A paragraph for 19 of my favorite songs from 2018 albums; and a few more for my #1.
Read MoreThe Center of the World
I was born and raised in the South Bay, a region just 15 miles south of Downtown Los Angeles. Culturally, it was across the country. The South Bay is its own world, with its own concerns and identity. LA lived in our minds as the distant big city, and while it loomed large, likening ourselves to Angelenos was as alien as likening ourselves to New Yorkers.
Read MoreA Corrective to Human History
If the specter of people getting hurt in this new vision is a deterrent, I would say that the old system they’re trying to protect has been hurting people since time immemorial. Under the guise of “innocent until proven guilty,” the guilty remained out of reach of any consequences, and their victims were made to suffer in silence.
Read MoreInstruments Of Endless Wanting
Before Tinder, the main emotions around online dating were either embarrassment about the whole affair or, strangely, utopian optimism about it. In the one in a million game of soul mates, it was believed a search engine could save us all.
Read MoreHow Much of Right Wing YouTube is Just School Clique Grievance?
It's human nature to feel uncomfortable about radical political stances (that's why they're radical) but how we deal with them reveals much about the true north of our political compass.
Read MoreFoxing - Nearer My God
Nearer My God sounds like the solution the death of guitar music since the rise of Poptimism. Not that poptimism is inherently wrong, but the reassessment of music writing changed the values of the playing field. Suddenly nothing sounded as forward-looking, or cutting edge, or the result of meticulous craftsman engineering like the big budget pop hooks on Top 40 stations.
Read More
Ted Leo at The Echo
June 21, 2018
Sin Eaters
On its 15 year anniversary, Ted Leo is touring Hearts of Oak on a bit of a nostalgia tour. I went on Thursday night at The Echo. It was an all-time great concert, a marvel of singing and song construction, but very much a weird echo of the Bush era and the things we worried about back then.
Read MoreDissecting the Peterson VICE News Interview
Today we are being asked to revise our cultural consensus to challenge men in particular to think harder about our social interactions; to parse out the boundaries of people we have power over; to weigh our self-interest and needs against other people's desires. That takes some perceptive skill and mistakes will be made. Why does that mean it's not worth doing?
Read MoreRostam - Half Light
The cutting edge of music now belongs to pop and hip hop. These are genres where the top artists are thinking, "What's a sound we haven't used before?" or "What's a flow no one else has?" Modern indie merely asks, "What is pop not doing?" and maybe that's why we don't have rock stars anymore.
Read MoreDark Access of the Mind
Like a gambler tantalized by the sight of the card table, or an alcoholic gifted a whiskey bottle, these things are triggers. They open up a dark access road into the mind, unloading direct and instant gratification to fill something empty.
Read More