Speaking of Thomas, a useful review of Debarge’s 20th Century Masters/The Millenium Collection. I’ve never particularly warmed to Debarge, to whom so many of my favorite critics surrender without a fight, but “All This Love” and “Time Will Reveal” hold up as well as any early eighties R&B (“A Dream” was the wtf-revelatory cut for

At the request of one of my more obnoxious friends, a few words on George Lamond’s great single “Bad of the Heart.” 1989 and 1990 were curious years for freestyle: Stevie B, Sweet Sensation, Sa-Fire, and Timmy T scored their first Top 40 hits, at least four years after the genre supposedly peaked artistically. This

A couple of quick reviews: Tonight: Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand. For three albums now, these Scottish nancy boys who put the sex in “metrosexual” have let their zippy songcraft run aground after the fifth or sixth song, only to (barely) recover in the final third. A cad who snaps guitar picks convincing women he’s

For the record, my Oscar picks: Best Picture: Slumdog MillionaireBest Director: Danny Boyle, Slumdog MillionaireBest Actor: Mickey Rourke, The WrestlerBest Actress: Kate Winslet, The ReaderBest Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, The Dark KnightBest Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona

RIP Rickey Wright

Sad, sad news. I knew him as an enthusiastic contributer to many an I Love Music thread; his resume is a lot vaster than I thought (Amazon!). I have a vague memory of meeting him at a Experience Music Project Pop Conference in Seattle. Ned and Matos enforce my chilling sense that you never have

RIP Rickey Wright

Sad, sad news. I knew him as an enthusiastic contributer to many an I Love Music thread; his resume is a lot vaster than I thought (Amazon!). I have a vague memory of meeting him at a Experience Music Project Pop Conference in Seattle. Ned and Matos enforce my chilling sense that you never have

How I know the right, or maybe just Kathryn-Jean Lopez, has gone unhinged.

How I know the right, or maybe just Kathryn-Jean Lopez, has gone unhinged.

Day Two of Nathaniel’s Oscar symposium, much more rewarding than Day One, in which I learned that participants liked Vicky Cristina Barcelona and In Bruges enough to place them in their top fives of the year.

Day Two of Nathaniel’s Oscar symposium, much more rewarding than Day One, in which I learned that participants liked Vicky Cristina Barcelona and In Bruges enough to place them in their top fives of the year.

I listen to conservative talk radio about once a week: not only is it healthy to get one’s blood in a boil, but I’m attracted to dogmatism even when it hides behind jargon like “worldview” and “agenda” — especially so. It’s one thing to be self-confident; it’s another to act as if your philosophical convictions

This is the cutest collaboration I’ve heard in months: Peter Gabriel and Hot Chip remake Vampire Weekend’s “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa.” For Gabriel it’s a particular triumph: the author of some of the quietest ponderosities recorded in the last twenty years gets to poke fun of himself, coaxed by the gentle bleeps and whistles of