Rihanna is one of those weird pop stars where the beard-stroking discourse and mythmaking around her is almost more interesting if she *doesn't* release any music. As a cultural symbol, a fashion icon, and a walking manifestation of whatever it is that post-grad Pitchfork writers have decided they want out of pop…

Exactly. I have yet to watch a single minute of The Towering Inferno, Airport 1975 or Zero Hour, yet Airplane! is still one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. I know the style of movie they're making fun of, and the general conventions they're upending, and that's plenty.

I liked whoever the hell it was that played Suge. And Jason Mitchell as Eazy was close to perfect. The casting of Dre, however (or maybe more the attempt to portray him as a guileless innocent musical genius whose only crime was having so much faith in his fellow man — oh, hello executive producer Dr. Dre! Great to…

Honestly, 10 years ago "Democratic Presidential Nominee Kanye West" would've actually seemed far more reasonable than "GOP Presidential Nominee Donald Trump."

Never liked what the Eagles represented, and I have probably never laughed as hard at a movie theater as I did during the taxi scene in "Lebowski." All the same, even among those of us who profess a hatred for the Eagles, I'm pretty sure all of us all have at least two Eagles songs that we'll grudgingly admit a…

Such were the wages of the Eagles' success. One of the most financially successful bands of all time, with a fanbase that could miss the transparently obvious meanings of their songs.

Dateline Southern California, some time in the mid-90s. I'm at a Rancid show, "Let's Go"-era, when they're right at the cusp of being too popular for punks to like, but not quite there yet. Rocket From the Crypt are supposed to open, but they've allegedly been thrown in jail the night before, so the loudspeaker…

The one part of this backlash that I marginally understand is the essential ridiculousness of doing a huge, uber-sentimental “Last Waltz”-style farewell show, with accompanying live album and documentary, and then just popping back up 5 years later. It’s the kind of thing that most baby boomer bands do several times…

Well, at least they ended their three-decade career with the same dignity for which it was known: Stuck upside down on a drum-rollercoaster while canned music plays, screaming to see man-titties.

My God, The Heat actually sounds like my kinda band.

I remember an interview with Spheeris where she said Gene Simmons wanted to do his interview "somewhere classy," in contrast to Stanley, and then immediately picked a lingerie shop.

The complete absence of black artists from this list is a bit…puzzling. Even if you leave out straight gospel music, there's an incredibly deep vein of religious themes in commercial R&B. And then there's hip-hop: Kanye's Jesus Walks is the most obvious, not to mention 2Pac's Who Do You Believe In?, Scarface's Heaven,…

That's…wonderful.

For years he would be reliably parked at the video poker machine — and I can attest to that with my own eyes, having gone to the Rainbow solely to see if Lemmy was there (I've been three times, he was there twice). Though I know people who claim to have played Ms. Pacman with him.

I can't remember when it was, exactly, but a few years ago I was happy to realize that Bruce's version of this song had become part of the standard Christmas music rotation. It's not my favorite version, but it was kind of refreshing to hear Christmas songs that weren't recorded when my grandma was still a little girl…

For the longest time, all I knew of Judy Garland was: 1. Dorothy, 2. Cliche gay icon, and 3. Early Hollywood cautionary tale. None of these three roles were particularly interesting to me. Then my wife all but forced me at gunpoint to watch some of her other movies, and I was forced to admit she was pretty great.…

Sinatra had that rare gift of taking extremely popular songs, previously recorded by dozens of people, and turning them permanently into "Sinatra songs" after he was done with them. This is one of the rare exceptions — Judy Garland owns this song.

SPOILERPOILER: The very first thing I said to my wife after walking out was: "Man, I hope they're gonna do something more interesting than having Rey and Kylo be siblings."

As if this song wasn't affecting enough, it's set in the exact town I grew up in, which was also once home to Darnielle. I have indeed headed North on Mills Avenue slightly drunk. Sounds stupid, but it was pretty startling to hear it for the first time and realize, "oh, shit…"

I first tried watching Heaven Knows What right after two cups of strong coffee, and had to pause it after that first scene and come back to it when I'd settled down a bit. Nearly gave me a full panic attack. Great film.