Western State of Mind

William Tyler – Goes West

William Tyler’s last album of contemplative instrumental country/folk, Modern Country, has surely ended up being one of my most listened to albums of the past few years. This is because Tyler’s brand of spacey, unobtrusive guitar work is very easy to put on in the background when you’re working/writing, which I often find myself doing. Now, I’m not sure that that makes for the best music to actually write about, but I guess we’ll see what I can come up with… Continue reading →

No Need To Remind Me

Sharon Van Etten – Remind Me Tomorrow

I am almost always skeptical when an indie rock artist decides to make their “dance-pop record”. I am also almost always wrong about this skepticism. With Remind Me Tomorrow, the latest release from this typically guitar-based singer-songwriter, I had an inkling that once again I’d be eating my words in regards to this slight sonic reinvention. Because late last year, Sharon Van Etten released the fantastic single “Comeback Kid”, a song that is weirdly catchy and anthemic, yet still has that undercurrent of regret and melancholy that seems to run through all of Van Etten’s music. Continue reading →

Freaky Fridays: Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park

Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park (1978)

Tomorrow, the entire Mildly Pleased staff is seeing Kiss on what has been sold as their final tour ever. I couldn’t be more excited. Yet if you asked me how I felt about Kiss I would also be the first person to tell you they suck. Call it a guilty pleasure but despite all of the shitty things about Kiss—the egos, the greed, the Kiss Casket—I love their theatricality and more importantly their music. Few acts in the annals of rock have so successfully merged pop songwriting with heavy metal. Fewer have done it while wearing capes and breathing fire.

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Top Ten Anticipated Movies of 2019

Do you have any idea how many blockbusters are coming out this year? Do you even know? Disney alone is releasing three remakes of animated classics, two Marvel movies, sequels to Toy Story and Frozen, and a Star Wars. A STAR WARS! And that’s just Disney! Will this be the year the box office implodes on itself? Or it will be the opposite? Will, any of us make it to 2020? Will mankind survive?!?

With that proclamation of doom out of the way let’s look at John, Sean, and Colin’s most and least anticipated films of 2019! 🙂

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C.A.T.: Love Gun

KISS – Love Gun (1977)

This weekend I will see KISS in concert for the first (and almost certainly last) time. 2018 marks the beginning of their “End of the Road” tour, which will see the longtime rockers/sell-outs trekking across the world and gracing their fans with 40-year-old rock songs in what will supposedly be their last tour ever. To say that there’s any kind of wish fulfillment in seeing this band live would be a bit generous, considering I’ve always had a bit of a love/hate relationship with KISS. And I’m not sure there’s any better example of this love/hate relationship than 1977’s Love Gun, arguably the last “classic” KISS album. Continue reading →

Sean’s Top 10 Video Games of 2018

With the massive success of Fortnite, it has become impossible to deny that we are in the era of games as a service. Frankly, I’m happy to see the industry moving away from traditional DLC and season passes and embracing the idea that if people want to keep playing a game, that should be encouraged without fracturing the community by demanding a premium. On the other hand, single player games have continued going in the direction of the likes of The Witcher 3 and Breath of the Wild, delivering increasingly complex, mechanically deep, gargantuan experiences. Basically what I’m saying is that it’s getting harder and harder to try to cover the entire medium by myself each year, especially since I also try to keep up with movies, TV, and music. So, yeah, this top 10 is essentially the 10 games I liked enough to beat. Anyway, this is the end of our 2018 lists, so let’s get to it.

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Top Ten Movies of 2018

It’s no longer 2018. In fact, it’s almost no longer January 2019. But that didn’t stop us from recording a podcast looking back at the best of what last year had to offer in film. Also, it wasn’t a bad week to do so, considering the Oscar nominations came out and… ooh boy, not a great crop of movies overall. Still, there were plenty of great films from 2018 that got little in the way of Oscar attention, and which we were happy to talk about.

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