The Pick: White House Down

The election may be over, but we could still be heading toward a disastrous future in which only a muscley, tank-topped Channing Tatum can save us. Still, whatever the future holds, we can all agree we’ll be having a much more normal president in two months, and White House Down is a suitable, mind-numbing way of turning the page on the past four years. Hey, we’re even getting a new president with a “J” first name, just like our man James Sawyer and countless other movie presidents.

On this episode, we do a bit of a dive into the history of black presidents on-screen as well as some of our former presidents’ most notable pets. It’s kind of a weird one, but maybe it’s appropriate for the weird final days of a very weird presidency. Continue reading →

Switchin’ Up Positions For A New Year

Ariana Grande – Positions

If there’s one good thing to come out of 2020 (other than the obvious one that happened a couple weeks ago), it’s that there’s been a lot of unexpected album releases. Some of these have been albums that were long in production (Run The Jewels’ RTJ4, Fiona Apple’s Fetch The Bolt Cutters) and some of them have been surprisingly great albums that were recorded on a whim during quarantine (Taylor Swift’s Folklore, Fleet Foxes’ Shore). Either way, the surplus of albums from prominent artists in 2020 clearly seems to be born out of the fact that musicians are stuck at home with nothing better to do than record songs as well as a need to communicate with listeners. Now, I’m not sure that the world needed another Ariana Grande album in 2020 after she put out two of the better pop albums of the 2010s in the last two consecutive years, but it’s still another welcome surprise. Continue reading →

Letters For Two

Bruce Springsteen – Letter To You

It’s hard to say why my first instinct last Thursday night, when the vote counts started to turn in Joe Biden’s favor, was to put on my headphones and go for a walk while listening to Bruce Springsteen. Though I have a few theories. For one, his latest album Letter To You had just been released, so The Boss has been at the forefront of my mind lately. Also, Bruce and Biden are both seasoned veterans of their trades from the tri-state area that have very storied and successful careers, and yet still somehow manage to retain their working-class roots. But most of all, Bruce is just one of those artists that brings me some level of comfort in times of uncertainty. Yet most of his songs, no matter how anthemic, always seem to have a level of overcoming darkness, which has not only been on the edge of town the past 4 years, but has threatened to swallow it up completely. Continue reading →