself, and breezed by quite quickly. Four tracks in and I don’t want to pass away at least, so this listen is going much better than I could have expected.

“Savin’ Me” - “Savin’ Me” is another song I remember vividly from my childhood, and the second half of the chorus is the best kind of Nickelback in my mind and I cannot explain why. That drunk singalong shit just hits for me, and I feel like it would go crazy at a frat house in 2010. This is, however, another song trying to be deep and sad but the tone just does not hit the right way, and the empty moments before the acoustic part of the chorus is annoying and cheesy (how many times am I gonna say cheesy during this?). The guitar solo is fine, nothing exciting but does not bother me at all either. There are definitely worse guitar solos across this project. This is a bit of a nothing song overall, but the fun chorus props it up a little bit for me.

“Far Away” - “Far Away” is just “Photograph” but worse in almost every way. You could almost convince me this is a Creed song. I will say though, Chad’s singing on the chorus is probably his best on the whole album so far, with some actually enjoyable parts that convince me he possesses much more talent than he lets on through most of the band’s songs. This song is dragging on way too fucking long though, I feel like it could have been a minute and a half long total and had almost the same impact. The chorus near the end with the higher register is a nice moment though, and I think it's as pretty as Nickelback can get as a band, which is still a solid few steps down from a lot of other bands.

“Next Contestant” - “Next Contestant” is, somehow, the most lyrically terrible song of the album, even with “Animals” competing for the title. The chorus is quite heavy and a little silly though, if you manage to take this song as a joke then it's kinda fun hearing him try to be all macho and aggressive. If I imagine this to be a parody band of post-grunge then this song works a lot better than it does. Surely, it is ruining the streak of fine tracks that this album has been on since “Photograph” though. The guitars are getting annoying now halfway through the song, can’t they switch it up a little? I need a break. I find myself nodding along to the melody of the chorus though, despite the aggravating deep-voice distorted backing vocals, but the verses are incredibly forgettable.

“Side of a Bullet” - This song is fucking terrible, truly deserving of all the slander this band gets. There is nothing enjoyable about this, the shredding guitar sounds are incredibly grating during the verses, the chorus is not catchy in the slightest, and the lyrics aren’t even funny in how bad they are, it just makes me shake my head. Chad’s worst performance of the album by far as well, with a generic guitar solo to boot. I have nothing else to say.

“If Everyone Cared” - Thankfully, we are back to the best side of Nickelback, trying to be wistful and insightful but falling on their face in almost comedic fashion. This song features some solid singing (compared to the rest of the album, at least) and a very fun chorus to sing along to as well with a big cheesy smile on your face, and an absurdly surface-level message along with it. This is truly i’m-14-and-this-is-deep material on this song, but it is not hurting my ears and can almost be confused for a good track compared to a few of the previous songs on this album. Almost. Still, definitely passable and inoffensive, and went by without a hitch.

“Someone That You’re With” - This song sounds like a less-heavy “Animals” from the start. The guitars in this sound silly in a bad way, giving almost “Cotton Eye Joe” vibes. This is also one of the few songs I do not recognize at all from my childhood, and the chorus sounds like one of the worst possible Foo Fighters outtakes. Is this Chad’s attempt at a love song of some sort? If someone wrote this for me I might look to get a restraining order. Also, the chorus sounds like it is in a completely different song from the verses, I think they just took two workshopped tracks and mashed them together so they could finish it without doing any extra work. The drums and bass on this album so far have left absolutely zero impression on me, which could either be good that they are not horrific so far, or bad that they are not doing anything to redeem the worst moments on this record. The brief acoustic section at the end of this song was not needed at all, and definitely detracted from the track. This is peak Nickelback, in that I will forget everything about it the second it is finished, completely bland and boring.

“Rockstar” - Fuck yeah, “Rockstar” time. This is pretty much a country rock song with the twang in his voice and the guitar line during the voices (they’re Albertan so it checks out). This might be one of the best terrible karaoke songs in existence, it’s super fun to sing but probably horrible to hear someone else do. I personally think that it's objectionable but funny, as with some other songs on this album, and is pretty much just the hard rock version of “Beverly Hills” by Weezer. The lines spoken in the background are sometimes boring, sometimes horrible, and occasionally hilarious (“I’ll have the quesadilla” is poetry to my ears). This song is in incredibly poor taste as many songs are, and yet has an undeniably catchy chorus. While not their number one most popular track, this is the defining Nickelback song in my eyes, and I will enjoy it guiltily every time it comes on.

Well, this was definitely an experience. I do not know what I expected going into this. I did not expect it to turn out as bad as everyone said it would, but I also did not think there would be as many songs that I enjoyed as there were. It’s hard for me to say that any of the songs on here were actually any good, or if my ears are just clouded by hopeful optimism and nostalgia from my younger years. Don’t get me wrong, this is not an album that I am going to be listening to very often, if at all. I will not be going out of my way to listen to any other Nickelback, either. But for what this album is, it definitely draws much more hate than it actually deserves due to the reputation that Nickelback have built for themselves. From front to back, this is probably one of the most average albums I have ever heard, a flat 5 in every way.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Warning: Spoilers Ahead for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Reboots and remakes seem to be the hot thing to be doing nowadays. With films such as the new Bad Boys films, Twisters, and particularly Top Gun: Maverick doing massive numbers, studios are looking to dig their old IPs up from the dead in an attempt to resurrect them for a few quick bucks. The latest culprit is Warner Bros. with the new Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the sequel to the beloved film from 1988. But, can you really dig something up from the dead if it was only ever undead? Starring Michael Keaton as the one and only Betelgeuse, albeit looking a little worse for wear (I can’t be the only one surprised he is 73), the new film brings us back to the tiny little town of Winter River, right into our favourite ghoul’s domain. Back as well are Winona Ryder and the scene-stealing Catherine O’Hara as the Deetz duo, with the newly added Jenna Ortega portraying Lydia’s daughter. 

I had very low expectations for this movie going into it. Like, very low. The trailer gave me a bad first impression, and while I was eager to see Keaton back in one of his best roles, I wasn’t too eager for much of the rest of the film. I can safely say that I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be a pretty good movie. While not without its flaws, I had a fun time watching it and am not upset with the money I spent to see it (although $15 is ridiculous for any film). Clearly anchored by Keaton, a good chunk of the supporting cast brings their A-game to this. All of the returning actors are about what you would expect, bringing nothing more and nothing less than in the previous film. O’Hara, as Delia Deetz, gets the most consistently funny lines outside of the titular character, managing to remain ditzy and self-centered even in the afterlife. While the old still manages to shine after these years, the new doesn’t manage the same fate, with some of it landing dead on arrival. Jenna Ortega as Astrid Deetz may have been one of my least favourite parts of the film, with her character feeling totally out of place for the entirety and seeming mostly to serve as a plot device. Not having much in the way of character growth or story, other than serving to reunite Betelgeuse and Lydia, her side-story is cut short almost right as it is getting started. While she is undoubtedly a talented actress, I fear she was not handed a good deck of cards with this screenplay. The best new standout, however, is Willem Dafoe as undead investigator Wolf Jackson. Acting as an undead actor who is still stuck acting as his main role while he was alive, he is hilarious and seems to be having as much fun as possible in his role. The reveal of how he died in the normal life (a live grenade on set) was hilarious, but a tad bit sad with certain events that have unfolded on movie sets in past years. 

Speaking of sad, this movie does not pack much of an emotional punch. While we are meant to be all waterworks and happy with the reunion of Lydia and Astrid, the film doesn’t do a whole lot to earn any sort of reaction. The film spends a good amount of time trying to juggle too many moving parts, focusing on the wake, the upcoming wedding, Betelgeuse’s ex-wife, Jackson’s investigation, Astrid’s new boyfriend, it’s way too much to keep up with, particularly for a movie clocking in at less than 2 hours. Some of it feels quite unnecessary, with the ex-wife plot especially feeling completely useless to the majority of the story. Betelgeuse is in love with Lydia; why does he need a new excuse to want to marry her? It seems that when they were brainstorming how to make the plot progress, they decided not to cut anything out of it. While it still makes for a fun and messy time, I wonder how much better the movie would have been if they had locked into one or two plotlines. It feels that the scares were also mostly abandoned in search of a lighter tone than the first film, with no particularly gruesome or frightening scenes to speak of. While this does not always represent a negative aspect, working differently from the previous film to establish its own identity, I would have loved to see a bit more of what made the first film such a beloved classic in so many households.

This movie, despite being an overall enjoyable film that surely will play again during Halloween season in the future for me, adds to less than a sum of its parts. With such a stacked cast, and featuring the big comeback of my childhood mainstay Tim Burton, this film had all of the makings to be a potential favourite of mine, but falls just short by shoehorning in too many elements that don’t quite fit the puzzle. While the cast is (mostly) great, and the writing is silly and fun, this film does not leave much of an impression shortly after the credits finish rolling. 

Most Anticipated Movies

With festival season in full swing, having both the Toronto International Film Festival and the Venice Film Festival currently ongoing, I wanted to outline some of the most exciting films that will be coming out in the final stretch of the year. With a combination of word-of-mouth from critics and viewers, intriguing directors and performers, along with concepts that I find fascinating in general, I will be going over 5 of my picks for must-sees that will be coming out between now and the end of December. I will be giving my reasonings for each after mentioning them, along with giving information on the film itself and its upcoming release, although this list will not be ranked. Sorry superhero fans, there will be no Joker mentions anywhere on this list. No Nightbitch, either.

Honorable Mentions

While I decided to put only five films on this list, there are still plenty of others that I have my eye on and will likely be getting to at some point. In chronological order of wide release: The Substance, starring Demi Moore, seems to be an incredibly interesting body horror film that has been labeled as a career best for the actress, but it was too recently put on my radar to make the full list. The Lego Pharrell biopic Piece by Piece seems like it could be a piece of shit, but it may also be pretty fun and is definitely interesting in its development. I wonder if Pharrell paid Lego to do this film, or vice versa? I will probably watch A Real Pain almost exclusively due to my massive enjoyment of Kieran Culkin whenever he pops up on my screen, although it has potential to be a very moving film if Jesse Eisenberg can bring his A-game, both on-camera and behind it. I was not exactly a fan of Smile when it came out, but morbid curiosity may get me to see the sequel when it hits screens. I have never seen Gladiator, but you will see me in theatres for that sequel as well, if only for Denzel Washington and Pedro Pascal. I also wanna see how shitty Kraven the Hunter turns out, with the quality standards set by Morbius and Madame Web. And finally, A Complete Unknown brings one of the most notable young actors on the scene and makes him one of the greatest songwriters of all time, which can’t go too badly, right? Right?! Anyways, without further ado, here are my five most anticipated movies of the rest of the year. 

Nosferatu

Okay, I lied. This is definitely my most anticipated movie of the year, so at the very least this placement is ranked. Nosferatu is directed by Robert Eggers, and is following up his 2019 film The Norseman, which was incredibly positively received by critics and fans alike, and serves as a remake to the classic 1922 silent film of the same name. The film stars Bill Skarsgard as Count Orlok, and features a supporting cast including Eggers all-star Willem Dafoe, Nicholas Hoult, and Lily Rose-Depp. While I have not yet seen his most recent film, Eggers got me completely hooked with his one-two punch of The Witch and The Lighthouse, the latter of which particularly is one of the most interesting and exciting films I have seen in the last five years. At this point until I am let down by multiple of his films consecutively, I will be watching his career very closely, and you can count on me being in line to see his films almost as soon as they come out. While there has not been a large amount of marketing for Nosferatu up to this point, with pretty much only the cast and the release date of Christmas 2024 being announced to this point, it didn’t need to do a whole lot other than be announced to get me interested. 

Anora

This movie would have completely flown under my radar if not for the outstanding word of mouth it has been getting coming out of the festival circuit. Directed by Sean Baker, someone whose work I am not all that familiar with outside of The Florida Project, this film won the Palme D’Or following its premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, and has been garnering some serious Oscar buzz as it makes its way through the rest of the festivals. Starring Mikey Madison, I was not especially excited for the film at first due to only knowing her for her performance in Scream 5, with which I was slightly underwhelmed. While she was alright within the film, I found her to be quite overshadowed in the moment by other members of the cast, although that could definitely be chalked up to not having enough opportunity within the film. She portrays an exotic dancer who ends up falling in love with the son of a Russian oligarch, before his parents attempt to break them up following their eloping. While the story in particular does not sound like anything outstanding, I am a sucker for a good romantic movie and I am very eager for the waterworks to get going when it premieres October 18th. Who doesn’t enjoy a good love story?

Saturday Night

Time for something a little more lighthearted than the previous selections. Premiering at the recent Telluride Film Festival and receiving positive reviews, Saturday Night is the most recent film from Jason Reitman, best known for his Ghostbusters films and for being the son of the legendary Ivan Reitman. With an intriguing ensemble cast, featuring established actors billed alongside some more unknown names that will surely get some shine following this film, what really draws me to this film is the poster. Giving off some very entertaining old-school vibes, with a style that seems to be making a comeback (also used by the recent film Hundreds of Beavers) it gave me the impression that it will just be a funny, silly little time of a movie, and we need more movies like that. I have never been the biggest fan of Saturday Night Live despite growing up with it on a good amount, but this dramatization of the filming of the pilot feels like a must-watch for anyone looking for a good time. 

Queer

Believe it or not (you should believe it), there is another romance on this list. Looking to continue his outstanding run, beginning with 2017’s Call Me By Your Name, Luca Guadagnino returns with his second feature film of the year, which is looking to be an outstanding showcase for the incomparable Daniel Craig. Seeing Craig yet again break out of the mold he set for himself with his numerous Bond films, as well as his more comedic turn in the Knives Out series, Queer sees him as a gay man in the 1940s who falls in love with a discharged military man. While this movie does not have a set release date for 2024, it is presumed to be coming out within the next few months due to a) its positive reception at film festivals, and b) it’s very likely chance to get Craig nominated for every award under the sun. This film sees Guadagnino returning to subject matter he has handled in films such as Challengers and the previously mentioned Call Me By Your Name, so if you were not exactly entranced by either of those movies then you likely are not to enjoy this one, either. But, if you wanna see perhaps one of Craig’s best performances yet, then this seems like it will be a must-watch for you, as it is with me. 

Conclave

This is probably the film that has the least intriguing parts when looked at individually, and yet when brought together as a whole, projects to be a movie I would absolutely love. Conclave is about the process to have a new Pope be selected, starring Ralph Fiennes as the cardinal who has been tasked with establishing the conclave that will make the selection. Directed by Edward Berger, this is his first film since the critically acclaimed remake of All Quiet on the Western Front, which raked in numerous Oscars during the 2023 ceremony. The religious backdrop of this film has me pretty strongly invested. First Reformed is possibly one of the greatest films I have ever seen (as you can read in my review/analysis of it), and if this projects to be even half of the treatise on struggling with faith while being a part of it, then I am going to be obsessed with it. But even if that does not happen, this movie will still likely be a good time. Labeled as a thriller, I am really confused but also curious about how that will play out, although I do have slight fears about the tone of the film being slightly inconsistent if it attempts all of these different goals. Despite this, it has received some outstanding reviews upon its premiere and has maintained its placement in my most anticipated movies prior to its official release on November 1st.

Best NBA players right now

Time for more sports, yay! Primarily, the only sport that I watch or care about at all. With the NBA and Olympics being completely wrapped up now, and with the next season about two months away still I wanted to look back and see who the best players currently in the league are. Suffice to say, it’s hard to truly quantify any of this, so this is all my own personal opinion and you can think whatever you would like.

10. Anthony Edwards, Minnesota Timberwolves

It’s hard to deny the ascension of Edwards over the last couple years. Garnering his first All-Star selection in the 2022-23 season and following it up by being named to the All-NBA Second Team this last season, he capped it off with an outstanding playoff run where he brought the Timberwolves to the Conference Finals for only the second time in the history of the team. While a lot of it can be attributed to the defense that was brought along with a new system, and the best defender in the NBA in Rudy Gobert, you need a true star to get to that next level. With each season, Edwards is proving himself to be cut from that mold. With his combination of on-ball scoring moves and efficiency, along with his defensive prowess that has been improving every season, he seems to be inching closer and closer to those Jordan comparisons each year. The athleticism is perfect for producing a highlight or two every single game, and he really knows how to leverage it to give himself the best possible scoring opportunity on a large majority of possessions. While his playmaking could stand to improve a little bit still, as he will occasionally get tunnel vision and display his relative lack of quick decision making, he projects to be one of the top players in the NBA for many years to come, and a face of the league that will be promoted endlessly.

9. LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers

To be completely honest, if it was not for this past Olympics run, Anthony Davis would have made it onto this list in place of LeBron James. But the way he was still able to completely take over games in the group stage and knockout stage, it is undeniable that when James is on, he is still one of the greatest on the planet. While his defense in the regular season has tapered off drastically from his peak in the Miami days, where he was arguably worthy of a DPOY, he can still control a game completely on the offensive end with his top-tier creation. With the increase of his 3pt percentage to a career-high 41% on five attempts, he has opened up his elite driving and finishing game more than ever. While his athleticism has declined since his peak, it has not stopped him from having godly finishing eras, converting at an elite 73% in the restricted area over his 21st season. You can’t overstate his passing skills, either. One of the greatest playmakers in the history of the game, the way he sees the floor is something that will likely never fall off, no matter how long he sticks around in the league. The way he is able to manipulate the defense with only a single look to an open cutter is the thing of beauty, and always makes me think of his gorgeous no-look pass to Ante Žižić in 2018. While the Lakers overall fared poorly over the season, it is hard to blame any of that on James, who had a stellar season on his way to All-NBA honors, where he willed the Lakers to the playoffs. Only so much he can really do when he gets matched up against the defending champs, though.

8. Jalen Brunson, New York Knicks

I don’t think anyone could have expected Brunson becoming a top-10 player when he signed with the Knicks for what is now viewed as a felony-level steal of a contract. Leaving the Mavericks on a four-year, $104m deal to go to the Big Apple, he is now coming off a season where he averaged career highs in both points per game and assists per game, while being named to both the All-Star Game and the All-NBA Second Team. And somehow, this isn’t even the best part. In the 2024 playoffs, he became only the fourth player to score 40+ in four consecutive playoff games, something not done since Michael Jordan in 1993. And he is doing all of this while standing at just 6’2” as the shortest player on this list, barely beating out the next player. His playmaking, while not the strongest part of his game, is strong enough to get his teammates involved and find the best shot possible when the other team inevitably throws a double team at him. While his stature will always prevent him from being a stellar defender, something he has struggled at even disregarding his physicals, the way he is able to will his teams to a win is something that we have to admire and respect, and that winning attitude has vaulted him up in the NBA. Even with an incredibly hobbled team, he was able to push his team to a Game 7 in the second round of the playoffs, which is worth respecting greatly. I am incredibly excited to see what he can do with a full-strength team, featuring a newly acquired Mikal Bridges, and I truly believe he is a good enough player to lead a team to a championship.

7. Steph Curry, Golden State Warriors

What is there to say about the Skyfucker that hasn’t been said a billion times already? The way that he bends a defense just by flying off of endless screens is the thing of beauty. His insane off-ball gravity gives him a layer of playmaking that probably no one else has, where he doesn’t even need to look towards the ball to create an open shot. Don’t even get me started on his shooting; is there any one skill in the NBA that is so greatly dominated by one player? For scoring, you could name a Michael Jordan, a Kevin Durant, a Wilt and have an argument. Rebounding you have Wilt and Bill Russell, along with players like Dennis Rodman and Moses Malone. Interior defense? Bill Russell and Tim Duncan and Hakeem. But for shooting, who can you really argue over Steph? Sure, Ray Allen and Reggie Miller may have blazed the trail for what Steph is able to do, but there is really no argument for them being over him. The volume, the efficiency, the impact on the game is undeniable. Steph has completely changed the way that the game is played nowadays, ushering in a new era with the three-point revolution and altering how everyone is building their teams. He can let it go from any place on the floor, and has shown to be one of the few little guys in NBA history who can truly lead a team to a ring (not to discount the other contributors to the Warriors dynasty). Even his defense, which was previously lackluster, has greatly improved to where he is likely a slight positive when he is on the court. And while he is known to throw some pretty crazy passes that lead to sloppy turnovers, he is still a pretty strong on-ball playmaker when he is given the opportunity. His team this last year was a shade worse than a disappointment to say the least, but there is only so much one man can do on his own when everyone around him is imploding. 

6. Jayson Tatum, Boston Celtics

I see that a lot of people are down on Tatum following his Finals performance and his lack of playing time and shooting capability in the Olympics, and I understand. I don’t necessarily agree with all of it, but I get it. From the outside, if Tatum isn’t hitting his shots as an offensively-minded player, what does he provide? His assists, steals and blocks don’t stand out on the stat sheet most of the time, with only his points popping out a majority of the time, but the stats don’t tell the whole story. Not even close, when it comes to the newly-crowned champion and two-time gold medalist. His value lies in his adaptability, his swiss army knife-like nature. Sure, his shooting has taken a big fall since the beginning of the NBA playoffs, but he is still a significant positive on the offensive end. He brings a strong amount of playmaking that does not show in his assists count, purely due to the amount of secondary playmakers that he has on his team. According to nba.com for the playoffs, he sits right outside of the top-20 in secondary assists (also known as hockey assists), and his potential assists is comfortably within the top-20, generating 10.1 potential assists per game as well. He also sported his best assist percentage AND ratio of his career this past season. And when his shot is going down, he becomes one of the premier creators in the league, still getting his own 27 points per game, while still providing stellar defense and being an underrated rebounder that is victim to a team scheme that spreads them around evenly. He is one of the most switchable players in the league, having the foot speed to keep up with smaller guards, and the strength and verticality to hold his own against plenty of centers in the league. That latter skill is what made the Mavericks so much more exploitable in the Finals, with Tatum’s ability to break up lobs completely trumping one of the most efficient plays for star player Luka Doncic. Without being ball-dominant, he has managed to become a player capable of almost anything you ask of him, and has finally climbed that final hurdle by proving he is able to be the best player on a championship team. 

5. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City Thunder

Please do not assume that there is any bias in play. While he may be from the same country I am, and the same city as a matter of fact, this list is (almost) entirely based on objective facts that have formed my opinions. Shai has catapulted from being a promising young role player in his rookie year, to a second option on a playoff team in his second, to blossoming into a full-blown megastar upon being handed the reins to the Oklahoma City Thunder. With his herky-jerky style that probes and pokes a defense endlessly, he is able to generate an outstanding shot for him or a teammate probably 95 percent of the time. Even some of the greatest perimeter defenders in the league currently, the Herb Jones and the Jrue Holidays of the NBA, can’t do a whole lot anymore to stop him. His scoring is out of this world, using an array of spins, pump fakes, stutter steps and whatever else you can think of to get to his spot, or draw a foul and get easy points at the line (where he is a career 85% shooter). Averaging over 30 points per game in both of the last two seasons, he lives in that mid-range area for most of the game, but give him too much space and he is liable to pull up from 3 as well, where he has gotten up to a respectable 35%. The scoring overshadows his playmaking drastically, but he is one of the best creators of open shots due to his gravity when going up against a solo defender. When looking at potential assists per game in the playoffs, he lies behind four of the greatest playmakers in the NBA, with only Jokic, Tyrese Haliburton, LeBron, and Luka generating more possible shots for his teammates each match. While he may have only averaged just over 6 assists per game, he balanced that out with an outstanding 2.2 turnovers, his lowest since his sophomore season. His defense is nothing to sneeze at either, playing excellent man defense while playing strongly within the team’s defensive scheme. Generating 2 steals per game this past season, he is creating easy transition opportunities for a young team that has better legs than anyone else in the league. With his play on both sides of the ball, and his ability to carry the Thunder to the first seed after just having been out of the playoffs the previous season, he has done more than enough to earn a place as one of the greatest players in the league, and looks to be that way for many years to come. 

4. Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers

I would like to open this by saying that I am one of the biggest Embiid haters you will find. As a Raptors fan, this man has caused unspeakable pain to me, as well as being there for some of the best moments in the history of the franchise. The way he plays is so aesthetically unpleasing, and for the life of me I cannot figure out what he was doing on that Olympics team. He is historically a playoff dropper, and he injured my favorite role player (when they were on the same team, nonetheless). And yet, I cannot for the life of me place him any lower than this on a list of this sort. Sure, he sucks to watch, but damn if it does not work. Coming off of what projected to be a career season before being derailed by injuries, coming off of an MVP too, he was looking like undeniably the greatest player on the planet. His scoring arsenal has kept growing every season, being able to score efficiently from every spot on the court, and his ability to draw a foul damn near everytime he goes to the paint is a smart, albeit annoying as fuck, strategy. Nearly leading the league in scoring over the last three seasons (only prevented by being injured), you can’t do a whole lot to stop him from getting his. And with his improved passing this season, averaging a career-high 5.6 assists per game, you can’t send doubles at him nearly as much as you used to be able to. By finding a way to punish teams for whatever they decide to do, he has become one of the most unstoppable players on offense… in the regular season. Historically, his scoring has dropped significantly through his career when he makes it to the playoffs, featuring an even larger dropoff when the fourth quarter comes around. Averaging a paltry 5.3 points per game in the fourth quarter of playoff games, on only 41 percent shooting, he has yet to prove that he could carry a team to the next level, despite his offensive gifts. Now thankfully, not every part of his game drops off when the games get tighter. His defense is one of the most underrated parts of his game, despite him having multiple All-Defensive selections. He protects the rim with the best of them, and is able to shut down the lane completely to people attempting to generate easy points at the rim. While he is not the most mobile when being brought out to the perimeter, he can hold his own on occasion when not being put up against the quickest players in the league. While I am here, one more dig at him; this man cannot stay healthy or conditioned for the life of him. A large part of his playoff woes lies in the fact that, whenever he makes it to the playoffs, he either cannot stay healthy enough to impact the game as much as he can in the regular season, or his conditioning lets him down in the more grinding games of the postseason, explaining his drastic fourth-quarter drop. Despite all of these shortcomings, I can’t really look past his polished offensive game and his dominant paint defense, and he still lands quite high on my list. 

3. Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks

While his team may have let him down this past season, how much of that can you really put on Giannis? The two-time MVP somehow managed to put in his best season this past year, being named to his sixth consecutive All-NBA First Team and managing to carry an old ass team to a high seed. While you may chalk some of that credit up to the addition of Damian Lillard, you would be wrong as he had his most underwhelming, and quite frankly worst, season since 2015-16. Giannis was thrown out on the floor with a bunch of geriatric patients that are showing their age more with each passing season, and he is showing out every single night. Averaging 30 points per night, on a disgustingly efficient 61 percent from the field, Giannis has taken the archetype of “run-and-dunk man” to its absolute limits. While he is rightfully docked points in many people’s books for his lack of shooting range, that has not done a whole lot to prevent him from hitting the highest peaks possible for a player, proving himself capable of being the far and away best player on a championship team. It just breaks my heart that he is not able to get the right team, or even the right staff, placed around him anymore to make that happen again. He is still bringing DPOY-level defense to the table every night, even with the dropoff in defensive capability surrounding him, and is able to set the table for his teammates every night as well. Averaging an outstanding 12.9 potential assists per game in the regular season, good for 11th in the league, he is exerting an incredible amount of energy on both sides of the ball day in and day out, and has become a bit of an underrated player in the process (sounds ridiculous, but hear me out). The fact that he wasn’t ever really in MVP talks over this past season is ridiculous to me, with people somehow blaming him for the organization hiring shitty coaches and trading the perfect complementary player in Jrue Holiday for an aging, past his prime superstar that does not fit in the team’s proven scheme. Despite being the outright best two-way player in the NBA, he does not get the love from the media or some of the fans that I believe he deserves for doing everything he is able to every single game.

2. Luka Doncic, Dallas Mavericks

Honestly, this top 3 could be organized in any way and I would not judge you. I see all three of these players to be a good head above the rest of the competition, and I can’t really see anyone else challenging them for a good few years. The boy wonder, Luka Magic himself, has cemented himself since his second season as one of the best players in the NBA, and has managed to figure out how to improve year by year after reaching such a ridiculous high so early. His virtuosic playmaking, second to only the best player in the league in my opinion, warps defenses and creates mindfucks of assists pretty much every single game. He can see angles and paths for his passes that have not even registered for most people till a few seconds after the pass has been made. He can enhance the play of any player around him, requiring only some defense around him in order to construct a strong team. For god’s sake, he managed to make Dwight Powell a viable starting center for a period somehow. The magic of Luka’s game is harder to explain than it is to just sit and watch, the way he is able to completely bend a defense to his will and do whatever he wants. Leading the league in scoring for the first time this past season (and surely not the last), he is able to score as efficiently as the best of them from all parts of the floor on any defender you throw at him, and there’s not point in double-teaming him either or he will manage to teleport the ball to whoever you have left open. Sure, his defense is lackluster at best. He misses rotations at times, and gets blown by more often than you would like due to his slow feet. His defensive rebounding, however, is outstanding for a guard due to his strength and positioning, and he is on constant triple-double watch. He is an offensive powerhouse of the James Harden mold, but on crack. It’s scary to think that he is still only 25 and can stand to improve even more, coming off of a Finals run for the first time for the Mavericks since their ring in 2011. We just have to hope that those improvements aren’t on defense, or the rest of the league pretty much stands no chance. 

1. Nikola Jokic, Denver Nuggets

Yeah, there was no other way this was gonna go. Despite the Nuggets flaming out early in the playoffs this past season, the three-time MVP did everything he could to will his team to the Finals for the second year in a row, despite an underwhelming Jamal Murray not doing a whole lot outside of two game winners in the first round. The combination of playmaking and scoring efficiency seen from Jokic is unparalleled in NBA history, and he has cemented himself as one of the greatest offensive powerhouses in the history of the league. Most of the attention for Jokic goes to his passing skills, and rightfully so, but I want to discuss his scoring a little bit. The unlimited post moves that he has in his bag, having counter after counter to fool the best defenders completely out of their shoes half the time, prove him to be nearly unguardable in single coverage. This is where the tricky part comes from; if you can’t guard him with one man, you gotta send a double team, right? But then he’s just gonna burn you with a pass through endless traffic, landing the ball right in the pocket of one of the many shooters the Nuggets have had. So, how exactly do you guard that? It’s pretty simple in my eyes: you don’t. All you can really do is hope to get lucky that the shooters miss their shots, or that Jokic has an uncharacteristic miss in the most efficient area of the court. With an outstanding 14.9 potential assists per game in the regular season, it seems that most teams are choosing the first option of those two, but it does not work all that well most of the time. His ability to dismantle an opposing team is a thing of beauty to see in action, and his combination of size, height, and passing vision allow him to make passes nobody else in the league is able to see. Even his defense has gotten better as the years go by. While he has gotten a reputation as being below-average, his smart positioning and active hands have elevated him to being slightly above average, despite not being a traditional rim-protecting center. Pair this with smart defenders on the wing and backcourt, such as Aaron Gordon and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and his defense is not the issue that most think it would be. There’s really not a whole lotta holes in his game at this point in his career, and he stands to run the league with his wholly unique and entertaining playstyle for years to come.

How to market an album

Consider this to be something of a companion piece to the previous post. The newest Jack White album, titled No Name, almost did not arrive at all. With its original release being as a handful of sneaky, unlabelled vinyls snuck into Third Man Records customers’ orders, it was never clear at first if it was ever going to be traditionally released, either widespread physically or through DSPs. This was left even further up in the air when he seemingly encouraged fans to pirate the album in lieu of getting their hands on a copy, on his Instagram story where White shared an image of the record with the caption “rip it.” Suffice to say, it was looking bleak for a release. But the way it was released, and the absolute lack of marketing at all for it, intrigued me so much that I heeded the man’s advice, hopped onto Soulseek, and downloaded it myself. An album that flew directly away from how you are supposed to market an album drew me in probably more than almost any other marketing in the last couple years. No singles, nothing trending on social media, nothing that was getting any airtime on the radio. Just some mystic appeal from one of the greatest guitar players of all time, and I was hooked. Suffice to say, this album absolutely rips, but that is not the focus of today; with its release on streaming this past Friday, surely you have listened by now, or at least read your fair share of reviews. Instead, I wanted to look at some of the other fun and creative ways that artists have marketed and released their albums in the past. 

One of the most notable ways to release an album, outside of the conventional means, is through pay-what-you-can (PWYC) means. Now known mostly as the backbone for the streaming service Bandcamp, as well as the primary way to get into most local rock shows, the first album that usually pops into someone’s mind for this method is Radiohead’s In Rainbows. Newly released from their record deal following their 2003 album Hail to the Thief, they announced it a few days prior and put it up on a new website under the same name as the album, where it could be pre-ordered for as little as $0. This was noted as being innovative at the time, as it had not frequently been used in the past in regards to music. However, even earlier than this, veteran punk rocker Jeff Rosenstock founded Quote Unquote Records, which he has dubbed to be “The First Ever Donation Based Record Label.” Every release on that label, beginning with Bomb the Music Industry’s debut Album Minus Band, has been released under the PWYC model.

We have looked at a couple of methods that have worked successfully, but what has not been so helpful in promoting an album? In 2011, The Flaming Lips released a new EP, in a limited quantity of 500, inside… a candy skull. In order to make your way to the four-track release, you had to eat your way through the head of the beast. Cool in theory, and maybe a fun fact to drop on some of your more indie-adjacent fans, but not really something that would make me go out of the way to try and hear the album. Famed Irish rock band U2 had their 2014 album, Songs of Innocence, was pretty much air-dropped onto hundreds of millions of iPhone users’ devices, leading to a massive amount of scrutiny and also some pretty middling reviews. Similarly, Jay-Z also had his 2013 album, Magna Carta Holy Grail, appear for free on the first one million people who downloaded it on a series of Samsung phones. Funnily enough, the vinyl distribution of this album was later handled by Third Man Records, Jack White’s record label. 

And now onto some of the weird and wholly unique ones. While nowadays this would not be seen as the most interesting or innovative release, back in 2007 Nine Inch Nails released an alternate reality game to accompany their album Year Zero, which ran from before the album’s release to shortly after. It was fairly well received, earning two Webby Awards for the game studio 42 Entertainment, but has not seen much recognition in the years since. Now-disgraced Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire made a couple different attempts at weird promotion, first by releasing some odd street art in support of their 2013 album Reflektor, and then by posting a fake review of their 2017 album Everything Now from a parody of the website Stereogum. Hard to say if these ever really worked, as they were not successful enough to have become notable all these years later. And of course, we cannot speak on odd album releases without mentioning the man himself, Richard D. James, famously known under his stage name Aphex Twin. The man who launched a blimp over London with a logo and a year, the man who went to the dark web to announce his album on a Tor-only website. What the fuck was he thinking doing all of this, and how did it work? He really seems to know his fanbase, I guess.

And finally, this takes me to my favourite way to release an album: just a good ol’ surprise release. You can never go wrong with this, so long as you have a fanbase that will notice when it gets released. While far from some of my favourite albums, two of the most notable surprise releases ever come from Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, for their albums Beyoncé and Folklore, respectively. Not my go-to listens by any means, but these two were absolutely massive upon their release and took the world by storm. Taylor Swift would go on to use this method again in the future, first for extra tracks following the release of Midnights, and then for the release of The Anthology hours after the release of The Tortured Poets Department. Eminem went for the same approach as well, in 2020 for Music to be Murdered By, but it was such a mediocre album that I completely forgot it was even released in this manner. In a sneaky little twist, Frank Ocean used the surprise release of Endless in 2016 just as a way to get out of his record deal with Def Jam, so he could independently release Blonde merely a day later. Surprise releases aren’t just for the fans, after all. People tend to credit the previously mentioned In Rainbows as the first-ever surprise album, which I find stupid as it was announced a bit more than a week before the official release. While most definitely short notice, if we are just counting the surprise of the announcement, then any album can be put onto this list. Using the surprise release just to deceive was also common at times; the release date for Watch the Throne by Kanye West and Jay-Z was frequently advertised falsely just to get ahead of any leaks (Jay-Z seems to really enjoy weird releases, huh?). And to return to Ocean, in an attempt to get ahead of leaks as well, he released his debut album Channel Orange a week earlier than its announced release date.

There’s no definitive way to release an album. While a good number of artists still go for the typical route of releasing singles, touring in support, and making interview appearances to drum up excitement, numerous examples from above help to prove that it isn’t the only way to go. While the methods above aren’t foolproof, and are sometimes bound to fail or be subject to criticism, how does that differ at all from the release of an album in general? You never know if something will be successful until it is. So why not try something new for once?

How to market a movie

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE 2024 HORROR FILM LONGLEGS

I don’t know if I’ve seen much movie marketing in the past like what Longlegs did in the lead up to its release. The various little clips posted to YouTube ahead of time, these cryptic teasers that explained almost nothing about the film itself, were entrancing. It was a little gateway into this new world that we had hardly ever heard of, let alone seen. Hell, even when the official trailer was released, I barely learned anything else about the movie. But damn, if it did not have me hooked. I haven’t been this excited to see a new movie since The Lighthouse came out in 2019. Sadly, I was not able to catch that one in theatres, although it did not disappoint in the slightest when I finally got to it. Thankfully, Longlegs did not either (for the most part). And I got to see it in theatres too!

Longlegs is a horror-thriller film directed by Oz Perkins, and features Maika Monroe as FBI Special Agent Lee Harker, who is assigned to the case of the enigmatic serial killer only known by the moniker Longlegs, portrayed by Nicolas Cage. At the scene of every crime, Longlegs would leave a note in a cryptic lettering unknown to anyone, with his “name” signed at the bottom of it. As far as the plot goes, it was pretty alright. For the majority of the film, it is a pretty standard thriller, drawing frequent comparisons to films such as Silence of the Lambs and Zodiac, before it goes all supernatural and odd near the end of it. Most of the issues I have with this film lie in the actual story, namely in the pacing of it at times. The thing that stood out most to me, is how the hell was Harker able to immediately decipher the code? I understand that it is implied that she was granted the power through the whole doll and her own personal connection to Longlegs, but I felt robbed of some fantastic cat-and-mouse thriller moments. 

I also felt that it was a little rushed in the finding of Longlegs himself, as well. I wanted to see some more with them showing us less, taking its time to really pick apart the characters more and understand their intentions. At times, it felt as if they left us purposefully unaware of some story so that they could produce a prequel surrounding how Longlegs made his pact with the devil. (Side note: why give him the name Dale? No disrespect to any Dales out there, but it is not exactly a name that strikes any fear in me.) It also proved a little predictable at times, with many of the plot points being guessed through the film by me and/or my girlfriend, albeit that didn’t really impact my enjoyment much at all. Overall, the story did what it had to and kept me in my seat, providing an interesting enough plot for me to wanna keep watching, that helped to highlight some of the other outstanding parts of this film. 

The production for this film was absolutely outstanding. The cinematography was done pretty much perfectly, with pretty much every shot either being terrifying or beautiful, sometimes both at the same time. So many of the shots would keep the subject to the side, leaving a nice empty space for anything to happen behind them: an empty doorway where someone could appear, a window to be smashed, a room for someone to stroll through. While it is often a mulligan, it works incredibly to build the tension in a scene, even when there is little to no pay-off. I was also obsessed with how they would shoot Longlegs himself towards the start of the film, keeping his eyes out of the shot purposefully. Letting it wander in our minds, imagining what he could truly look like when you fully saw him, really helped to portray him as a more otherworldly thing than he really was and amped up the fear that he brought when he would enter a scene. I really wish they had not abandoned this motif as they got further into the movie, as it was a cool and unique way to showcase this fella. 

Continuing from a production standpoint, the sound design and soundtrack were what really elevated this film for me. Written and performed by Elvis Perkins, brother of the director, it perfectly compliments the atmosphere and sells every single scary, disturbing, or otherwise odd moment in this film (of which there are lots). The way it would build up to any climactic scenes, such as the first direct meeting between Harker and the titular character, sent shivers down my spine. This whole scene was a masterclass, all of the best parts of the film combined into one taut moment, but it would not have landed without the incredible score with those haunting stabs.

Okay, so I know I just said that the production was what made this movie for me, but I may have lied. Nicolas Cage, one of the most divisive actors you may ever hear of in your life, capable of some of the greatest and also worst films you have ever seen, is what really made this film for me. He is so fucking terrifying from the second he steps on screen, with that warbly-ass voice and that musty-ass hair, there is just something off about him that made me wanna look away whenever I knew he would be coming. The way the makeup and prosthetics were put on him almost gives him this uncanny valley-type appearance which was really messing with me during the film. While I have not seen a large portion of his filmography, I can safely say that this is my favourite performance of his that I have ever seen. Despite almost looking like one of the skin moulds from White Chicks, and given some almost-cringeworthy moments like the screaming-wailing that song in the car, he still imbues this unsettling energy that makes my spine crawl outta my body. Bonus points for his death scene, for being one of the most visceral and crazy deaths I’ve seen in a movie in a while, and for almost making me jump outta my seat. 

While Longlegs is far from a perfect movie, it was still an exceedingly enjoyable time to see, and a case study in how to effectively market a movie in this ever-increasing online world. I was excited to see it the first time, and I am looking forward to watching it again, be that in theatres again or when it hits streaming. Rendered wholly unique for its sound design and cinematography, and featuring star turns from Maika Monroe and the always-fascinating Nicolas Cage, this movie is quickly becoming an essential for anyone who is interested in indie horror.

LONGLEGS RATING: 8/10

The Bear Season 3: Review

I’ve never had a show make me feel this damn anxious. Not like horror movie anxious, where your stomach drops when you anticipate the next jump scare, or you see something pop up in the mirror for a second. No, this is the dread that you feel when you’re gonna get some bad news; someone’s gotta get laid off, and it might be you. You have work coming up, and you just know that today will be particularly terrible. Family’s coming over, and you have nothing to make for dinner. It’s the purest form of dread, the essence of the worst nightmares that hit us all at one point or another. This show, in it’s short amount of time, has done that to me on numerous occasions, and it got me again. It’s been out for about a week now, hopefully enough time for anyone to have gotten through it, and if not then that sucks, I’m gonna talk about it anyways. Despite a couple little flaws, this remains one of the most thrilling, interesting, wholly unique shows currently airing. The casting, the writing, the cinematography, the editing, every piece of the puzzle matches up perfectly to create a picture of (barely) controlled chaos.

First, let’s start with the few drawbacks I had with this season. There were a couple episodes that I felt, while important to the story, the landing was a little bit rocky. The opening episode, “Tomorrow”, was filled with a lot of flashbacks that helped paint a helpful portrait of Carmy’s culinary experience, along with fleshing out his neglect to attend to Mikey’s funeral, but the pacing felt a little bit all over the place with too much going on, especially for the return to the series after the wait from season 2. “Ice Chips”, on the other hand, did not have much of anything happening. The complicated picture of Nat and Donna’s relationship, and how it has changed and stayed the same since “Fishes” was nice to see, but it seemed as if they did not take it as far as it could go, always seeming to straddle a line between craziness and blandness. The ending with Donna and the Faks was very nice, though. Other than that, it is just small gripes such as the repeated cuts to black for about a half second throughout the season, which stagger the episodes in a way that completely takes me out of it. I also was not thrilled with the season ending on not one, but two cliffhangers, with Sydney’s impending decision and Cicero’s possible shut-down of The Bear both looming over the end credits. The shots lean a little bit too heavily on extreme close-ups of the characters sometimes, which may have been intended to make it a bit more personal but feels a bit cheap at times, particularly when it is jumping between characters during this. On the bright side, that’s pretty much all the issues I have with the season, so it’s onto the good. 

Let’s talk about the character’s relationships. Watching Sydney and Carmy unravel from each other slowly but surely, as the latter undoes and works around the former the entire season, is masterful. You can feel her breaking bit by bit in every episode from the second they gather back in the kitchen for the second episode, “Next”. On the other side, seeing Carmy and Richie bicker endlessly each time they share a scene together works as a beautiful icebreaker for some of the most stressful moments, aside from during “Doors”. Their climactic fight brings the episode to a head as things keep threatening to boil over, although it does settle to a simmer after for the remainder of the season. Just when you think things are gonna get bad in the finale “Forever”, it goes about as nicely as it can between the two, with exactly zero interaction. It seems both have grown up and moved on in a personal sense, seeing each other only professionally from this point forward. Thinking back on it, Carmy is the only one who suffers serious relationship issues regarding fresh ones this season. 

I love every character in this show. They feel so real and fleshed out; the expansion of the Fak family is nice and makes me feel like I know all of them (featuring a wonderful guest appearance from John Cena as Sammy Fak), and the expanded role for the main Fak is welcome as a palate cleanser as everybody else’s plot gets more serious. His bit in “Doors” where he pours the soup for the customers and walks back to the kitchen, soup in hand, was very nice in the midst of an episode that had my heart jumping out of my chest. Tina is given an even more expanded role, including having a whole episode on her backstory that successfully brought me to tears, and featured another outstanding guest appearance from Jon Bernthal. I do wish there was more Gary, as he was always very pleasant and interesting in the short amount of time he was given on-screen. Oliver Platt continues to steal every scene he appears in, with just enough comedy to balance out the usually bad news he is delivering about the restaurant. Natalie is still sweet and lovely in all of her appearances, being one of the only characters to not get into a spat with anyone else during the series, even when she is stuck dealing with Donna. 

Carmy is who he is, you hate everything he does and how he is treating the people around him, and yet you can’t help but root for him to succeed. Marcus, aside from the funeral scene, is relegated a little bit more to the sidelines from the previous seasons which is a shame. I feel like they could have gone further with his coping, and an episode showing his background could’ve gone a long way. At the same time, it’s nice to see a bit more Ebra, after his role was sadly reduced last season. But forever and always, the two really anchoring this show for me, are Sydney and Richie. I have just absolutely loved seeing Richie’s transformation from the beginning of the series. He may not have any “Forks” level episodes in this season, but you can still see him shedding more and more of the walls he had present when the show begun, and his reunion with the crew at Ever is really nice. Sydney is the emotional core of the series, and from the moment she was introduced, has been the easiest and most fun character to root for. You can feel the yearning for success in everything she does and all of the ideas she has, but unlike Carmy, she does not sacrifice the feelings of the people around her to be able to reach these goals. She is constantly being fucked over by him, and still manages to show up to work everyday to have her ideas stepped on and bent. We all wish we could be more like Sydney. I do wish there was a little bit more Pete, though. This whole article may have turned out to be me just praising all of the characters, but that’s pretty fitting for a show with such a beautifully constructed ecosystem of performers at their peak.

It’s hard to find a whole lot wrong with this show. Even the things that I did not love still worked pretty good, and I had to be pretty nitpicky to be able to make a list of stuff for this. While it may not top the second season for me, which is a straight up perfect season of television, this is more than a worthy successor. The Bear is a completely different animal compared to any other show you will see on television this year, or any year. Incredibly tense, hilarious, heartfelt, smart, dark, drab, dreary, a billion other d-words, I could spend hours praising this for every little thing. But in the end, it’s probably just best if you watched it for yourself.

Guide to Boldy James

Boldy James is far and away one of the most prolific artists currently releasing music. A stark contrast from his labelmate Stove God Cooks, who has yet to release his sophomore project, Boldy is about to drop his fourteenth full-length project since the beginning of this incredible run in 2020. With so much music to get through, many people may not know where to begin when they stumble upon him. An almost unprecedented run, one of the most prolific rappers this side of Gucci Mane has left his stamp on the scene in a real way. With this guide, hopefully I can help some people dive deeper into his discography and understand why I consider him to be one of the best and most exciting artists currently out there. 

The Price of Tea in China

The Price of Tea in China, produced entirely by The Alchemist, is the album that really kickstarted the recent Boldy renaissance. While not my favourite of his projects, or even of his collaborations with Al, it’s still a very strong album featuring some standout performances and entrancing production. As something of a retry for Boldy following a relatively disappointing few years that followed his debut album, he showcases his impeccable chemistry with his most common producer, and the one that has brought him the most success and acclaim. He would hit higher peaks in some of the following projects, but we would not be witnessing this run if TPOTIC had not happened to thrust Boldy back into the scene. 

Best Track: “Surf & Turf” ft. Vince Staples

Manger on McNichols

Okay, controversial opinion from me: I personally have never understood the hype surrounding this album. One of his most critically acclaimed, and often considered to be his best by fans, this album was recorded long before its release with producer Sterling Toles, only to be held onto for over a decade. With the production of the album being started in 2007, it is technically the oldest project on this list despite being released not too long after TPOTIC. Don’t get me wrong: I do still find this to be a pretty enjoyable album. It is just very rough around the edges, and the age shines through pretty clearly. Boldly is not in his peak form yet, and things like the vocal mixing are not as polished as we would come to be used to in his following projects. The production from Toles is still a standout, however, with his jazzy tapestry taking centre stage, with Boldy’s voice folding in as yet another instrument to compliment the soundscape. Overall, far from my favourite project, but still one of the most essential if only to highlight the progression of him as an artist.

Best Track: “Mommy Dearest (A Eulogy)”

Fair Exchange No Robbery

Now THIS is my kinda shit. Far and away my favourite project from this list, this finds Boldy collaborating with Canadian producer Nicholas Craven for their first full album together (more on them later). After they first worked together on Craven’s song “Yzerman”, this finds them linking up for one of the most outstanding collab albums I may have ever heard, period. The hypnotic, and frequently drumless production provides the perfect backdrop for Boldy’s darkly comedic musings. While each song can stand on its own through this project, I find it is always best consumed as a full experience, played on full blast in a car with the windows down during the winter. It’s not too often you find what you could consider a “winter rap album” but I find this one to fit perfectly into that mold. Pretty sparse on features, with the only one being a fun appearance from Gue Wop on “0 Tre Nine”, it serves as the perfect vehicle for Boldy to discuss his experiences out in the street, along with dabbling into some other topics such as his issues with drug abuse. An incredible, possibly flawless record in my eyes that deserves even more shine than it already gets.

Best Track: All of Them

Bo Jackson

This is some more of that good shit, although quite different from Fair Exchange No Robbery. A sequel to the previous Alchemist collab, Bo Jackson takes everything from TPOTIC and amplifies it, smoothing out the edges and putting out an album that's every bit as smooth as its predecessor, if not better. With more interesting beats, better mixing, and more memorable songwriting, I find this album to be the peak of the now-legendary duo. With more high profile features this time around, with the likes of Earl Sweatshirt appearing alongside Boldy mainstays Freddie Gibbs and Benny the Butcher, this is a cohesive and strong album with some of the most purely fun songs in his entire catalogue. The second-best produced album on this list in my opinion (behind Fair Exchange), this is a remarkably consistent album in a discography that has become notable for its consistency. 

Best Track: “Brickmile to Montana”

My 1st Chemistry Set

To be completely honest, I don’t have a whole lot to say about this album. By far the worst project I will be diving into on its own today, this finds Boldy working with The Alchemist for the first time, before he had really found his footing or his sound. Featuring probably the weakest set of beats in their four albums together, it is still far from a bad album. It just fails to reach the consistent highs that pretty much all of the other albums on this list have hit, and suffers when compared to his later discography. It is most definitely an important listen for anyone looking to get into him fully, but for casual listeners, it’s best to leave this one to the side. 

Best Track: “400 Thousand”

Killing Nothing

The second of two albums with production duo Real Bad Man, Killing Nothing finds Boldy at his most straight-forward overall, with some strong, albeit “normal”, comparatively, beats that find him in a pocket that lines up more with his Griselda labelmates. An overall dark and eerie album, this features some of the best overall rapping in the entire discography, shining even more with less to work with production-wise. This is nothing against the beats, let me be clear: while the production is very strong, I just prefer him on the more doom-and-gloom, drumless beats that we have come to know him for as we get later into his career. While definitely a step-up from his previous album with Real Bad Man, Boldy has seen higher peaks in this stretch of his career, and higher peaks even in the year this album was released. Overall worth a listen, particularly for people who find the drumless sound to be a bit too annoying and repetitive for their liking. 

Best Track: “Open Door” ft. Rome Streetz and Stove God Cooks

Penalty of Leadership

We are so back. I am not kidding when I say this was far and away my most anticipated album that was to come out this year, and I can’t say I am disappointed at all with how it turned out. Featuring Boldy and Craven picking up exactly where they left off, this album has some special context. It came out following a near-death experience from Boldy, after he was in a car crash that left him hospitalised and wheelchair-bound, which helped to shape much of the narrative of this album. Although there is still plenty of him talking and rapping about his experiences in the streets and how that has left an effect on him even when far-removed from it, the situation gives him a chance to be more introspective than we have ever seen him before, diving more into discussions on his own mortality and what it was like having to go through physical therapy. While it is hard to say that it hits the peaks of its predecessor, Penalty of Leadership is still an outstanding album that finds the artists continuing to hone in their chemistry when working together.

Best Track: “Brand New Chanel Kicks”

The Versace Tape

When this one came out, I cannot say I saw it coming. Featuring production from former Vine star Jay Versace, I’m not exactly in love with this album, but seeing as it featured in Boldy’s insane 2020 run I figured I would give it a quick mention. The production is solid if not super memorable, featuring sounds that have been done far better by other producers across the discography, and the bars don’t hit quite as hard as they have in the past. It feels a bit longer than it is, at a succinct 23 minutes, and doesn’t do a lot to lend itself to relistens when there is so much more quality to listen to in the discography. A fine album overall, but I would only really recommend this to big Boldy fans who want to cover all of their bases. 

Best Track: “Brick Van Exel”

Super Tecmo Bo

The last in a series of collaborations with The Alchemist (thus far), this serves as something of a victory lap for the two, following their acclaimed album Bo Jackson. Featuring mostly tracks that had been left off of the previously mentioned album, Super Tecmo Bo finds the two of them still continuing to produce music that stands far above most other rappers out there, even when it is just their throwaway tracks. While certainly less cohesive in sound than most of the other projects on this list, this is still a fun project that holds a handful of tracks that I still love to go back to every once in a while, even if the two of them have other projects that are better overall. 

Best Track: “Hot Water Tank” ft. ICECOLDBISHOP

The Others/Conclusion

While this is generally a throwaway category for the projects that I am overall not too thrilled by, I did want to take a moment to shout out a couple of his singles that I am very fond of. “Turkey Noodle Soup” with The Alchemist and BandGang Lonnie Bands and “Death & Taxes'' with Nicholas Craven are both fantastically produced, and show two different sides of Boldy that even on their own, help showcase his appeal as much as ever. The Art of Rock Climbing is far and away the worst project released since his debut album came out, with DJ Butler lending nothing of interest and Boldy far from the peak of his powers by this point. Real Bad Boldy, his first collab with Real Bad Man, is a fine album that doesn’t do any one thing particularly fantastic, with weaker production than its sequel, although Boldy is still as entertaining as ever. Mr. Ten08 with Futurewave is pretty much the exact same situation, except there isn’t any sort of sequel that helps to redeem the producer. Be That As it May with Cuns is exceptionally boring, with very few tracks that I have chosen to return back to. The most recent album in this category, Indiana Jones with RichGains, finds Boldy paired up with some of the worst beats and mixing of his career, rendering anything he may be doing on the mic pointless as it is completely overshadowed by the lack of interesting production across this project. Overall, Boldy has one of the most impressive discographies of probably any rapper I have heard from any era. With numerous albums that I could see aging well enough to be considered classics, I have no doubt about his staying power, and I am incredibly excited for his upcoming album with Conductor Williams, with the singles seeming particularly promising. 

Genre: Badalbum

Genre: Sadboy is a collaborative album/EP from former rapper and pop-punk fraudster Machine Gun Kelly (now known as just MGK), and rapper/singer Trippie Redd, and Jesus Christ this may be one of the worst pieces of music I have ever listened to. At the very least, the worst of this year. I struggle to find even one redeeming part of this 27 minute mess of a collaboration, with both artists sinking to new lows for their already far from stellar careers. While there is a handful of Trippie Redd music that I have enjoyed in the past, namely his mixtape A Love Letter To You 3 and the album Life’s A Trip, his last handful of projects have been falling flat. Deciding to bloat his projects with 20+ songs at a time instead of whittling it down to the best tracks, along with pushing out as many projects a year as he possibly can, it has been a remarkable fall from grace. And then there is MGK, who in my humble opinion, has always been pretty terrible. As a rapper he always came across incredibly boring and annoying to me, but both of those facets were cranked to the max when he made the transition to pop-punk slog. 

Now, this is not to detract from either the genre of pop-punk or emo rap, as there’s tons within the genres I enjoy: artists like Pup and Lil Peep still regularly feature in my rotation to this day. But whatever has been done in the making of this album is a bastardization, an absolute joke in the face of the actually good projects that preceded it within the genre (pretty in-line with MGK’s general pop-punk career, actually). With Trippie lacking any of the passion and energy that buoyed his best moments, he sounds bored as hell aside from a merely-passable first appearance on the album. MGK on the other hand sounds very much here and present, and we are left off all the worse for it. The numerous layers of autotune strip away any sincerity you could possibly try to take away from this, and grates against your ears. And speaking again of Lil Peep, who’s music I love dearly, MGK makes a few attempts at doing an impression of the Castles era, particularly on the track “time travel”, which seems to even reference Peep lyrically. The lyrics “Yeah, when I die, leave my chains on” immediately reminded me of a worse version of Peep’s lyric “When I die, bury me with all my ice on” from his classic track “Witchblades”, which paints MGK in an even less flattering light.

Let’s talk about some of the lyrics on this album, because oh my god they are so awful. Along with the previously mentioned one that just sounded like a shitty rip-off, we have such tone-deaf classics like “have you ever fuckin’ cried in a limousine” from Trippie on the track “suddenly”, which just spits in the face of anyone who is dealing with any of the issues that they are singing about (if you can even be so generous to call it singing). This is not to detract from the fact that MGK or Trippie Redd may actually be struggling with their mental health, as there is no way for me to truly know; it is just that the way they portray it is so glaringly shallow and unsympathetic, and comes across as disingenuous purely due to how they chose to deliver it across this project. Another all-time awful lyric comes from the song “half dead”, when Trippie Redd comes up with this incredibly astute and philosophical lyric “woke up sad than a fuck”. What the hell does this mean? Is there any meaning at all to really be taken from this bar? Or, more likely, are they both just trying to fill up the time on this incredibly rushed album for the sake of releasing it and making some more money, profiting off of a scene that: in MGK’s case, he is attempting to piggyback on for relevance; or in Trippie’s case, a genre he formerly belonged to that he no longer has the spark or passion to be able to stand out in. The lyrics on this album overall just hurt to listen to, and came across completely hollow. The only ones that stuck with me at all were just due to how laughably bad they were. Also a quick shoutout to the JID feature on “who do i call”, which manages to take one of the best rappers of the current generation and bring him down to the level of the lead artists on this project. What in the world made them think of bringing him of all people onto this? Just an absolute disgrace.

The production on this album does not make it hurt any less. Each track is an incredibly overproduced and bland composition (outside of one notable example) that seems to blend together completely; I struggle to find anything distinct about most of these tracks, and even though I finished listening to it very recently, I could not tell you what any of the songs sound like, or what separates them from each other. A majority of the production here was handled by SlimXX and Charlie Handsome. Slim is best known for his work on other MGK music so I cannot say I am too surprised by his contributions, but Handsome has had his hands on some very good tracks in the past (“Drugs You Should Try It” by Travis Scott, “Righteous” by Juice Wrld, “Weekend” by Mac Miller are some examples) so I am more than a little disappointed by how lazy the production on here sounds. The only song on here that deviates from the norm is the second track “beauty” which samples from the track “Let Go” by Frou Frou. With this song being a recent favourite of mine, it hurt to hear the sample be butchered completely here, paling in comparison to another recent usage of the sample by Maxo Kream for the track “Bang the Bus”. It’s like MGK and Trippie came together just to make the worst album for me specifically to listen to. 

I did not expect to enjoy this album by any stretch when I went into it, and yet I somehow walked away even worse off than I expected. From the incredibly boring cover art, to the painfully cringey album title, to everything that happens from the time you hit play to the minute you uninstall Spotify, I can’t believe some executive at Interscope heard this and decided it was a good idea to release it. I want that 27 minutes of my life back please.

Recent Listens - March 2024

Usually, I would go through the new music that I have discovered throughout the month and highlight them. But to be completely honest, I have not been listening to nearly enough new music recently and have been mostly prioritising catching up on my ever-growing watchlist instead. So I am gonna do something different this time, and just focus on some of the older tunes that have been taking up a lot of my time recently. Might not be anything too groundbreaking, but it’s nice to talk about the music that I have been really rocking with.

John Mayer

While I have been slightly diving into other parts of his discography, it’s pretty much just been Continuum and various live versions that I have been listening to. I often disregarded Mayer when I was younger just based on his radio hits and general reputation, but I gotta admit that I have been wrong and dumb this whole time. This man can sing, and has some serious guitar chops to go along with it. While the lyrical content can be questionable at times (“Your Body Is a Wonderland”, I’m looking at you), and his antics have been unforgivable, he has some pretty heavy hitters in his discography. The hit “New Light” has been stuck in my head since I rediscovered it, and the track “Stop This Train” from the previously mentioned Continuum is a very tender and sweet song that features some of his best songwriting. Even some of the singles which I had grown up hating as a little kid have a tinge of nostalgia to them too, and are overall a nice listen albeit bland at times (“Daughters” and “Gravity” are probably the two most notable). Even if you were a detractor in the past, I definitely suggest you give him another shot, especially to his live albums if you want to hear him highlight his guitar playing. 

Frou Frou - Details

In my hunt for more indietronica akin to Radio Dept. or The Postal Service, I stumbled upon this album and immediately fell in love. The vocals from Imogen Heap sit perfectly atop the relaxing production, and while it may have not been the exact vibe I was looking for at the time, it has stuck with me and been something I have been returning to for a while. Although the ending of the album trails off a little bit compared to the incredibly strong start, it has a pretty wide range of sounds throughout it and has a lot to offer for whatever you are listening to.

Meat Puppets - Meat Puppets II

While this is an album I had listened to before, it was a long time ago and I had pretty much forgotten all about it, eschewing it for Too High To Die. Sadly, in that time, I forgot just how damn good this album is. Likely their most acclaimed album overall, Meat Puppets II helped to set the stage for the era of slacker rock that would hit in the ‘90s, and it is one hell of a blueprint, but they were primarily credited for bringing the mishmash of country and punk to a more mainstream audience. Which is to say, without this album we would not have had Wednesday’s fantastic 2023 album Rat Saw God, so for that alone this band deserves praise. The Kirkwood brothers bring their S-game on here instrumentally, although the lyrical and vocal content does improve on their follow-up album. Overall, a very strong album from one of the early indie rock artists of the ‘80s that helped establish a sound for generations to follow.

Lil Wayne - Rebirth

This album is far from good. It is objectively bad, actually. But goddamnit, if I don’t have so much fun listening to this album sometimes. The lyrics are odd and uncomfortable in their best moments, the vocals are abhorrent pretty much throughout, and the features are somehow even worse than Wayne on this album. The guitar lines and general instrumentation are some of the most bland, overproduced, and outright annoying things to come out probably ever. But the second you put on “Knockout” I will be going absolutely feral, no matter where we are. It’s hard to really say why I keep returning to this album; it serves almost as The Room of music in my eyes. There’s not a whole lot worse that I have heard, but nothing as bad as this is as enjoyable at the same time (for all the wrong reasons).

Freddie Gibbs - “Knicks (Remix)”

The only single that I will be mentioning on this segment, Gibbs’ album Pinata has been one of my favourite rap albums ever since the day I first heard it, and this remix just helps to amplify one of the many standouts across the length of the album. Featuring guest verses from Action Bronson, Ransom, and Joey Bada$$, as well as a whole new verse from Gibbs himself, they all glide over the smooth production from Madlib that sounds as fresh today as it did in 2014. Just a banger that keeps rooting itself in my head, while also featuring one of my favourite basketball references in rap, courtesy of Bronson. 

Honourable Mentions

While I have not been listening to them constantly, I was very impressed with Future and Metro Boomin’s new album We Don’t Trust You, as well as the new Beyoncé country album COWBOY CARTER. Both of them will soon be getting more listens from me as I break them down, and maybe will get covered on here at some point. I have also recently stumbled upon Lazer Dim 700, a dark plugg rapper with probably the least usage of mixing in any music this side of the millennium. And of course, there will not be a month that goes by that does not feature me extensively listening to The Strokes, primarily their masterpiece Is This It, although I will try not to mention it too much each time for the sake of redundancy. But goddamn do I love that album.

Sports and Music

Well, it was inevitable that I found a way to crossover my blog with my love of basketball. There were two ways that I could tackle this; I could either focus on how they have impacted one another, or I could look for the specific examples where they have intertwined. I have chosen the latter, as I find it to be a lot more fun for me to research, as I get to listen to some music that ranges from great to very below average. There are numerous athletes who have crossed over into rapping as a side profession; some of the most notable may include Shaquille O’Neal or Damian Lillard, but did you know that role players Andre Drummond and Iman Shumpert have also tried their hand at the career? Let’s look at some of the most notable and interesting intersections of these two careers. Please note that there will not be a whole lot to say about some of these, so excuse the brevity in some cases. This will also be skewed towards NBA players, as I have no care for any other sports.  

Shaquille O’Neal

The Big Diesel himself has solidified his name as the most successful rapping basketball player, due both to his outrageous off-the-court persona and his actual success in translating it into music. The four-time champion and one-time MVP has released five albums across the last three decades, starting off as a rapper before switching it up and becoming a DJ affiliated with the label Monstercat. While I can’t say that I’m exactly as big a fan of his music as I am his game, he does provide some really fun and silly songs across his catalog, such as the top 40 hit “(I Know I Got) Skillz”. It’s also interesting for him to not only have been part of the rap scene, but to be one of the most name-dropped athletes in rap. More recently, he reappeared in the rap game for the remix of “Shaq & Kobe” by Rick Ross and Meek Mill, with a surprisingly passable verse (despite some outdated flows). Also featured on this remix: our next focus, Damian Lillard.

Damian Lillard

People most commonly tout 8-time All-Star Damian Lillard as the best rapper in the NBA, which is hard to contend when you realize he is very easily the most notable despite a lack of commercial success. He has released four albums since his debut The Letter O in 2016, and has managed to garner features from rap legends like Lil Wayne, Mozzy, and Snoop Dogg throughout his career. On a technical level he is definitely more than capable, with a voice well-suited for rapping and some decent flows. While I have not listened to his entire catalog, tapping out after the first two albums he has released, I could never really get behind his music and became rather bored. I’m sure he is having fun while making it, but there’s no fun to be had in listening to him for an hour at a time. 

Miles Bridges

Now this is a fun rapper. Controversy and criminal record aside, there is not an NBA rapper that I would rather listen to than Bridges. Slotting perfectly within the burgeoning Detroit scene with his music and crossing over with notable artists in the scene such as Babytron, Miles Bridges manages to come across as a rapper who also happens to play basketball professionally, instead of being an NBA player who has decided to release some rap music. Lacing some fun references to his day job throughout his tracks, his outrageous music fits perfectly alongside some of his high-flying highlights. He even managed to get another NBA player, former teammate Terry Rozier, to appear on one of his songs to mixed effect.

Javale McGee

This is gonna be a short one, but it is interesting because this is the first instance of one of the players being a producer on this list, as opposed to being the main musician. Shaqtin’ A Fool lifetime MVP Javale McGee managed to land himself a production credit (under his stage name Pierre) on Justin Bieber’s album Changes for the track “Available”. This would make McGee a Grammy nominee, as the album had been nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album. So that’s pretty cool, especially for someone who was frequently scrutinized in the NBA. He has apparently also released his own solo album under his moniker, but any attempts of mine to find it on streaming just lead me to Pi’erre Bourne.

Chris Webber

Here’s an instance of an NBA player rapping and producing. His only album 2 Much Drama was released in 1999, with features from rappers Kurupt and Redman, and was largely self-produced by the 5-time All-Star. Not only has he worked on his own music, he has a production credit for a Nas track, “Surviving the Times” from his greatest hits album, a very solid song worth checking out. While his solo album was not very notable and I cannot say I highly recommend it, sparing yourself a few minutes to listen to a couple tracks definitely wouldn’t hurt, either.

And The Others

I’m gonna run through a handful of other NBA players who have tried their hand at music. Lonzo Ball, perpetually injured point guard for the Chicago Bulls, releases music under the moniker Zo, which is less than spectacular. Tony Parker, the Hall of Famer point guard for the San Antonio Spurs, released some French rap a while ago, which is very not good. Andre Drummond, another Shaqtin’ A Fool mainstay, has made an attempt at crossing over, and believe it or not, it also is not the best. Marvin Bagley III releases under the stage name MB3FIVE, and if you like Meek Mill maybe you can find something to take away from his music that I could not. And finally, legendary player Mason Plumlee, the Plumdog Millionaire himself, featured on a song by a guy named Will Roush, which ended up being hilarious. That’s about all I had today, nothing too fancy, just a fun little post that gave me an excuse to talk about another one of my favourite hobbies.

Faith in Films

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE FILM FIRST REFORMED, DIRECTED BY PAUL SCHRADER

I would like to preface this by saying that I am not a religious or faithful person. While it is something that I have been around, and I interact regularly with people who are faithful, it is not a significant portion of my life. This post is not meant to speak directly about faith, my feelings on it, or my own experiences with and around it. Also, the title of this post is a little bit of a lie, as I will be touching mainly on one film, First Reformed. Written and directed by Paul Schrader, and starring Ethan Hawke as Ernst Toller and Amanda Seyfried as Mary Mensana, the film follows a pastor who begins questioning his faith amidst numerous personal situations that weigh on his psyche, and one of the attendees at his church. I don’t know if this is more of a review for the film, or if it serves more of a personal analysis. I know I am a little late on it as it had its wide release in 2018, but there are always tons of movies coming out and it is hard to see all of them. Plus, I’m not sure how thrilled 16-year-old me would have been to watch a slow, sullen treatise on how faith and environmental activism may intertwine. I am glad I got to this film eventually though, as while it is very heavy thematically and plot-wise, it felt incredibly rewarding and it will likely reveal even more to me through repeat viewings. 

The cinematography, led by Alexander Dynan, was gorgeous. The film is full of prolonged shots, drawing us into the lives of these characters and planting us firmly in the setting. Some shots, such as following Toller and Mary’s bike ride, stretch on for longer than a minute, slowly tracking these characters through their setting. This helps to keep the film grounded, and grant it more of a sense of realism by not granting us any reprieve, any rest from whatever uncomfortable topics or scenes there may be. This is especially prevalent in the scene where Toller discovers Michael Mensada’s body following his suicide; there are no cutaways, nothing to take us from focusing on the sadness and despair at hand. The usage of the aspect ratio was reportedly used to “get more of the human body in the frame,” and it works to beautiful effect. This is a film dominated by the characters, and the way that it is shot allows them ample space to be able to flesh out these people. These shots, drawn out and encapsulating the mundanities of the locale, bring out some humanity. This is a place where we can imagine ourselves, not so basic that it seems boring, but rather familiar and comforting.

Music is used very sparingly throughout the film; there are periodic drones that will pop in during big moments, such as when Toller is looking through the photographs he found at Michael’s home. They begin as a murmur, sneaking in from the background before forming a wall that surrounds the characters, evoking a sense of dread to go along with what we are seeing. Between this and the periodic stabs of the organ while in the church, the soundtrack consists of a collage of ambient sounds. They form waves, colliding and disappearing over and over, coinciding with the waves of emotion both the characters and we, the viewers, experience throughout this story. The subtle chirps of birds and the way the foundation of houses shift as people move throughout them. This is the soundtrack to our days as we live our lives, so it is fitting that they would help to coordinate the days of these characters. There are periods of emptiness throughout, granting a hollow feeling to these rooms. The people walking through them, notably Toller, are merely ghosts. Husks of who they used to be, ruined and torn apart by the circumstances that brought them here, such as Toller’s death of his son and following divorce, or in Mary’s case, Michael’s suicide.

A lot of the film’s overarching story focuses on the reconsecration of the church for its 250th anniversary. I find there are parallels to be drawn between this and the development of Toller as a character; it serves as a metaphor for his own personal reckoning, with the day of the event serving as the same day where it seems that he finally stops grappling with his issues of faith and starts leaning into a new life. The most notable parallel, however, can be drawn between Toller and Michael. When we are first greeted by these characters, both are grappling with their own personal reckoning, both due to past situations and current. Toller has to deal with the collapse of his body due to his apparent stomach cancer, while Michael is fighting against the collapse of the world around him, as an environmental activist. Both of these sanctuaries are being destroyed by those who are meant to take care of it; in Michael’s case, he is nothing but a witness, unable to do anything about it despite his attempts. Toller, however, is cognizant of the steps he could take to improve things, but chooses the opposite even at the wishes of the doctor. Shortly following his check-up at the hospital, when he is asked to stop drinking, he is seen pouring himself another drink in apparent disregard. Not only is he not taking care of himself, he has put up walls to prevent those around from helping him, much like Michael did as well. The key difference comes at the end; while Michael took his life, Toller was stopped by the presence of someone else, allowing Mary into his struggles in a way that Michael was never able to since he had come back from prison. His reunion and saving by Mary serves another purpose. We see Toller wrap himself in the barbed wire and put on his alb overtop it before he drinks the drain cleaner, with the wire apparently still being on him during the embrace between the two characters. This embrace causes him pain, as allowing her to come to him has damaged not only him, but a piece of his life as well. And yet, this damage and destruction that is caused to him and all he knows may have been necessary in allowing him to carry on. When you’re caught in a bear trap, sometimes you have to lose a limb to save your life. 

I was thrilled with my experience with this movie, despite not having much of a religious background to focus and reflect on myself. The dialogue felt very real, and the characters and world felt fleshed out to the point that it felt ripped right out of somebody’s diary. I’m no filmmaker or anything of the sort, but I was also particularly impressed by the technical aspects of this film, especially with them being far from the priority in a story like this. It felt like not a single detail was overlooked in the creation of this film, and serves as a testament to the talents of Paul Schrader. In my opinion, the strength and quality of this film places it alongside The Master and The Seventh Seal as one of the most important films on faith ever made. But that’s just my little opinion, watch it for yourself and see what you think. I guarantee you won’t regret it.

Lost At Sea

SPOILERS FOLLOW FOR THE NETFLIX SERIES BOJACK HORSEMAN

Finally back from my self-imposed hiatus! If you have any annoying friends, or you are the annoying friend, I can guarantee you have at least been confronted about the possibility of watching the Netflix show Bojack Horseman (it’s okay, I’m the annoying friend in this case). Maybe you have been attempted to be swayed to watch it with claims that it is “not like other shows,” and that you just need to get through the first season. I can’t say that I disagree with any of these claims personally, as it’s a show I watch pretty much constantly while I write, or do word searches, or listen to new music. Despite it’s uncomfortable, and at times incredibly heavy, subject matter, it brings me comfort to watch the silly sad horse guy fuck up his life over and over again. There are repeated motifs that pop up periodically throughout the show, but the most significant one in my mind is the usage of water. From Bojack’s interpretation of Narcissus to everything that happened in “Escape From L.A.,” the most impactful moments of this show are buoyed (sorry) by this connection to water. I am going to run through some of the most impactful occurrences through the series, and see if I can figure out why the hell it is so important to this show.

An early one happens in the oft-criticized season 1, during the episode “Downer Ending”. We see numerous scenes of Bojack submerged, particularly in a lake that he imagines himself living by with Charlotte. It starts off in a more positive light, with him watching their daughter swimming and growing while swimming, but takes on a more grim outlook when it cuts to a scene of Bojack himself, abandoned in the lake and struggling to stay afloat. He seems to be drowning under the expectations, both that he has placed on himself and that he perceives other people having on him; in light of how Diane seems to perceive him entirely in his memoir, maybe it is becoming too much and he is being suffocated by a wave of criticism, having to grapple with who he is and what he has done. Along with this, he is said to love treading water by the hallucination of Diane in this scene, implying that he is forever caught moving in place, with no forward momentum in his career or his personal development. This one is a bit more heavy handed than some of the rest, as these feelings are granted by other parts of the episode as well and do not hinge specifically on this episode.

There is a brief one in season 2 during a flashback, where Bojack and his former friend Herb Kazzaz go to a film set and jump in the water, only to find out that it’s just a few inches deep. This is more commentary on the setting of the show than on Bojack, highlighting the superficiality of their surroundings and, by extension, the people who become enveloped in it. But possibly the most notable and famous one of them all (arguable with one we will discuss shortly in season 3), “Escape From L.A.” does not directly feature any water or large bodies of it, but has a boat in its place. Bojack is floating off at this point, only dropping anchor briefly and having no specific place that he belongs. He lives in the boat for two months while becoming close with Charlotte’s family (much too close), only to be able to completely uproot himself after doing some serious damage to this family, and drift back away. He does not belong anywhere at this point, and is completely lost at sea. In the following episode, while Todd is off on a comedy cruise for his improv cult, Bojack is once again able to disregard everything and float away from any obligations, albeit for much more positive intentions of saving his best friend from a controlling group. 

Season 3 has quite a few notable fishy occurrences. “Fish Out Of Water”, a mostly dialogue-less episode, takes place almost entirely underwater, and is another contender for the most famous water reference in this show (even though it’s less of a reference here, than it is the entire plot). It is a foreign place for Bojack, despite his many experiences with water and what seems like a significant fear of his; there is a fun little aside where Bojack mentions that his mom tried to drown him in the bathtub when he was 22, which seems like the cause for these worries. Despite his aversion to going underwater, he seems perfectly comfortable with it once he is down there, albeit a little bit annoyed at his lack of ability to do, well, anything. Despite the possibility of drowning for real, he is left without the possibility of drowning himself in his other poor decisions, leading to him being relatively clear and level-headed for the entirety of the episode. The next two both come from the same episode, “It’s You”. While panicking, Bojack tells his agent Ana Spanakopita that he feels like he is drowning, so she tells him a story of a time where she almost did drown, but was able to save herself. While she was attempting to give advice to him in the form of following your air bubbles, Bojack seems to have disregarded this advice almost completely shortly after in the second drowning scene, where he literally tries to drown himself. When he crashes his new car into his pool, he seems content with it and does not attempt to save himself from the struggle, watching his bubbles float away and closing his eyes to drift down. He is shortly after saved by Mister Peanutbutter, and puts back on a cheery facade to distract people from the fact that he is too far gone. Despite being back on land, he is still drowning, and might never stop. The final time is in “That’s Too Much, Man!” in a callback from Ana to her drowning story. Except this time, she is the lifeguard and is witnessing someone drowning. Despite their pleas for help, and Ana’s seeming obligation to do what she can to save them, she notes that “there are some people you can’t save.” The further we get into this series, the further Bojack gets into the waves, unable to be pulled back in.

There is just one big drowning reference (maybe not just a reference) through season 4, and it happens in my favourite episode, “The Old Sugarman Place”. In what seems to be the location that his hallucinations with Charlotte take place in season 1, he hides from the press and everyone else following the overdose of his former co-star Sarah Lynn at his hands. After befriending his dragonfly neighbour Eddie and repairing the run-down home, Bojack tricks Eddie into flying after he had sworn it off following his wife’s death due to a plane. Enraged by this, he flies the two of them far into the sky to be sucked into a plane engine like his wife, but after Bojack wrestles himself free, they both plummet into the lake behind the Michigan home. This shows a significant turn for Bojack, where not only is he allowing himself to be taken by the water, he goes out of his way to save his now-former friend from the same fate he previously nearly did. He finally has his head above water; after his long hiatus from his life, he is clearer than he has been before, and able to swim to shore through all of his issues (even though none of them are quite gone yet). It serves almost as a symbolic baptism for him, with the event allowing him to come out the other side as a seemingly improved, or at least re-enlightened, (horse) person who is filled with more hope and who we can maybe begin to root for again. Sadly it doesn’t pan out this way, but it was nice while it lasted, right?

In season 5, one of the (many) turning points of the season is during the episode “INT. SUB”, set mostly as fake versions of each of the characters through the eyes of two separate narrators. Within the episode-in-an-episode of Philbert, they shoot a scene that takes place in a submarine, which is used to show Bojack that Diane (the episode writer) knows what happened in New Mexico during the events of “Escape From L.A.” While this isn’t an instance of Bojack himself landing in the water, he has become nothing but a bloated castaway in Diane’s eyes, left underwater in a grave of his past mistakes. She is seeing him drown actively, and has been, but wants nothing to do with helping get him back to the surface. She wants to see him suffer for what he has done, and feel the mental repercussions because he deserves it. So she throws him into the deep end, leaves him alone in this submarine where he can do nothing but think about his mistakes.

In my opinion, the real kicker is in season 6. The penultimate episode, “The View From Halfway Down”, follows Bojack through a drug-induced dream where he is having a dinner party with the dead people who were in his life prior to them passing, with the exception of his uncle Crackerjack whom he never met: his parents (with his dad being combined with Secretariat), Corduroy Jackson-Jackson from the shooting of Secretariat, Zach Braff, Herb, and Sarah Lynn. Except, it isn’t a dream this time, or a hallucination. This is Bojack’s life flashing before his eyes, as he drowns in what used to be his pool, a place he has found himself before; this explains why he tasted chlorine when he drank his water at the table. Even if he wanted to save himself, it is too late for that to happen; the waves are too strong for him to overtake them, and he is pulled deeper and deeper underwater. He has let everything else suffocate him, the burdens and expectations, the drugs and alcohol, and most importantly all of the horrible choices he has made in his life. He is nearly beyond saving at this point, much like what Ana referred to back in season 3. This was his last chance to get saved, shipwrecked out in the ocean, and if he did not take it he would be forever lost at sea.

Of course, this is all skipping the biggest and most familiar instance of Bojack and water: the literal opening credits. Each episode, we see him submerged in his pool after falling in, presumably drunk or high or both. It’s hard to specifically pin down what all of these references mean, despite my attempt to do so. But Bojack is drowning, and he always has been; up until the final episode (as far as we know), he never stopped from the moment we were introduced. 

What a Perfect Day

SPOILERS FOLLOW FOR THE 2023 FILM PERFECT DAYS

Perfect Days is a 2023 Japanese drama film by legendary director Wim Wenders, best known for films such as Paris, Texas and the documentary Buena Vista Social Club. Starring Kōji Yakusho, it is a quaint little movie that follows a few weeks in the life of a janitor, Hirayama, as he goes through his usual schedule and finds the beauty in the little things throughout his day. Very little changes from day to day; the things that may threaten to derail any of our days are merely a bump in the road for Hirayama. He knows how to embrace the mundane, and make it something special for yourself. We should all be more like him.

It is understandable to see this film and interpret it as a bleak repetition, a slog of endless shifts and lack of forward motion that is coming for us all. But for me, this was an affirming film, one that made me feel a bit more at peace with my daily life. As the layers peel back from Hirayama’s life, you discover more depth than was indicated around the start. While he appears alone at the beginning, he has friends, and a family; his niece, Niko, discusses with him after running away about how she had always planned on moving in with him, and his sister makes an appearance shortly after. He has a father who lives within biking distance of his quaint house, who he visits despite an implied troubled past with him; he was seemingly able to work his way through these issues in his goal of sustained peace everyday. He has people who enjoy his presence and whose lives are made better by him, such as his co-worker Takashi, the restaurant owner Mama, and the man he meets at the end. None of them are left worse off for him being around, with the acts he commits actively improving their days.

This film places a special importance on having a schedule, a regular day that you follow consistently. When Takashi quits his job, multiple people have their schedules changed for the worse. Hirayama is forced to cover for his cleaning route, taking away time for other normal activities for him, and Takashi’s friend is left running off upset when he is unable to find him cleaning. Everybody hinges on some sort of repetition in their life, no matter how little or large it may be; we get the same coffee every morning, make our beds the same way each day, or maybe, like Hirayama, we rest our entire day on a sort of self-inscribed calendar, which we rarely stray away from barring outside forces.

The beauty in this film is how much it is able to say with so little. It is incredibly sparse, lacking any sort of conventional score, with the only music appearing being from Hirayama’s cassettes that he plays while driving around. There is not a lot of dialog, with much of the most potent moments being relatively unspoken; Takashi’s friend running off disappointed, Hirayama breaking down into tears (both when his sister leaves, and in the final scenes of the film as he is driving off), the glances shared with the stranger in the park every afternoon. Many of us experience moments of beauty that do not belong to words, that may only live on in our minds as scenes to replay for ourselves. This movie places emphasis on these times, those little moments in the perfect days that help us carry on. 

There is so much beauty in this film, despite the setting remaining consistent. Most of this beauty hinges on the startling nuance of Kōji Yakusho, who does so much with so little. Just the flickers in his eyes can tell a story all on their own. But the truest beauty in this film is what it reminds us of: there is always so much around us to enjoy, and it is a disservice to the environment to ignore it so consistently. People are heavily focused on the negatives in life, with good reason at times, but it can overshadow any beauty that we may come across. That isn’t fair to ourselves, to not allow us to enjoy the smallest moments in our days. So go out, take some pictures of nature. Enjoy the sunlight as it hits your skin, or the rain soaking through your shoes. Find wonder and whimsy in something you thought never contained any before. If you do this, maybe you will find some perfect days in your life, too.

I Miss D’Angelo

Happy (super late) 50th birthday to soul legend D’Angelo! One of the greatest and most acclaimed singers of the ‘90s, across any genre, has been relatively off the map for the greater part of 25 years, aside from the release of his 2014 album Black Messiah alongside his band D’Angelo and The Vanguard. So what exactly happened? Where did he go, and why was he so important to the structure of music nowadays?

I don’t have anything particular I want to say in this post, aside from praising one of my favourite musicians and bringing more attention to him for anyone who has somehow missed out on this legend. Born February 11th 1974, D’Angelo began his experience with music playing piano from a very young age, and started pursuing music as a career when he dropped out of school at 18 to relocate to New York City. After Jocelyn Cooper, a partner for Afropunk Festival, heard a demo of his rap group I.D.U., he was signed to Midnight Songs LLC, and was shortly after introduced to various musicians such as Raphael Saadiq and Ali Shaheed Muhammad (of A Tribe Called Quest fame). After experiencing a bit of success with the track “U Will Know” which he helped write and produce, he released his debut album Brown Sugar in 1995, helping bring him into the mainstream. 

While it is his weakest album in my opinion, Brown Sugar is still a fantastic neo-soul project that really helped set the stage for the music he would create further into his career. A sexy, slow, and dreamy project that is often referred to online as “neo-soul’s Illmatic,” it helped to define the genre in its young age while leaving plenty of room for things to be tinkered with and moved around, allowing for tremendous growth in his following albums. With the highlight single “Lady” reaching the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 following months of slowly gaining traction for the album, D’Angelo was ballooned into one of the most important and successful musicians in the scene, with his incredible vocals and genuine lyrics floating over the production, of which he contributed to through the album.

Sometime between Brown Sugar and his sophomore album Voodoo, D’Angelo was a part of the music collective The Soulquarians, which included musicians like Talib Kweli, Mos Def, multiple members of the Roots, Erykah Badu, and more. The powerhouses involved in this group all helped contribute to each other’s albums and produced numerous other classics, like the Roots’ Things Fall Apart and Slum Village’s Fantastic, Vol. 2. With this new group and system surrounding him, and flanked by the formerly mentioned singer Raphael Saadiq, D’Angelo began work on his second studio album, the neo-soul classic Voodoo.

Released at the beginning of 2000, D’Angelo marked the turn of the century with an album that would help to shape all soul music that was to come. Anchored by lead single “Untitled (How Does It Feel) and its sensuous music video, the project was more musically unconventional than its predecessor, which was seemingly a risk that paid off in dividends. An incredible album that to this day stands alone in its sound and influence, each listen unfolds something new for the listener to discover, and it sounds as fresh as ever 24 years after its release. Frequently cited as one of the greatest albums of all time across all genres, landing on Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums” at number 28, it is an undisputed classic that fans of music in any genre should consider essential listening. D’Angelo, however, did not view it as positively. Unhappy with the perception that the album had given him to the public, and the perceived oversexualization of him due largely to the music video for “Untitled”, he would leave this album as his final album for almost 15 years, disappearing from the spotlight whenever his legal troubles weren’t popping up. Between Voodoo and the roll-out for his follow up album, the now-reclusive singer was only a part of four released singles and a handful of guest appearances. And then Black Messiah came.

Far and away my favourite album he released, Black Messiah was released December 15, 2014 to rave reviews and helped to catapult D’Angelo back into the spotlight. What can I really say about this album that has not been said since its release? It is incredibly adventurous, putting his preceding album to shame and making it sound almost milquetoast with the risks that he takes across this project. Highlight 1000 Deaths may just be one of my favourite songs ever released, and this album could also honestly be argued to be up there for me too. Sonically, this album finds D’Angelo with a whole different pallet by incorporating more funk and experimental influences into his music. Even though it was a solid 19 year stretch, this album helped to close one of the greatest music trilogies ever released, each one improving on the last and introducing new tricks into the fold. Debuting at 5 on the Billboard 200 and winning the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album in 2016, surely this would be his grand return to the stage and he would continue his hot streak, right? Right?

Nope.

Since Black Messiah came out, not much has happened on the D’Angelo front. Although he spoke to Rolling Stone that he was working on new songs for an upcoming album, referred to as a “companion piece” to his latest, those have yet to come into fruition. The last solo track he released was a song for the game Red Dead Redemption 2 in 2019, titled “Unshaken”. One of the greatest singers to ever grace my ears, and an incredibly talented writer and producer to boot, D’Angelo is back to being a mysterious figure within the music scene. After helping to usher in neo-soul in the ‘90s, we can only hope that he will grant us another album one day. Maybe he won’t though, and that’s okay too. At least we have these three to keep us occupied in the meantime.

A Post All about Post

No, this is not some weird meta post about blogs or something, don’t worry. Have you ever gone looking for new music and in your search, stumbled upon one of the many genres beginning with “post-”, and not known what the hell it meant? Because me too. It’s one of those things, along with “indie”, that's very malleable, with no proper definition in a lot of cases. Post-punk, post-rock, post-hardcore, post-club, post-bop, it’s endless, and confusing, and a little unwieldy. So why not make a list of some of the major ones to help people know what they are diving into? I’ll be going over the general definitions of some of these genres, and a few prominent releases within that can be a good springboard for diving into the sound. 

Post-Grunge

From worst to best is the way to go, right? Well, it’s more like from bad to the rest being good, in this case. I’m sure there are plenty of defenders of the genre who grew up in its heyday from the mid ‘90s to the mid 2000s, but aside from a couple notable bands, this is a genre I am not particularly fond of. Also referred to sometimes as “butt rock”, this genre was a spinoff of the much more acclaimed grunge sound that originated in the late ‘80s with bands such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains. With a heavier pop focus than these genres, focusing in on a more familiar song structure and melodies, it eschews some of the more abrasive and interesting elements of its predecessor in order for it to be streamlined for commercial success. Somewhat of a precursor to the explosion of the often disregarded nu-metal scene, post-grunge set the stage for better bands to take back the spotlight in the early 2000s once it was falling past its prime. Some of the more notable bands of the scene, such as Nickelback, Creed and Three Days Grace have fallen far past their glory days and are often disregarded as jokes by most people now, especially with Nickelback being dubbed frequently as one of the worst bands of all time.

Essential Albums:

Foo Fighters - The Colour and the Shape

Our Lady Peace - Clumsy

Post-Punk

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming of talking about music I love. Post-punk is one of the most enduring of the “post” genres, experiencing a renaissance around the end of the butt rock era with revival bands such as The Strokes and Interpol popping up and drawing fans back to the basics, so to speak. Emerging after the punk explosion of the ‘70s, particularly the British scene featuring bands such as The Sex Pistols, post-punk is typically much more rhythmic than its predecessor, it is also a much moodier genre overall, drawing back the yells and screams in exchange for more monotone and droning vocals, lending an overall dressy feeling to the music. A much more experimental genre as well, it features heavier use of synths particularly with acclaimed bands such as New Order and Talking Heads, which helped to spin-off into the genre of New Wave. Inspiring all sorts of artists since its emergence in the late ‘70s-early ‘80s, and influencing genres such as gothic rock, dance punk and no wave, this has been one of the most endearing and long-lasting genres, with bands such as Protomartyr and Fontaines D.C. still producing outstanding music. 

Essential Albums:

Joy Division - Closer

Talking Heads - Remain in Light

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Let Love In

Protomartyr - Under Color of Official Right

XTC - Drums and Wires

Post-Rock

One of the more nebulous and confusing genres of the bunch, post-rock works almost as a catch-all, with so many albums under the banner containing so many different sounds and vibes. Defined by slower songs, heavier tones and an overall preference for texture in lieu of more common song structures,  First being coined in a review by Simon Reynolds for the album Hex by Bark Psychosis, the genre was originally developed by bands such as Talk Talk and Slint with each of their 1991 albums, both taking drastically different angles to the new scene. With Talk Talk embracing the jazzier side of the genre, while the latter was more influenced by post-hardcore (more on that later), I wouldn’t blame anyone who listened to both of them and disagreed that they belong to the same genre of music. While this is a genre that has not featured an extensive amount of commercial success, with bands such as Explosions in the Sky being primarily known due to the placement of their music in the show Friday Night Lights, it has been frequently acclaimed within music circles online. Bands such as Swans and Godspeed You! Black Emperor have been elevated to music royalty on the internet, along with Black Country, New Road garnering a bit of commercial success following their incredible 2022 album Ant From Up There. While this may not be the easiest genre to get into, it is a heavily rewarding one, featuring some of the most atmospherically interesting musical pallets I’ve ever heard.

Essential Albums:

Mogwai - Young Team

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven!

Slint - Spiderland

Swans - Soundtracks for the Blind

Corea - Los peores 7 km de mi vida

Post-Hardcore

This is probably my personal favourite of the genres I’ll be talking about today. Originating following the hardcore punk scene of the 1980s, the genre was pioneered by bands such as Hüsker Dü and Minutemen, taking the heavier and faster elements of its predecessor and drawing influence from experimental rock. Often crossing over into the noise rock area, it is heavy, hard-hitting, technically impressive, and just a blast to listen along to. With relative commercial success to go along with the numerous classics within the genre, it is a scene that has refused to stagnate and stall throughout its existence, drawing from and influencing genres such as emo, screamo, the aforementioned noise rock, and more. Notably crossing over with the previously mentioned post-rock genre for the 1991 album Spiderland, post-hardcore’s influence is spread out throughout rock and metal to this day, and it seems unlikely to slow down at all with bands such as Touché Amoré and Idles drawing influence from the sound and experiencing critical and commercial success. 

Essential Albums:

Drive Like Jehu - Yank Crime

Unwound - Leaves Turn Inside You

Refused - The Shape of Punk to Come

Idles - Brutalism

At the Drive-In - Relationship of Command

Post-Bop

This is admittedly the genre I am by far the least familiar with of the ones I am covering today, so apologies if the essential albums are relatively basic, as I have not delved too deep past the more notable albums. While it is one I have dabbled in and dipped my toes into, I have less of a personal attachment, or extensive history through things like radio, with it, but I will try my best. Popping up in the ‘60s from the Hard Bop genre, it is influenced by Modal Jazz in the wake of the Free Jazz movement, and is a term typically given to a relatively small group of artists. Featuring the most success following a duo of albums from the legendary Miles Davis, it has failed to stay in the limelight since its peak in the late ‘60s, although there is still a dedicated group of musicians carrying the torch to this day. A relatively difficult genre to explain and define, both due to my lack of experience with it and the overall variation of music within the genre itself, it is still an essential genre with some classic albums that should not be overlooked by any jazz heads.

Essential Albums:

Komeda Quintet - Astigmatic

Charles Mingus - Mingus Ah Um

Herbie Hancock - Empyrean Isles

Every-thing except country

That’s one of the answers I get the most when asking what music other people like. Despite being one of the most popular genres globally at the moment, people don’t deem it to be a “cool” genre to listen to, with the rise of bro-country in the last decade or so contributing to this opinion. It’s in vogue for people to take a stance against the genre overall, but why? Much like every other genre, while there is bound to be bad music, there are also some fantastic projects, buoyed by pop sensibilities and originality while lyrically standing on its own, even removed from the greater country scene. Even people who rest their laurels on the country of their times, the Johnny Cash’s and the Townes Van Zandt’s should be able to find modern music within that hemisphere. Country is far from a bad genre, it may just be a bit harder to sift through and find the gold. I’ve gathered a few country albums (maybe skewing a bit more towards alt-country) that may appeal to people typically against the sound, and maybe turn these usual answers around a little.

Zach Bryan - Zach Bryan

Not a whole lot to say about this album that isn’t already known, but I’ll give it a shot anyway just to be able to talk about it a little. One of the more recent and most popular ones I’m going to be talking about today, and one of my favourite releases of 2023, Zach Bryan’s newest album is a triumph in modern country, bringing a lot of substance without losing any of the catchy appeal that propelled it to the number one genre in the country. Taking inspiration from indie, red dirt, and rock, as well as featuring musicians not typically associated under the country banner, Bryan melds these elements together into a consistent, tight and overall fun 54 minutes. Doesn’t hurt that the album was a certified hit, hitting number one on the Billboard 200 while the single “I Remember Everything” featuring Kacey Musgraves simultaneously hit number 1 on the Hot 100. If you’re looking for something a bit more pop-oriented and catchy, this is the right album for you. 

Purple Mountains - Purple Mountains

Wowee, another self-titled album! What a fun and unique naming convention for albums of all genres. Anyways, Purple Mountains is the title of a project that was helmed by the late and great David Berman, known most for his ‘90s albums with the band Silver Jews. One of the greatest songwriters of the era, Berman did not miss a beat in the 11 years between this and the final Silver Jews album. This album is frequently, and unfairly, in my opinion, labelled as an indie rock album if only because Berman was firmly under that genre for much of his career, but it fits much more snugly under the alt-country bill. Featuring some of the most heartbreaking songs ever put to record, even the titles will hit you in the feelings: anybody wanna listen to “All My Happiness Is Gone” or “Maybe I’m the Only One For Me”? Despite this, it manages to wring some humour out of the situation to keep you from feeling soulless by the end of the album, the juxtaposition embedding the songs in your mind for maybe the wrong reasons. Released shortly before Berman’s suicide, leaving this album hitting even harder than it did at first, this songwriting masterclass is a good intro to country for any sad sacks out there. But, in my opinion, not the best.

Songs: Ohia - The Lioness

Now this is the peak of depressing country music. Abandoning the last bits of humour that Berman left in his music, deceased musician and frontman Jason Molina keeps the sadness a little bit more abstract, leaving layers to be peeled back from the project with each listen. While this is typically not the first album suggested by the musician (Magnolia Electric Co. is usually the go-to), the slowcore influence of this project has always taken precedence in my mind, and it remains one of the most underrated albums of the 2000s. The instrumentation on this project is given just as much importance as the vocals, with each taking turns drowning each other out without ever coming across as claustrophobic or cluttered. While maybe the least conventionally catchy of the albums I’ll be talking about today, and containing song structures that wouldn’t really cut it on the radio, the songwriting on this project elevates it above much of, well, anything released since. Solo suites like “Coxcomb Red” help showcase Molina’s powerful voice and poetic writing, featuring heartbreaking lyrics about the collapse of a relationship in the face of a death, specifically the son of the protagonists in this song. Alternatively, on songs such as the opener “The Black Crow,” Molina doesn’t so much cede the spotlight to the music as it overtakes him forcefully, drowning him as he bellows and attempts to keep his head above sea. This album is a triumph for any genre, let alone country. I don’t care what kind of music it is that you generally prefer, this is absolutely a must-listen.

Best Releases - February 2024

After a bit of a slow start to the year, and with the biggest artists leaving their releases to later in the calendar year, February helped to pick up the slack. While March is already looking quite promising (ScHoolboy Q and Faye Webster’s new albums both look very appealing), we shouldn’t let some of the highlights go unnoticed. Hand selected by yours truly, these are some of the must-listen albums that may have flown under your radar.

Erika de Casier - Still

Portuguese-Danish singer Erika de Casier gained attention first in 2019 with the release of her debut album Essentials, and has been riding slowly under the radar since her acclaimed follow-up Sensational. She returned this month with Still, a revelation for modern R&B. With a smooth, whispery voice hearkening back to the late ‘90s and early 2000s waves while mixing in some downtempo production, lending to an easy listen of an album that offers more with each listen, peeling back layer by layer. While the production is relatively sparse and simple throughout, it lends itself only to showcase the fantastic melodies and lyrics of de Casier. Highlights such as “Ex-Girlfriend” featuring Shygirl show that she should already be a star, and is ready for whenever she is given her crown as ascending R&B royalty.

RIYL: Aaliyah, Blood Orange, FKA Twigs

Chelsea Wolfe - She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She

American musician Chelsea Wolfe (actually her real name, not a stage name like I thought) has been on my radar since the release of her 2017 album Hiss Spun, and her latest sounds like a culmination of her career to this point. Drawing influences throughout her career from such disparate acts as sludge metal band Neurosis to country legend Townes Van Zandt, she dips into her trip-hop bag on She Reaches Out…, calling to mind releases by Portishead and Tricky, among others. Establishing a dark, mechanical cyberpunk-esque sound to serve as a vehicle for her haunting vocals, the follow-up to 2021’s Bloodmoon: I with Converge drags you deep into her world, a cold and dimly lit place that smothers and suffocates you with every note, taking your breath away song by song. Sign me up for another hour of this.

RIYL: Anna von Hausswolff, Early Lingua Ignota, Portishead

Allie X - Girl With No Face

It was hard to imagine I would find an album catchier than the previously mentioned Still, but my prayers were answered by this synth-pop masterpiece. While eighties revivalism is far from a new thing, most notably being used as the basis for the most two recent projects from The Weeknd, the Canadian singer-songwriter wrings it for every bit of groove and catchiness that she can get her hands on. After spending some time writing for stars such as K-Pop group BTS and singer Troye Sivan, she is proving herself more than ready to re-enter the limelight, with her last charting song being in 2017. Buoyed by highlights such as “Black Eye” and the title track, Allie X’s singing voice fits perfectly on the production here, gliding across tracks and inserting herself straight into the era she is influenced by, instead of just sounding like a by-product of the times. If you showed this to anybody and told them it was released alongside Madonna’s True Blue, you would be hard-pressed to find many arguments.

RIYL: St. Vincent, Slayyyter, Dorian Electra

Willi Carlisle - Critterland

I know, I know, this was released in January. But I missed out on that month, and this album is too good to pass up on. Having only heard it last night, I was initially turned off tremendously by the album cover. But please, do not make the same mistake I did. This is an introspective, heartbreaking piece of progressive country that offers so much more than first impressions may indicate. Equipped with one of the most powerful voices I have heard in country music this decade, a wit to make the mundane seem spectacular, and enough heart for a horse (or four), Willi Carlisle exposes emotions and feelings as ugly as the cover is, leaving nothing up to the imagination and baring all for listeners. Tracks like highlight “Higher Lonesome” and the spoken word closer “The Money Grows on Trees” show he has a particularly strong penchant for storytelling amidst his personal musings, as well. Going back to the basics instrumentally while helping to progress the lyrics far above typical fare for country music, this is the album to check out if you decide that you want to feel something.

RIYL: Orville Peck, Johnny Cash, Noah Kahan

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Shed Theory - Cove (Cloud Rap)

MGMT - Loss of Life (Psychedelic Pop)

Serpentwithfeet - Grip (R&B)

Ducks Ltd. - Harm’s Way (Power Pop)

Kali Malone - All Life Long (Drone)

Can We Go Back?

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE FILM OLDBOY, DIRECTED BY PARK CHAN-WOOK

Well, I think it’s about time I wrote something movie-related. I don’t watch as many movies lately as I used to, which is a shame because there’s so many that appeal to me and that I would love to give some of my time to. It’s just difficult to be able to make that commitment, with so much going on and movies extending beyond two hours regularly. Instead of forcing myself through one to pump out some content, I am going to be discussing one of my favourites of all time, the 2003 Korean film Oldboy, directed by Park Chan-Wook.

Trying to avoid any major spoilers for people who haven’t seen it, the film centers around Oh Dae-su, a drunken businessman who is kidnapped on his daughter’s birthday as he is trying to make his way back to her. The kidnappers lock him in a seemingly average hotel room, providing him with food, television, and medical assistance, but not being given any outside interaction besides the shows that play everyday on the TV. Without any knowledge of his captors, he spends his time training and planning an escape, after which he plans on finding his daughter and getting revenge on his captors. However, fifteen years in he is released from his makeshift prison for seemingly no reason, and the hunt begins.

This movie is not a pleasant watch by any means. It is about vengeance and the way that it can eat away at somebody over time, and how our morals can be bent in a way that benefits us personally. From the beginning of the film, we see Oh Dae-su as a relatively well-meaning parent, an overall kind man who has friends and carries plenty of love for his daughter, taking pride in the gift he is set to deliver at the start. He becomes morphed over time, though, into a snarling animal who knows nothing except for pain and anger, with any good intentions in his heart rotted away after the fifteen years he spent imprisoned. He fights with people simply for the sake of fighting and testing his skills shortly after his release, and allows a man to jump from a building after ignoring his pleas for an ear to tell his story. This is a man who has lost everything and can never gain any of it back, with all aspirations he had having been replaced by an urge to damage and maim, to bring those down with him who put him in this position. It’s fitting that this film is in the unofficial Vengeance trilogy, along with Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance before it and proceeded by Lady Vengeance, as the film is visceral in the way that it can transform you, turning you into the monster you think you are fighting against. 

Throughout the film, Oh Dae-su is entranced by a woman he meets named Mi-do, whom he runs into shortly after his escape in a restaurant. While it comes across as a mostly random encounter, it has actually been planted by the captors from before, with hypnotism being used to ensure that these two would have significant encounters and become involved. At the end of the film, as Dae-su is encountering the mastermind behind his capture, Lee Woo-jin, who threatens the safety and well-being (for lack of a better term to prevent spoilers) of Mi-do. Dae-su reacts viciously, at first with pure anger that devolves into a breakdown, cutting his own tongue off in exchange for forgiveness.. He grovels and degrades himself, begging for redemption and a second chance, despite knowing deep down that he does not deserve it. How far can we go before we are too far gone? At what point do the evils we have committed outweigh the ones we have suffered, leaving us to the dogs to have to handle the consequences of what we have done? Oh Dae-su, despite believing that he did not deserve it, gave himself up for the chance at redemption in the face of a second reckoning in his world. Are we the determining factor as to whether we should be permitted redemption, or is it some outside force that flips a coin for us? It’s left unclear by the end of the film whether Oh Dae-su truly got what he had begged and pleaded for, with the ambiguous ending leaving little hope in the minds of the viewer.

The need for revenge eats away at us. Whether it is something small and inconsequential, like someone being rude to you or a driver cutting you off on the way to work, everybody has felt the need to get back at someone due to being wronged in some form. But to what point is revenge acceptable? Should people stoop to the same lows as their perpetrator for the sake of fairness, or are we then becoming what we are fighting against? Why should we deserve to be forgiven for our retaliation, if we could not find it in ourselves to allow redemption for those we are against? Is it all too late? Or can we go back?

Hole in the Wall

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE STORY THE ENIGMA OF AMIGARA FAULT, WRITTEN BY JUNJI ITO

Author Junji Ito has been at the forefront of the horror manga scene for decades, since his story now known as Tomie began serialization in the manga magazine Monthly Halloween. Among his most popular stories is the one-shot The Enigma of Amigara Fault, released at the end of the much longer Gyo. Despite being completely unrelated to the predominant story, it has garnered just as much fame due to its unsettling premise and incredible art, and yet it has kept out of my radar until today. I deeply regret passing on it for so long, as upon reading, it feels like the quintessential Junji Ito story alongside Tomie and Uzumaki. 

The premise is as follows: an earthquake causes these holes in the mountain to be formed in the shape of humans, and crowds form due to this overwhelming feeling growing that these holes are the silhouettes of people who live nearby, carved and created specifically for them. As a sense of dread fills these people, their mind pulls them towards these crevices, dragging them into the holes until they become stuck. With no way to go back, they can only move through the holes, with every involuntary movement forcing them deeper throughout, despite the shape of the gap slowly morphing these people as they go through. While it is left ambiguous if it kills anyone who traverses, anybody who makes their way into the fault comes out the other side, morphed and twisted into a worm-like abomination at the mercy of the mountain. 

This story brings forward a lot of interesting ideas and thoughts. It could be determined as a story about predetermined fate; it is apparent that these holes were formed long ago, and not by anything natural, so were the people who saw themselves in the fault doomed to this fate? How could they be cursed far before they were born? There was no way to predict this outcome, nor many preventative measures to be put in place to protect those who saw themselves in the mountain. Shown when Owaki attempts fruitlessly to prevent Yoshida from entering her hole by piling it with stones to keep her out, there was nothing that could prevent this ending for her. What was there to stop people from turning on their TV that day and seeing these holes? What if the one that belonged to them was not shown on screen, would something still pull them to that site? With the apparent thousands that showed up to the fault, it must be the case. Their fate was sealed the second the earthquake struck, a reckoning that would spare no one. While the holes appeared to be man-made, there is no way for people to create such meticulous, deep crevices, indicating the presence of something more powerful, and likely omnipotent. It knew that this day would come, and that these people would be at the end of the line. 

It is also an insight into compulsions, and the urges that can drive people to do the worst things imaginable at times. Everyone gets compulsions and intrusive thoughts, the scratches in your mind that tell you to do these unthinkable actions, usually to the detriment of yourself or others; have you ever gotten the idea in your brain to swerve in the middle of the road? Or, standing near a cliff or on a high building, the impulse to see how it would look from the other side of the railing, and from halfway down, quickly moving further away? Typically, these are easy to control. It is not often you hear stories of people doing these things on a whim, actions like this often being more premeditated. This one-shot explores the concept of how far our compulsion can drive us. These people are driven by this force that is telling them to enter these holes, and that they were created for them specifically. Also called a “death drive” by Sigmund Freud, this self-destruction is coming from somewhere deep inside these people - the essence of them wants to be harmed and maimed. There is no explanation as to whether this is coming from some previously formed psychological harm, or if this is something new arising from deep inside. All we know is that, with a complete absence of any proper enemy or external force, the morbid curiosity of these people, or something from deep within these people, has pushed them to destroy themselves.

With an idiosyncratic style and a fascination for body horror and the damage that can be dealt to the human psyche, Junji Ito has established himself as the preeminent horror manga author. It’s hard to argue why when you dive into his stories such as this one or Uzumaki, either; while authors such as Kazuo Umezu blazed the trail and directly influenced him, and have written classics of their own as well (Orochi, The Drifting Classroom, God’s Left Hand, Devil’s Right Hand) nobody has such a distinct and visceral style as Ito. Creating horrors that we have never seen before while offering up a deep dive into the fucked-up psyche of the characters placed in these strenuous situations, nobody does it better.