Musicians, it seems, are not like a fine wine. How often do they get better with age? Troubled by this distressing phenomenon, Jeff Merrion tries to make sense of the inevitable mediocrity that accompanies aging.
Arts
Wes Anderson has been paid to make the same movie over and over again for the past decade. His new movie, The Darjeeling Limited, is no exception. Perturbed by critics who view this similarity as a flaw, Caitlin Boersma offers a defense of the Anderson motif, which emphasizes beauty over reality.
It’s fun to be scared shitless, especially in October. When he wants to be terrified, lionhearted Jeff Merrion turns to music instead of movies.
Yesterday, Radiohead announced that they would self-distribute their upcoming album. With record labels, iTunes, and the future of music in mind, soothsayer Nick Martens analyzes the implications of this surprising but welcome attempt at subverting traditional methods of purchasing albums.
In theory, it’s great to listen to music while reading dry modernist criticism, but it rarely works so well in practice. It’s too easy to get distracted or fall asleep. Premier musicologist Nick Martens applies state-of-the-science research methods to combat this problem, and locates four albums that make studying a breeze.
Bumbershoot is Seattle’s largest outdoor music festival. Nick Martens, Jordan Barber, and Caitlin Boersma collectively attended all three days of this year’s festival, and all came away with varying degrees of satisfaction.
In an attempt to console his love/hate relationship with author Nick Hornby, pseudo-intellectual Kevin Nguyen scrutinizes his summer wrapped up in books.
The internet is packed full of comics, some great, some not. Here, the adolescent-minded Nick Martens explores an excellent webcomic that, amazingly, does not rely on tech jokes or nonsensical humor.
Ex-Smiths crooner Morrissey has long been outspoken about his political beliefs. Mozzophile Caitlin Boersma carefully examines the singer’s romantic ideologies.
MySpace is a popular platform of free self-promotion for the unsigned musician, but how many of these bands are even worth your attention? Apparently very few. Resident sweater model Jeff Merrion embarks on an epic quest to find good music on MySpace.
