Hype can really be a double-edged sword. It gets people to check you out that otherwise wouldn't have, but it also sets you up nicely for a backlash.
There's nothing groundbreaking about that first Strokes album, but it's a damn catchy, very re-listenable little garage rock record.

Hey, the offense was great in Week 1, and the defense was great yesterday! Maybe that means both units will show up next week!
No, but seriously, they're going to be pretty bad.

I think part of the problem is that it's just hard to make good pop music that's preachy, regardless of what you're preaching about; politics, religion, whatever. And given the very specific purpose of the music, it probably needs to be as broad and inoffensive as possible.
What's interesting to me is that there are…

Brave, the movie she found surprisingly dark, was PG.

Yeah, this is more like a used CD store, circa 2000-ish

Ah man, you totally had me going for a minute there. SO GLAD YOU'RE BACK!

I grew up Catholic, and my team's games were almost always at noon on Sunday. The ritual of church in the morning, football in the afternoon was pretty ingrained. But I was always watching on TV. I could see it being problematic if you actually commute to the game. That might be part of the reason churches generally…

"We got more important things going on."
As do we all. And yet…

Yeah, I cringed at that part too. Then it occurred to me that it could be a pun on the name "Chevy," and that just made it much, much worse.

I haven't seen the Fast movies, so I don't have an opinion on them. Johnson just seems like a bad actor to me. If that opinion makes me a shithead, I guess I'll try to remember to announce that fact in every conversation I have from now on.

I'm not "offended" by him, exactly, but I've always been puzzled by the affection for Dwayne Johnson, which seems near-universal. I mean, maybe he's a nice guy or whatever, but he's terrible, right?

"Worst song ever" is subjective, obviously. But this song is objectively terrible, everyone knows it, and everyone knows who made it. I can think of plenty of shitty one-hit wonders, but it's hard to think of a worse well-known song by a band that was once relevant. It was a huge hit, which helps, because it's harder…

Thanks for helping me to better understand that Mountain Goats song, and reminding me to google it. John Darnielle, via wikipedia: "Lovecraft in Brooklyn" "is not really about Lovecraft — it's sung by a guy who's identifying with Lovecraft at his most xenophobic and terrified. Why does that appeal? I think I'm just…

Friday

That was my favorite for many years, although I haven't heard it in forever.

Well, that was lame. Very shallow, as one would expect from Vice. No real attempt at an explanation of why this forest attracts suicides. No insight into the phenomenon of suicides at all, except some musings by the environmental guy who has no apparent expertise on the subject, except for the fact that he stumbles…

Apparently not.

I've tried doing this a few times, but the TV broadcast is always several seconds behind the radio, which I find distracting.

Wait, what? I saw one this morning and didn't think anything of it, because people around here know how to do lots of keyboard thingies that I can't do, but, are grey boxes a thing now?
*hovers over one*
Dear god, what sorcery is this?

No, your instincts are correct. At their hardest, they were at most a hard rock/blues boogie kind of thing. But I assume they shared a lot of fans with the AC/DCs and Led Zeppelins of the world.
By the way, I just heard a Metallica song that doesn't suck. I can't claim to be up on their current work, but this…