A look back at the best albums of 2012 (Music commentary)
Making a list of my favorite albums of a year is fairly simple: I think of which discs I spun most often in my Jeep in 2012, then subtract the ones that weren’t released in […]
Music
Fall TV 2012: New shows a huge letdown, but returning faves still deliver appointment television (Commentary)
Two years ago, I labeled Fall 2010 as the worst batch of new shows ever. The highlights were “Law & Order: Los Angeles,” which was hardly a new concept; “No Ordinary Family,” which was throwaway fun; and “The Walking Dead,” which […]
First episode impressions: ‘Nashville’ (TV review)
“Nashville” (8 p.m. Central Wednesdays, ABC, starts Oct. 10) starts off with a good-but-not-great first episode (it’s now available on Hulu); among “going inside the industry” shows it’s considerably better than “Smash,” but not as free-wheeling […]
Fall TV 2012: 5 new shows and 5 returning shows to watch (Commentary)
Ah, fall TV. And, in a nice old-school twist, the Entertainment Weekly Fall TV Preview issue highlighted a single show on its cover rather than using a collage (the featured show: “Homeland,” which seems worthy, […]
Who’s the worse musician? Avril Lavigne or Chad Kroeger? (Music commentary)
With the announcement of the engagement of Avril Lavigne and Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger, an important discussion broke out at work: Which is the worse musician? To me, the answer is obvious, and it insults the intelligence of […]
10 movies worth checking out this fall (Commentary)
I’ve perused Entertainment Weekly’s Fall Movie Preview, watched the trailers and come up with my list of 10 movies I wouldn’t mind seeing in the fall.
R.I.P. Dick Clark. And I miss ‘American Dreams’ (TV commentary)
I was shocked — pleasantly so — to find the first reference to “American Dreams” only five paragraphs into the Associated Press’ feature obituary on Dick Clark, who died on Wednesday at age 82.
First episode impressions: ‘Smash’ (TV review)
I have to confess that I generally don’t enjoy musicals. With the notable exception of the “Buffy” musical episode, the genre doesn’t work for me. Most musicals are repetitive, using songs to emphasize what we […]
These were the catchiest singles of 2010 — for better or worse (Music commentary)
I don’t actively seek out mainstream pop hits like I used to, so when two songs are bouncing around my brain at the end of 2010, you know they were the two most ubiquitous songs […]
John’s top 5 albums of 2010 (Music commentary)
1. Jenny and Johnny, “I’m Having Fun Now” — When two musicians in a relationship make an album together, it rarely results in good music; at least that’s the stereotype. We think of John and Yoko or […]