TheMaker

MOTHERFUCKER. This is incredible news. One thing I'll grant Christianity is that it's inspired some of the most amazing music ever recorded. And the best band around today (yeah, I finally admitted it about six months ago) going gospel? Good, good, great news.

This one was A Christmas Story's to lose. I had to go with A Charlie Brown Christmas. Hell, the score alone could cinch it, as far as I'm concerned! But you've got that beautiful story to go along with it.

If you have any fondness for Constantine in print, avoid it at all costs. As a flick, it ain't half bad, but as a Hellblazer adaptation, it's bollocks.

I actually enjoyed Hellboy quite a bit. I was surprised that Mignola allowed del Toro to turn it into a comedic romp almost completely unlike what Hellboy has always been in the comics - broody, chilling, atmospheric and stunningly, methodically paced. But I'll be damned if it didn't work. Speaking of work, now I have to get back to work... coloring comics. Sigh. (Yes, it's five o'clock in the morning. WHOOPEE DEADLINES!!)

Oh, sweet Jesus, the title track is perfection. Wow. Dollars to donuts, that's Chris Robinson singing over the outro. Really sounds like him, anyway.

Offhand, I don't know, but my fav is probably from 14 Songs. That's the best record Westerberg's ever been involved with, IMO.

Of Montreal, Spoon, Feist, Wilco, and... oh, poop, I forget who my fifth choice was. I didn't have to write anything in, which surprised me.

I can't even conceive of ever having enough money to do this, so my answer has to be yes, yes, yes, for fuck's sake, do not fucking hesitate, you only live once. There you go.

I guess I'm the only one who adores Matt, but hates Oberst? Damn. I can't help but feel this is a tremendous waste of Ward's talent and time...

Why is that great, out of curiosity? Was the organ too high-pitched for your ears to even register? Because my ears are fine, and it's all I can hear. "Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo" The phrasing during the last minute and a half is pretty interesting, I think, but not enough to redeem the performance. Dylan's been threatening to re-record his classics for decades now, and every few years he makes good on said threat. The only really good one, in my opinion, is the '93 v

I'm in the top 250, which astonishes me. I didn't expect to make the list. Weirdly, none of my best friends are on it at all, and I don't think any of their names are all that rare. Half of them are pretty French, though, and the USA don't like that shit.

Love and Theft is generally strong. When it's bad, it's just boring and uninspired, but when it's great, look the fuck out. The same can't be said about this atrocity, however... make the insane circus clown stop playing, daddy. Please? http://www.expozaragoza2008.es/Home/seccio...idioma=en_GB.do

Are you guys really hearing her "everywhere?" If so, good for her. I also dislike the iPod ad (surprise, surprise), but I don't watch nearly enough TV to have seen it more than once or twice. Saw her with Elvis Costello in Buff a few months ago, and yes, that bill is precisely as fucking awesome as it sounds. I played 1-2-3-4 on the jukebox at the local watering hole the other night, too! Woo! Interesting to note that The Reminder seems to take a back seat to LID in this thread. That's a first that I've observed. I used to be in that camp, but the new record is a lot more sophisticated and a

I'm just trying to figure out whose anti-MT argument comes off seeming "insecure." Certainly not mine... I don't like the reedy voice or the general "first-taker" sound of Good As I Been to You, but World Gone Wrong is one of my favourite Dylan records. He picked ten of the goddamnedest tunes from the American songbook and his empathy on some of the tracks is unreal. I want only one song played at my funeral, and it's Lone Pilgrim.

I don't think you guys are ready as a nation for Kucinich as a prez (sorry), but I think he's a goddamned genius. Progressive politics doesn't get much more visionary than his ideas for America and its place in the world. Baby steps, though. It's a shame politics is such a money/PR game in the U.S., or else Obama would stand an incredibly strong chance of becoming the next president.

Quoted for truth, as the kids say. Modern Times, from a literary shot, is atrocious - atrocious! - compared to its two predecessors. Compare the lyrics of a stunner like Moonlight or Floater with, well, anything on MT, and it's just night and day. The new record is basically just moon/june/spoon stuff, silly fluff, not to be taken seriously. Add to that a vocal performance that sounds disconcertingly like a hairball coming to life, to say nothing of the boring band Bobby dragged into the studio with him, and you've got a record that ranks "up" there with the likes of Under the Red Sky and Sho

I'm bustin' for this one. Cormac McCarthy is probably America's greatest living author, and Joel (and Ethan now, too, officially, I guess) Coen is my favourite director. The positive ink is setting me up for a huge disappointment, though. I can just feel it...

Eeeuch, yeah. I dunno, I thought this one signified a bit of a dip. I'm definitely a big fan of awkward humour, but there was a very bizarre dichotomy at work throughout the whole of the deposition scene. The show skirted closer to pure drama than it ever has before, but I don't think Michael has ever been portrayed as such an unbelievable man-child (maybe even a full-blown savant of some kind...?). It came dangerously close to falling apart for me, and it really wasn't that funny. Some great character moments towards the end, though, for sure. After the unutterably brilliant second and thir

This one time I was watching a VW ad on TV, and... No, that's never happened to me, thankfully, but I've heard the band plenty of places. Jesus Etc. at a Blockbuster once, and A.M. blasting away in the booth at a gas station. Seriously! This couldn't have been more than three or four years ago.

Wonderful Christmastime is literally the most egregious song ever penned by a rocksmith. No other lump of coal that Macca's produced is even in the same stratosphere. I also worked in an office where I had to hear this song two or three times a day for weeks at a stretch. Talk about torture... it's like a fucking Casio developed self-awareness and decided to take over mankind in the most passive way it could imagine: by slowly driving it insane during the Christmas season.

I can't fucking stand this broad. Even at her "best," she oversings everything and makes an ass of herself. Yeah, she's got good taste in backing musicians, but so what? She's also the fugliest celebrity I've ever seen. Sharon Jones, on the other hand, is the real deal!

New song up on his MySpace page! http://www.myspace.com/hayden

Ooh, right on. I have this weird relationship to Hayden that involves me always missing his shows. Always. No matter what. That Hamilton one's looking pretty sound, though.

Which is weird to me... I'm one of roughly nine people planetwide who seems to think the second record coheres stunningly. Win's asking a lot of questions here, and there's something of a questing nature to Neon Bible. Like a lot of young Americans (yeah, the band is Canadian, but Win and Will aren't), he knows what he doesn't want, but he's not quite sure what he's looking for. Almost all of the songs reinforce this view, from Black Mirror to Antichrist to Windowsill and beyond. Even the few songs that stray from this theme seem to have an exuberant, almost desperate sound to them, e.g., th

SO FUCKING AWFUL.(Sorry.) Edit: Ha ha, H beat me to it, basically. Now I don't feel so bad.