#music-criticism

#music-criticism

After working in music journalism for over 10 years, if there's one thing I've come away feeling it's a true hatred for making lists. The very process of having to pick 10 or 20 or 50 or 100 of the best songs or albums or whatever and make it sound definitive is annoying in itself. When you add the inevitable consternation from the readership, then it becomes even more untenable.

I think if he'd walked in and sang that version, I'm not gonna lie, I would've gone, 'Forget it.' Seriously. Because I didn't even know he wrote the song, when I heard his version, I was like, 'Whoa.' I just don't think that would have been a great audition.

I was at the 30th anniversary at Queen's Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue. After the show, I was in the downstairs bar, chatting to a couple of people. I turned around and going up the stairs was a man in such high heels these fetish shoes that he couldn't walk in them. He had a leather thong up his arse, and I thought to myself: I suppose I'm responsible for that, aren't I?

For better or worse, Wicked: For Good has hit theaters, bringing a definitive close to a sometimes confounding, sometimes surprising, and always press tour. Director Jon M. Chu has spun an entire film out of the stage musical's much shorter second act, beginning with Elphaba's self-banishment from the Emerald City. For Good also adds two new original songs, one for each lead: Glinda's heart-shattered ballad, "The Girl in the Bubble," and Elphaba's contemplative call to action, "No Place Like Home."

To young artists, I want to say, get your hands dirty and drop the screens and get out in your garage or your little room and get obsessed. Get obsessed with something, get passionate. We all want to share in what you might create,

When I first started working as a music critic, I held nothing more sacred than a ranked albums list. The album felt like the idealized musical vehicle, a prime mechanism for the expression of true artistic vision and an opportunity to see that vision at scale. Songs there were always so many songs. Too many to really wrap your arms around and judge fairly, in my opinion. But albums were self-contained, easier to quantify and could be stacked up cleanly next to each other

When I was a kid, living in Lawrenceville, Virginia, I heard tales about how the James River was haunted: perhaps by the spirits of Indigenous people who were forced off this land, or maybe by those who gave their lives to revolution, or maybe by enslaved men, women, and children who drowned while trying to escape their plantations. The ghost stories seemed to suit a river that's connected to America's soul.

You're hearing an R&B intro sung a cappella by Rumi, the main character. It almost has a Mary J. Blige tragic heaviness to it. And then as the other singers come in, Zoey and Mira, what you end up with is something like an up-tempo club number. It doesn't quite go full EDM, but it does feel like it's designed for a Hamilton- esque chant along. What started as a tender, warm, introspective ballad ends up as a powerful fight song.

On this week's show, Steve, Dana, and Julia crack open the latest edition of The Paper, a new mockumentary set in the The Office universe. They debate whether the tried and true sitcom formula still delivers and assess its portrayal of local journalism. Next, they share their feelings about two couples who are terrible at sharing theirs in Splitsville, the marriage farce created and starring Kyle Marvin and Michael Angelo Covino with Dakota Johnson and ​​Adria Arjona.