THANK YOU! This is really distracting on Succession. 

Sellouts

This might be a little conspiratorial, but: The Ringer used to do a ton of questionable publicist-sounding HBO content–oral histories (so many), thin articles on side characters, short, strangely enthusiastic thinkpieces–when HBO was an investor in that website (they would run a disclaimer after articles about HBO…

Wait, so you’re pissed that Rough Trade is moving from a hipster neighborhood to a place where they will get multiple times more foot traffic? Do better.

And yet he seems to take a week off every month

Quick, somebody check on the Tweed sisters

At the risk of having Jesse come into comments to defend the glory of present-day AV Club, Stereogum’s Number Ones column is a perfect simulacrum of a classic AVC series, right down to the nerdy commenters holding side conversations. They have a better commenting system too

I think the last great thing he did was The Forgottbusters on The Dissolve. Since he’s gone solo it seems that he keeps trying to come up with a new memorable pop-culture series but the well’s run dry–neither the Weird Al song-by-song thing or Travolta/Cage works. His writing’s gotten really workmanlike and lethargic…

I’m not a metal fan, much less a pop-metal fan, but I’ve always been impressed by ‘Still of The Night’–it has almost a prog-rock structure to it, going through different movements and whatnot. Really ambitious for the genre, I think.

SPONSORED CONTENT

I mean, that article was 100% an advertorial. It’s exactly the sort of article The Ringer used to run a lot when they were tied to HBO.

Yeah to a great extent this show’s actually (so far) doing what a lot of shows of this ilk claim to do–they’re telling a story about characters, not just a mystery. It helps that 1) the mystery is actually kinda compelling, 2) that it does have a sense of humor. Especially #2.

I hate to play the predictable ‘their early stuff was better’ card, but their early stuff was better. Uplift Mofo... and Mother’s Milk are great records and there are some highlights from their first LPs. But Rick Rubin really did no favors; he turned down the funk and made them a pretty conventional rock band and…

It’s really weird that St Vincent got a pass on that–did AVC even do a newswire about it? If Justin Bieber spiked a journalist’s interview it’d be headlines here for weeks.

Yeah, I do think he was right to shoot down that deal, which was indeed an insult. But I think in a perfect world it would have worked. 

I wonder if Fey would want to do it as this point? Her career’s slipped a bit, but I don’t see her really wanting to do the grind of a weekly show. (I’m not sure she’d be good for it either; her stint as head writer wasn’t one of SNL’s better periods overall)

Honestly I wish Conan would set up an alt.SNL. 

In all seriousness, I’ve wondered if he might be a candidate to take over for Lorne Michaels at Saturday Night Live. I think that ship has sailed by now, but you never know...

In retrospect the suggestion floated after Leno’s primetime show flopped–give Leno the 11:30-midnight slot for a monologue and guest and Conan’s show after–might have worked out. Conan would be on a little earlier but could still keep his Late Night style of comedy. But he really shot himself in the foot being so…

Greenwald is not at all on the left.