Tag: reviews
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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 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 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 Last Friday night, September 18, 2026, my parents and I saw The Billy Joel Legacy: A Tribute Experience at Lynn Auditorium in Lynn, Massachusetts, and it was a rather invigorating show, to say the least. The set kicked off with an electrifying rendition of “My Life,” accompanied by video of an animated…
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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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by Michael McCarthy Last Friday night’s sold out August 28th Kacey Musgraves show at TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts came just shy of two years since I’d last seen her live at TD Garden on September 6th, 2024. The difference is that in 2024, she performed two sold out nights at TD Garden but this…
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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…
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by Michael McCarthy Mariah Carey quietly released a new album recently. It’s called Here For it All and it’s fantastic. Easily her best album since her first comeback album with “Shake It Off” came out over 20 years ago when I was living in California. The first song on the new album, “Mi,” has her…
