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 →

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 →

Room To Grow

Noname – Room 25

There are a couple albums that would be nice to talk about before Mildly Pleased shifts into Shocktober mode on Monday, so here’s one that’s stuck with me lately. Noname is an artist that I had no recollection of when Room 25 started gathering rave reviews a couple weeks ago. But after a first listen, I recognized her voice from an appearance on Chance The Rapper’s Acid Rap mixtape, while also recalling the image of her last mixtape’s artwork showing up in some 2016 end-of-year lists. Obviously, this barely counts as having previous experience with an artist, so Room 25 has felt like a left-field breath of fresh air from a rapper who has clearly come into her own. Continue reading →

Mildly Pleased Hall of Fame: Vampire Weekend by Vampire Weekend

We introduced this new feature, The Mildly Pleased Hall of Fame, back when we were celebrating our 10th anniversary in February, and I’ve long wanted to contribute to it. But it’s been hard to think of something worthy, especially in the realm of music. Because there seem to only be so many artists and albums that me, Sean, and John all have affection for. Though this one jumped out to me for many reasons, considering it celebrated its tenth anniversary around the same time our blog did. Also, I can’t speak for my colleagues, but to me, Vampire Weekend’s self-titled debut was such a potent snapshot of where the blog’s music tastes were at in 2008. Yet is also an album that still sounds great now. Continue reading →

Anything But Phoning It In

BlacKkKlansman / Sorry To Bother You

Prior to seeing BlacKkKlansman, I thought about comparing and contrasting it with another somewhat widely released movie from earlier this summer, Sorry To Bother You. But, as basically every Compare/Contrast has, it felt a little reductive to compare two movies so full of social complexities. But then I saw BlacKkKlansman, and remembered that it does share one big plot similarity with Sorry To Bother You – in that it is also about a black male trying to do his job, and then attempts to get ahead in his job by using his “white voice” while talking into a telephone. Then there’s also the fact that Sorry To Bother You director Boots Riley got into a bit of a kerfuffle with Spike Lee about BlacKkKlansman on Twitter. So here I am, talking about two of the more memorable movies of the summer in the same light. Continue reading →