2021 Music Resurrections: Sometimes I Might Be Introvert

Little Simz – Sometimes I Might Be Introvert

When I wrote some brief thoughts on Little Simz’s last album, two things I found striking about it was how nimble the rhymes were and how concise it was overall. This makes the UK rapper’s latest outing all the more impressive, since instead of playing to those same strengths, she’s gone in the complete other direction. Though the rhymes are still very strong this time around, they’re a lot more introspective (as the album’s title would indicate) while also meditating on all of the world’s ills, which just feel like they’re compounding year after year. Conversely, the album’s production is far more epic in scope, as is the running time, which runs about twice the length as Grey Area. Continue reading →

2021 Music Resurrections: In These Silent Days

Brandi Carlile – In These Silent Days

There really was no reason for me to sit on Brandi Carlile for so long. I had certainly known of her for a while, considering she’s been one of the Seattle area’s most beloved musical exports for the last decade or so. She’s even a frequent supporter of my favorite record store, while being the clear heir apparent to Neko Case, the Northwest’s other alt-country sort-of-superstar. But I suppose the alt-country space is a weird one to be in, as it’s an uphill battle trying to gain the more ardent country fans as well as those indie rock fans who will only occasionally listen to something with some twang in it. Yet somehow Carlile has managed to do both while racking up a slew of Grammys. Continue reading →

2021 Music Resurrections: Star-Crossed

Kacey Musgraves – Star-Crossed

I’m still a fan of this album, but I feel like its moment came and went pretty quickly. Some of that may be due to the fact that Star-Crossed is decidedly one big bummer of an album, though I would argue it’s far more bittersweet than straight-up depressing. Also, the album kinda confirms that Kacey Musgraves has gotten to a level of cross-over success that few country singers get to, but she’s not Taylor Swift. She’s not using her cache as a singer-songwriter to invade the pop world with bangers that abandon the nuance and wit of her earlier work. Instead, she’s decided to use her strengths to use music as therapy to deconstruct the romance that led to her greatest achievement. Continue reading →

2021 Music Resurrections: Let Me Do One More

illuminati hotties – Let Me Do One More

Like everything else in this bleak, mixed-up world, the year in music wasn’t quite as normal as we would’ve wanted. While 2021 didn’t see the kind of indefinite album postponements that marked last year, the year also had a weird imbalance in what music was released in 2021. Usually, the early Summer is the busiest time of year (at least for me) in terms of anticipated new albums coming out, and while there were a few of those this Summer, I actually found more music that I liked coming out in the other parts of the year.

The first half of 2021 wasn’t half bad, as I found plenty of albums enough to my liking worth writing about at the year’s mid-point. Meanwhile, there have been a flurry of albums to come out in the last month or two that I haven’t spent nearly as much time with. So once again, doing these short, stupidly-named yearly wrap-up reviews will hopefully give me more reason to catch up with some recent stand-outs while teeing us up for our end-of-year lists. Continue reading →

Shocktober: Censor

Censor (2021)

If you’re a horror fan then you’re familiar with the “Video Nasties” movement of the 1980s. If not, let me take you across the pond. In the early ‘80s, VHS exploded. Anything and everything was coming out on videotape, but in the UK there was a loophole in film classification laws. Videos could bypass a review process and be sold regardless of content. Panic ensued.

In response, the British Board of Film Certification (BBFC) set out to not only censor films but outright ban titles. The “Video Nasties” was a list of 72 titles that were banned and deemed the most explicit. This list included some now classics like; The Evil Dead, Possession, Tenebrae, and pretty much any movie by Lucio Fulci or Joe D’Amato. Censor is a film that dives into the phenomenon.

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Shocktober: Raw

Shocktober: Raw (2016)

I chose this movie basically to see whether I would want to check out Titane, the other recently released Julia Ducournau film, before the end of the year. While I don’t regret seeing Raw, it pretty definitively gives me my verdict that I do not want to see Titane. Raw is a movie that is certainly effective and pushes your buttons in all sorts of ways, but it’s just not what I want out of a movie. I mentioned in my review of Goodnight Mommy that there was a specific scene in which I had to put my hands over my eyes, and I probably spent a quarter of Raw’s running time doing that. I know that’s a pretty pathetic thing for a grown man to be doing, but Jesus Christ this movie got under my sweet delicious skin. Continue reading →

Shocktober: Saint Maud

Saint Maud (2020)

What year should I attribute Saint Maud to? It was an unusual COVID casualty, originally playing at TIFF in September 2019, where it was picked up by A24 and scheduled for an early 2020 release. That obviously didn’t happen, but A24 did optimistically postpone its release to July 2020, but… let me check my notes here… thing were still really bad then, so it was pulled entirely from their schedule. To add one additional wrinkle of complexity, it was released theatrically in the UK last October, but it didn’t come out here until late January. So you could make a case this is a 2019, 2020, or 2021 movie! I split the difference and went with the UK theatrical release, but don’t be surprised if I reconsider and make it a 2021 movie when list-making season comes. That is to say this whole preamble was just leading up to me admitting that I thought Saint Maud was quite good.

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