Tag: review
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by Michael McCarthy I recently posted part one of 18 Albums That Made Me, which was inspired by the my9albums thing that has been going around on social media where you can select nine album covers of the sounds that made you and make a collage to share. As with the first part of my…
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by Michael McCarthy We recently featured Nicotine Dolls’ single “Here to California” as a song of the day on Love is Pop, and it’s a great tune. But their new single, “Gimme Sympathy,” is even better. It’s a much heavier, almost grimy hard rock song that kicks your ass from start to finish. Sam Cieri’s…
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by Michael McCarthy By now, I’m sure you’ve seen the “9 albums” thing going around on social media. There’s a website called My 9 Albums where you can make an image showing nine album covers. It’s supposed to represent the nine albums that made you who you are, so to speak. For some people, that…
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by Michael McCarthy First of all, I don’t mind telling you that I’m not a particularly big Keith Urban fan. In fact, I’m generally not a big fan of modern country music. To my ears, much of it sounds more like country pop than actual country music, and something about that has always put me…
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by Michael McCarthy Today one of the year’s best singer-songwriter pop albums has been unleashed upon the world: Catie Turner’s intoxicating Blue Alchemy. And to celebrate the album’s release, Catie has just released a rather fun new video for her song “Girls’ Girl,” a collaboration with her former roommate Sophie Holohan. It’s an irresistible earworm…
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by Michael McCarthy It’s a particularly good time to be a K-drama fan. I’m currently watching four new Korean dramas, and each one happens to star an actor or actress I’ve been a fan of for several years: Kim Yoo-jung in 100 Days of Deception, Kim Ji-won in Doctor X: Mafia in White, Song Kang…
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by Michael McCarthy Miley’s new video for “Different Religion” takes religious language and imagery and deliberately turns it inside out, treating sexual desire as its own kind of faith. Miley delivers some of the song’s most provocative lines in an almost spoken cadence, while the guest vocal from Model/Actriz brings a similarly talk-sung, slightly menacing…
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by Michael McCarthy I recently had the opportunity to watch Unleashed Spirits: The Rise of the Hollywood Vampires, Daniel E. Catullo III’s new documentary feature about Hollywood Vampires, the supergroup featuring Alice Cooper, Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry, actor/guitarist Johnny Depp and guitarist/music director Tommy Henriksen. The band’s touring lineup also includes keyboardist Buck Johnson, who…
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If you like electronic pop music, I highly recommend the new album by Pussy Riot, the Russian protest group. The album is called CYKA, which Russian for “bitch.” Well, it’s Russian for bitch but saying it is also akin to saying fuck you. I had GPT translate a lot of the Russian lyrics after I…
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by Michael McCarthy Last night I was fortunate enough to catch St. Vincent’s one off performance with The Boston Pops at Symphony Hall in Boston. The audience appeared to be a mix of St. Vincent fans and Boston Pops patrons, creating an unusual but welcome blend of concertgoers. The show was conducted by Jules Buckley,…
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by Michael McCarthy photos by HBO First of all, just in case you didn’t read the full subject line, I feel that I should begin this review but stating that it will contain major spoilers. If you don’t want to know about things like characters dying before you watch it, don’t read any further. Perhaps…
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by Michael McCarthy There’s something almost novelistic about You and Everything Else. Watching it feels less like bingeing a television series and more like slowly making your way through a long, emotionally dense literary drama about friendship, resentment, jealousy, guilt and regret. For much of its runtime, the series is genuinely absorbing, thanks largely to…
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by Michael McCarthy Kacey Musgraves continues to be one of the most unpredictable artists working in modern country and Americana. With each new release, she seems less interested in repeating herself and more interested in following wherever her songwriting instincts take her. Her newly released album, Middle of Nowhere, continues that pattern — and like…
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by Michael McCarthy After the breakout success of its first season, Beef returns with a bold creative choice: a completely new storyline, new characters, and a fresh ensemble cast, while retaining the same sharp creative team behind the scenes. The result is a season that feels more like an anthology continuation than a direct sequel.…
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by Michael McCarthy Def Leppard has just released a new live album, Diamond Star Heroes Live From Sheffield (Live). Not that the world really needed another live album by Def Leppard, but this might actually be their best one so far. Joe’s voice just sounds really, really good on this one, whereas I thought his…
