Yes, but do give him a shot live if he happens to be playing your local festival. None of his albums have ever grabbed me, but he's a fantastic guitarist I wouldn't hesitate to see again.

I gave this a couple of spins while working today, having never heard any of her previous albums in full. The opening couple songs are all right, there's a decent pair in the middle (DWYW, title track) and the last 3 are fairly good. The rest is forgettable to grating. Lots of mediocre dancy thumping electronic pop,…

Don't forget the guest rapper in roughly half of them! Now that's what I call variety. Not sure what you mean by loud squashed sound, but pop music really has been getting louder and losing dynamic range for decades now. Google "loudness war." That should also turn up a scientific study from last year showing current…

Heh, maybe I should have rephrased it to "not the worst of the lot compared to the other acts Sam R singled out above." One Direction also has zero credits on its last album, I see, while Kesha and Bieber both have credits on nearly everything. Interesting.

In case you miss my comment upthread… check out "The Song Machine" in the New Yorker and "Benny Blanco, Hit-Maker for Rihanna and Maroon 5" in the NYT. Lots of interesting stuff there. The answer is pretty much what you'd expect. After reading I wound up doing stuff like giving points to Miley for picking a couple of…

Yeah, Lorde stuck with me too. It's definitely very teenage in its sensibility, but she's a cool, down to earth girl I'd have hung out with. (Adventure Time fan? 95% of her friends are boys? Yep, that's my peer group.)

I listened to all of Bangerz, because hey, I have a streaming sub and time to kill, why not, and it was completely forgettable beyond the two (wisely chosen) singles. Kinda like Prism, actually.

Wikipedia for this album shows 10/16 tracks in the extended edition were Dr. Luke/Max Martin, with another 2 each from Stargate/Benny Blanco, Greg Wells, and Kurstin (?) Perry has a writing credit on all 16 songs this time, but that will happen as part of the negotiating process with more established acts who did…

It's a chance to re-sell the singles and generate an extra wave of articles like this one, if nothing else. Might as well squeeze some extra cash from the byproducts of the manufacturing process.

I'm not sure I want the main target demographic for this growing balls.

Heh, I'm just a couple years too young to have caught that the first time around, which I suppose proves the point of this whole discussion.

If I wanted to play devil's advocate, I'd say that the sexuality she's flaunting is remarkably butch/aggressive/classically masculine for a major pop star, particularly considering her former image. But that's about all I can give her credit for.

Well said. Really liking Chvrches here regardless and will definitely be checking this out as well. I'm curious if critics will be willing to walk even farther out on that ledge with Little Mix's upcoming album. Extremely mainstream in their origin but holy cow do they have some great voices and harmonies and they're…

Someone on 4chan drew that sketch and she reposted it. She has a weird relationship with that site since it was the place the show's popularity originated.

Are we really going to pretend that Pixar movies aren't toy commercials in the era of Cars 2, Planes, and Toy Story 4? (I just went and made myself sad.)

Even though the creator said she explicitly designed it for both kids and their parents? Even though the AV Club saw fit to review it, leading one review with the line "I am a grown-ass man, and I really enjoy this show… ostensibly made for 6-year-olds"? Even though one of its episodes deliberately combines the…

I liked the first episode of Bee and Puppycat. I wish the main character were a bit less of a complete loser, and I could do without the crotch shot humor, but it had a lot of interesting stuff (starting with the psychedelic dream sequence where Bee's wrists get shredded and ribbons come out while all the puppycats…

As a fan of a couple of years, it seems that half the people who approach the show with an open mind wind up in my camp and half wind up in yours. I'm not sure where the discussion can productively go from here. I feel like we'd need to talk for a while about our respective tastes. I guess I will note that Todd VDW…

I enjoyed the couple TTG episodes I watched, but not enough to seek out more of the series. It's *very* light and wasn't really interested in doing anything other than telling jokes.

I know I'm in the minority, but I enjoyed S3 nearly as much as the previous seasons despite the very obvious messiness. I felt it recovered some energy and forward momentum from post-Faust S2, which other than a few episodes left me feeling like I was watching an above average CN show - except with ponies! - and…