2018 Music Reloaded: Fall Into The Sun

Swearin’ – Fall into the Sun

Being the younger sibling seems hard. Being the older sibling of a more successful younger sibling working in the same field as you seems harder. This is the plight of Allison Crutchfield, who has carved out a respectable career with her band Swearin’ before they broke up and she pursued a solo career before reforming the band and releasing a new album this year. All the while, her sister Katie rose to further and further prominence with her band Waxahatchee. But that doesn’t seem to really weigh on Allison Crutchfield too much, considering she’s played and toured with her younger sister band, and generally seems to have the kind of close-knit relationship that one could only hope for with their own family members. Continue reading →

2018 Music Reloaded: Dose Your Dreams

Fucked Up – Dose Your Dreams

I’m now realizing these reviews might be less of a look back at 2018 music than a look back at Fall 2018 music that I forgot to review. Because looking back, I feel like I kept a pretty good handle on writing about most of the notable music I encountered this year, though that feeling may be almost entirely indebted to this post. Though, whatever season of 2018 we’re talking about, there weren’t any albums that sounded anything quite like Fucked Up’s Dose Your Dreams, an album that stretches the boundaries of what a punk album can accomplish, and in an era when very few bands seem interested in exploring those boundaries. Continue reading →

2018 Music Reloaded: Chris

Christine & The Queens – Chris

Well, the end of the year has reared its head once again, and that leaves us here at Mildly Pleased staring down the barell of end-of-year list season. It’s hard to believe that we’ve been posting top tens of the year lists for 10 years now. But if there’s one thing that we’ve seen change in the past ten years, it’s how other sites have gradually pushed their top ten lists further and further up the calendar. Now, I can’t say I’ve seen any major lists pop up yet, but I feel like they could come flooding in at any moment, but for now, we’ll get started with our shortened reviews of stuff we forgot to review earlier in the year that may have a chance of cropping up on a list or two. Continue reading →

Rokk Talk Ep. 16: The Song Remains The Same

After a long Dave Matthews-induced hiatus, Rokk Talk is back! On this episode John and Colin talk about Led Zep– er, Greta Van Fleet. Which by extension devolves into a conversation about Led Zeppelin, “new” classic rock, self-awareness, and forging your own sound (or failing to). You’d think a band with so little originality wouldn’t provide enough fodder for an hour-long podcast. But much like the rest of the internet, we couldn’t resist spending a decent amount of time breaking down whether this band sounds too much like their very obvious influences. Continue reading →

C.A.T.: Rage Against The Machine

Rage Against The Machine – Rage Against The Machine (1992)

Is Rage Against The Machine any good? This is a question I’ve often asked myself ever since listening to them as a mid-‘oos high schooler. The answer then seemed to be “yes”, though it may have been partly because they were a fun band to groove along to when I was first learning to play drums. However, they seemed much less good during the late ’00s/early ’10s of my college years, which may have been due to my budding indie rock snobbery. Meanwhile, they’ve sounded pretty darn good to my ears the last two years. Which is to say, how good this band sounds may all be correlated to the political climate of the time. Continue reading →

Born Again

A Star Is Born (1954) / A Star Is Born (2018)

If this was a more well-researched piece, I would’ve gone to the trouble of seeing both the 1937 and 1976 versions of A Star Is Born, but I only have so much time. Also, from what I’ve gathered, the 1954 version is the most acclaimed version of this classic Hollywood folk tale. Well, perhaps except for the Bradley Cooper-directed version that’s currently in theaters, which seems to already be an Oscar frontrunner. I’m not sure that this latest version bests the version starring Judy Garland and James Mason, but I think it does manage to tap into why this is such a durable story, and why it has been applied to such different eras of Hollywood filmmaking. Continue reading →

Shocktober Horrorble: Day of the Dead: Bloodline

Day of the Dead: Bloodline (2018)

It wasn’t intentional, but Bub the zombie has been the mascot of this year’s Shocktober. He was the face of our draft and, out of this whole month of movie madness, Day of the Dead is the only film we all three watched together. So I thought it would be appropriate to bring everything to a close by introducing everyone to Bub’s twisted nephew, Max. He sucks and I hate him, but he’s about the best thing the 2018 remake of Day of the Dead, subtitled “Bloodline,” has going for it.

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