Mike Doughty and sideman Andrew Livingston have just released “The Question Jar Show”, a fantastic audio document of their acoustic live performances. Read on for our review…
pop culture
The Viewfinder: Madonna’s “Give Me All Your Luvin'”
I don’t mean to sound so blase about Madonna. I mean, I like the woman’s music. However, I can also say that Madonna hasn’t made an all-out great album since 1994. Euro-dance is generally not my thing, so the whole Ray of Light/Music/American Life/Confessions run, to me, added up to maybe 12 great songs and a bunch of crap. Hard Candy was alternately OK (Justin/Timbaland) and awful (Pharrell), and the two new songs on the Celebration compilation sounded like exactly […]
The Popblerd Staff Predicts Super Bowl XLVI
While our greatest strength as a pop culture website is on the music side, we know a little bit about sports too. If you followed my 10 Yard Fight column over the football season, you know that I’m a fan of the San Francisco 49ers and that I’m still feeling heartbreak warfare over my 49ers losing in the NFC Championship to the New York Giants. Those Giants face Tom Brady and the New England Patriots on the biggest sports day in all of the […]
Blerd Appreciation: Don Cornelius
We’ve gotta stop and give props to one of the most influential men in pop and soul music history-Don Cornelius.
Roundball Soundoff 1/30/12: What Have We Learned?
D. Rose and the Bulls are the beasts of the East (so far.) How’s the rest of the NBA holding up in this lockout-shortened season. Read on for the best damn NBA column in the world.
Blerd Radio Is Back: Season 2, Episode 1
It’s been a long time, we shouldn’t have left you…yeah, we’ve been there before, haven’t we? Well, we were gone for two whole months-encompassing most of the holiday season. But we’re back and we don’t intend on leaving you again anytime soon. In this episode, Mike and Jesse atone for their absence (again) but hit the ground running. There’s some Super Bowl news, some Oscar nominations news. We defend Nickelback (sort of), anticipate the new Van Halen album, watch Elton […]
Spin Cycle: Julien-K’s “We’re Here With You”
We’re Here With You, the sophomore record from Julien-K, exudes sexiness. It’s an electro-rock hybrid that is lightyears beyond the work that J-K members Ryan Shuck and Amir Derakh did while they were in Orgy. It’s futuristic yet firmly planted in New Wave. Simply put, it’s amazing. If band’s took this long between their first and second albums (Almost 3 years in this case) and the end result was something akin to We’re Here With You, I’d forgive them for […]
Blerd Appreciation: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Perhaps it’s better that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lived in the era he lived in. These days, it’s hard for anyone to galvanize a nation, whether it be an entertainer, a politician, or one of the greatest civil rights leaders of our-or any-time. In the age of social media, when rumors and innuendo are truth until proven otherwise, the unfounded rumors that Dr. King was a serial cheater would’ve ruined his career, or at least resulted in a tearful […]
Support Good Music in 2012: Chapter 1 (Julien-K)
We are starting things off in a stellar way within the hallowed halls of the “Support Good Music” offices in 2012 as we kick off the new year with a feature on Julien-K , whose impending sophomore triumph We’re Here With You is just waiting to be added to your Best of 2012 playlists the moment you finish hearing it for the first time. But first, a little history: I wanted Orgy’s debut record, Candyass, before I had even heard a […]
Popstradamus predicts … 2012
Two days before 2011 became 2012, several of us threw out predictions that we think will happen in the pop culture world for 2012. Some of them are silly. Some are serious. Some may even happen. I give to you, predictions for 2012 by members of the Popblerd staff. Mike A. The eight-track tape will make a comeback. Hipsters, bored with vinyl now that it has begun to make a “mainstream” revival, look to a long lost relic of the […]
Calculating Hipsterdom: Determining Your Overall Hipster Magnitude (OHM)
A little over a year ago, I wrote an editorial piece about Pitchfork’s cultural hegemony and the “dullard hipster masses” that keep it afloat, arguing that the collective idiocy of Pitchfork’s readership was responsible for their stranglehold-verging-on-monopolization of the critical tide. It was part of a long line of anti-hipster rants and ravings I produced before taking an extended sabbatical from music writing (which I took to fulfill my lifelong dream of sleeping on a couch and working retail). I’ve noticed a lot […]
Dave Rullo Presents: Aging Hip Replacement #28
Rom-com, that’s the phrase that did me in. Last week while watching what’s supposed to be one of the hipper shows on network TV a character uttered the phrase rom-com like everyone would recognize it. I didn’t. With an irritated bent to my voice I asked my wife, “what the hell’s a rom-com?” She, doing what she does, took a deep breath, and said it’s a romantic comedy. She knew it was coming, what I’m famous for, what she hates […]
