In ‘At Eternity’s Gate,’ van Gogh remains mad, bad, dangerous to know

Wilem Dafoe already played an artist. In To Live and Die in L.A., William Friedkin’s shimmering tone poem about posing in Los Angeles’ fickle light, Dafoe played Masters, a painter and counterfeiter so sure of himself — so psychotic — that he can postpone the creation of masterpieces to kill cop William Petersen. Already in

For inspiration: ranking Madonna in the 1980s

To my surprise, a re-listen last weekend defied convention. I thought the battle waged between two albums….

Limning youth: Better Oblivion Community Center and Sharon Van Etten

In one of the slower Januarys in recent memory, it took a while to settle on two worthwhile pop releases, with Sharon Van Etten the least stable of the pair.

The worst movies of 2018

Last week I presented, happily, my thirty favorite films of 2018. But a recap is incomplete without the year’s most grievous wastes of time.

The best of Van Halen and David Lee Roth 1978-1988

Wringing infinite variations on the yelp as much as contemporary Michael Jackson did with the hiccup, David Lee Roth took to MTV like Orson Welles did radio. 

James Ingram and his sweet seduction suite

Too often when considering selections for my Worst Songs Ever series I lingered over “I Don’t Have the Heart,” an example of the moist sponges that regularly topped the Hot 100 during the Poppy Bush Interzone. Poison didn’t sing it — that was the difference. In the end, no matter how high it ended on

The spirit of extravagance: Joseph von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich

No one in twentieth century cinema wore costumes with the panache of Marlene Dietrich, and no one photographed a person, men and women, in costume as fetchingly as Joseph von Sternberg. Thanks to Criterion’s Dietrich & von Sternberg in Hollywood, viewers can watch the six films in which von Sternberg turned the German born chanteuse

The best teen pop hits

A list of thirty-five wonderful performances by teenagers. I limited performances to those who were in their teens at the time of writing and recording. A caveat: had I included K-pop I would’ve tripled this list, and, anyway, I’m not sure it doesn’t deserve its own rundown. 1. The Jackson 5 – “I Want You

Ginni Thomas, Our Lady of Racialist Sorrow

When the wife of Clarence Thomas last made national headlines, it was for leaving a message on Professor Anita Hill’s office line on a Saturday morning: apologize to my husband for the mean things you alleged in 1991.

Ranking Jay-Z’s best albums

He kept going after 2003, releasing a 2006 comeback that’s better than I remembered, a soundtrack called American Gangster that I overrated but sounds fine, and more product, some of which, like Watch the Throne, deserves a third listen.. As he ossifies into a scion, it’s hard to remember how thin, tall, and fearsome he

It’s Britney, readers

At The Singles Jukebox we publish mid-career reports a couple times a year. We decided Britney Spears deserved one. Boy, did we. I don’t remember previous retrospectives inspiring so many blurbs, and so many blurbs in which colleagues outdid themselves: Edward Oculicz’s “Born to Make You Happy,” Sabina Tang on “Perfume,” Isabel Cole on “Get

Singles 1/25

Readers should reach for the smelling salts — I awarded my first 9 of 2019 to Billie Eilish’s fascinating “When I Was Older,” among the sharpest of this prolific artist’s recent singles. Sharon Van Etten’s evocation of being a white-winged dove on the edge of seventeen came second (expect an album review this week). Hell