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We Are the 80s

“They were created by music impresario Malcolm McLauren, he who also created the Sex Pistols and managed/advised groups like the Slits and New York Dolls, crafted Bow Wow Wow in 1980 after several members of the Ants left Adam Ant behind. He found a then-teenaged Annabella Lwin singing at a dry clean” read more

Nuggets From Nuggets

“Before he was part of Patti Smith’s seminal punk group, Lenny Kaye assembled Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965 – 1968 for Elektra Records. Kaye was a music writer and producer at the time, and his vision for Nuggets was a series of eight installments focusing on di” read more

Get Out

“Look, just because Get Out is a dark satire about white supremacy doesn’t mean that it should be classified as a “comedy.” You hear my Golden Globes voters? Sure, there’s comedic elements, but there’s also too many psychological torments, scenes of abstract and real horrors, and a reckonin” read more

Mudbound

“Mudbound is the sight of a filmmaker evoking the power and fury of William Faulkner’s prose. Not only in the ways that the land itself becomes a harsh character, both unmovable by the sorrows of its characters and unrelenting in its unending withholding, but in its intense examination of generatio” read more

North Sea Texas

“Never has coming out been such a non-event as it is in North Sea Texas. There’s something refreshing about that, but that’s also part of the problem. Despite there being a pileup of occurrences and incident, nothing seems to matter in the life of the main character, Pim (Jelle Florizoone).   ” read more

The Crystals Sing the Greatest Hits, Volume 1

“The Crystals Sing the Greatest Hits, Volume 1 sure enough lives up to that mouth-full of a title, but ol’ Phil is at it again. A whopping four songs here are actually the Ronettes, and there’s no mistaking Ronnie’s voice as a heretofore anonymous member of the group suddenly thrust to the lead” read more

He's a Rebel

“Twist Uptown, both the Crystals and Phil Spector’s first full-length album, was released in early 1962. In 1963, the album was repackaged with the smash hit “He’s a Rebel,” strong follow-up “He’s Sure the Boy I Love,” and aborted single “He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss)” replacing s” read more

Twist Uptown

“It’s not quite the Wall of Sound just yet, but the foundations are clearly being scoped and the bricks picked out. Twist Uptown was the first full-length album from super-producer Phil Spector, and it’s a solid historical document as well as being a uniformly strong pop album. Not quite a master” read more

J to tha L-O! The Remixes

“Despite what you might believe, Jennifer Lopez’s voice was never the thing that launched her brief foray as a pop diva. Pop music is dependent upon a personality, which she had, and a look, she was the antithesis to the skinny bleached blonde pop girls. That’s how La Lopez got the number one mov” read more

Get It

“The Lashes debut album, Get It, is an infectious romp, but unlike their contemporaries Hot Hot Heat, the Strokes or Rooney, the Lashes sound like they’re aping their own generation. It’s not terrible; it’s harmless and very safe, but a lot of fun while it lasts. You won’t remember much of i” read more

Every Breath You Take: The Classics

“White boy reggae never sounded as good as it did with the Police’s barrage of stellar singles throughout the early 80s. Every Breath You Take: The Classics lives up to that subtitle even if the track listing is missing a few gems (“So Lonely,” “Synchronicity II,” “The Bed’s Too Big Wit” read more

The Best of Village People

“The Best of Village People displays that they were a great party band, and a reminder of just how silly, camp, and dumb they were. Their songs remain anthems for stadiums and awkward drunken dancing at wedding receptions. Come on, everyone’s had to suffer through watching their older relatives emb” read more

Phantom Thread

“Paul Thomas Anderson traffics in films that are purposefully oblique. They are sustained on mood, on character, on a ripeness of visual poetry that recalls the titans of cinema in a way that refracts them like a funhouse mirror. Phantom Thread, for all of its straight-ahead narrative propulsion, is ” read more

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

“Treating prickly subject matter with a carelessness and shock-and-awe grandstanding does not a great film make. No, no amount of verbal pyrotechnics about topics like racism, sexism, and culpability can mask the fact that Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is flippant about things like charac” read more