I don't particularly like the idea of Boyz II Men attempting to blend the sounds of Motown and Philly, is my letdown. I like my Philly sound unadulterated.

Ugh, I got all excited because I thought Motown Philly was a reference to the Philly sound, but as it turns out it's a Boyz II Men album title. What a letdown.

The rocking value combined with the lyrics and the costumes, definitely. I find the idea of a rock'n'roll mash-up appealing in any context, but I loved it specifically because Troy as Dylan sort of made the appropriation of rock by white male musicians explicit, although I doubt this was Harmon's intention.

Troy and Abed's Baby Boomer Santa mash-up was the best. The songs in the episode were also better than anything Glee could ever come up with. Screw cynicism. We have to save Christmas to save our friends!

It may have been a slow year, but it has been a very informative one in terms of where music is headed in this decade: (for now) it's headed in the direction of space rock. The two best examples are Smith Westerns' "All Die Young" and St. Vincent's "Surgeon." The former sounds like Ziggy Stardust meets ELO (eg. "All…

"Used to Be a Cop" is a great find! The dude's singing style reminds me a bit of Dylan's rambling narratives, just the way he kind of half-sings, half-talks and drives out the words. Also, it has a melody, which is always a good thing in a song, and which is something that seems to be lacking in many songs these days.

Oh, I think Mulder and Scully do think about each other in those terms, albeit in an impossibly sublimated way*, since at least as far back as season 3's Pusher. For the first three seasons, the show is clearly concentrated on the mythology, which gives Anderson and Duchovny time to grow into the characters. I think…

What about Mulder and Scully's 7-year monogamous non-relationship? I think they finally got together at some point towards the end of season 7, but has there ever in television history been a more serious case of pent-up sexual frustration and cock blocking?

But aren't the "occurrences of her artificiality and false intellectualism" a function of the character? Aren't those organic to the character? Maybe I'm just the type of person who has their head up their ass, but if she does her job as a character well, if she serves her purpose within the show "very well", why the…

Opinions are like assholes, but I don't hate Diane (and I'm glad you don't know me).

Carla saying she wanted to persuade one of her kids to take up sailing after she'd seen Ordinary People. In the movie, Mary Tyler Moore's kid drowns in a sailing accident.

I like the screwball comedy angle, but Sam and Diane's relationship departs from the screwball dynamic.

"Basically the show feels more like a classic of its time than a timeless classic."

Re: Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart: "Oops - I meant to reply to the guy above you talking about grunge making a comeback…"

I'm going to quote myself: "Grunge was a transitional 'back to the roots' genre that happened as a reaction to the overproduced music they were playing on MTV. Then alternative rock softened it and made it more melodic and (arguably) more sophisticated."

But that didn't stop "the rock establishment" from incorporating disco into its music (new wave).

I think a grunge-like genre is bound to make a comeback. Grunge was a transitional "back to the roots" genre that happened as a reaction to the overproduced music they were playing on MTV. Then alternative rock softened it and made it more melodic and (arguably) more sophisticated. If you go back, grunge is very…

At the beginning of the 2000s, we had a '60s garage rock revival (Strokes/White Stripes), then we had a late-'70s-to-early-'80s post-punk revival (Interpol, The National) and a concurrent new wave revival. It's funny because the same thing happened that happened back in the mid-'80s, a more commercial strand of rock…

Any lit majors in college were like, yeah, emplotment, when they read this part?:

I recently re-watched Cheers, and I had the exact opposite reaction. To me, Cheers is similar to an Antonioni movie in how it uses time and space. In Antonioni, you have those wide open spaces that frame the human presence, but can also exist on their own without the human presence. The lack of human presence in a…