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(01/08/21 5:13am)
The streaming era has effectively killed the album as the standard by which to consume and judge music. Because every individual song can now be listened to out of its original album context, the traditional notion of albums as artists’ defining statements is outdated. Kanye West was, as always, among the first to recognize the opportunity to innovate this new method of listening presented — his 2016 album, “The Life of Pablo,” was released to the public as an unfinished product and periodically updated, showing how the album was no longer a singular work fixed in time and place, but rather one of many different ways to consume music.
(12/04/20 8:31pm)
Movie theaters, like all other businesses, have been forced to reckon with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. After spending the past decade desperately trying to fend off competition in the form of streaming and home theater setups, the pandemic has renewed claims that the theater industry is dead or dying. The postponement of almost every major studio release until 2021 has essentially made this a lost year for Hollywood. With Regal Cinemas closing all of its locations and considering bankruptcy due to its reliance on so-called “tentpole” movies, the future of the theater business seems far from encouraging. Representatives from the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema and the Violet Crown shared their perspectives on what the present circumstances mean for theaters and theatergoers in Charlottesville and throughout the country.
(09/28/20 3:59am)
As bizarre as the 2020 Emmy Awards would seem to somebody who suddenly arrived at our present coronavirus-laced moment from — for example, this time last year — many of the award winners were anything but surprising. Yes, “Schitt’s Creek” winning all four acting awards was an unprecedented achievement, and at least one of those awards likely should’ve gone to a member of “The Good Place”’s ensemble, but the sweep was in keeping with the Emmy tradition of giving big send-offs to shows in their final season. Otherwise, the awards were doled out basically as expected — with two notable exceptions. The first, Zendaya’s well-deserved Best Actress in a Drama win for “Euphoria,” came over such names as Jennifer Aniston, Olivia Colman and Laura Linney and cemented her as the youngest actress to ever win the award. The other surprise was a downright miscarriage of justice — “Rick and Morty” winning Best Animated Series over “BoJack Horseman” — particularly since this was “BoJack”’s last chance at an Emmy.
(07/17/20 3:57pm)
Phoebe Bridgers is either a preeminent emerging songwriter or simply a product of the indie rock hype machine, depending on who you ask. The release of her sophomore album, “Punisher,” on June 18 was accompanied by a substantial media blitz featuring profiles in The New Yorker, The Guardian and even Playboy. Her lyrics are wry and topical but acutely personal, her soundscapes tender and dreamy. In other words, she’s tailor-made for every thrift-store shopping, weed-vaping indie kid out there — which makes it hard to tell whether the buzz around her is legitimate or the product of her ability to appeal to the kinds of people who make their living writing and talking about music. In the final analysis, both narratives contain some truth.
(04/17/20 3:35pm)
In our current moment of global crisis, there isn’t much new to talk about in the way of Arts and Entertainment — Netflix’s insane docuseries “Tiger King” notwithstanding. In order to retain some relevance in these trying times, I’ve searched through my mental archives to construct a list of the five fictional characters I’d most enjoy being quarantined with.
(02/10/20 5:50am)
Bojack Horseman — animated icon, troubled actor, enigmatic anti-hero. A cartoon horse voiced by Will Arnett was nobody’s first choice as television’s successor to complicated character studies like Don Draper and Tony Soprano, but over six seasons, Bojack has fit the bill. Constantly searching for something that will salve the gaping wound left by childhood trauma and a myriad of personal and professional shortcomings, the titular star of the animated Netflix series “BoJack Horseman” has spent his life trying to, in his words, “press that little button in your head that says ‘OK, you’re happy now.’” While the first part of the final season — which dropped in October on the streaming service — suggested Bojack would find a way to put his past behind him, the second batch of final episodes, made available Friday, makes it clear that the past will always be close behind him.
(01/02/20 1:25am)
The history of “Saturday Night Live” is riddled with reviewers proclaiming the show dead. Following the departure of the show’s original cast in 1980, “SNL” suffered a rocky season with almost the entire cast turning over in ‘81. Five years later, producer Lorne Michaels returned after a prolonged absence, with established stars such as Anthony Michael Hall and Robert Downey Jr. joining the cast and quickly departing after one much-maligned season. Now, the show finds itself in a different hole — it’s an American institution now, but one that seems to be meandering aimlessly into the abyss like so many others. Particularly since Donald Trump’s election, “SNL”’s seeming inability to invest in political sketches with the precision and detail they deserve has become a massive blind spot.
(12/11/19 9:46pm)
Eminem’s surprise 2018 album “Kamikaze” took the hip-hop world by storm. On tracks like “The Ringer,” he criticized “mumble rappers,” saying “I heard your mumblin’ but it’s jumbled in mumbo-jumbo / The era that I’m from will pummel you, that’s what it’s coming to.” Obviously no stranger to controversy — or rebelling against what is popular at the moment — Eminem repeats a point made by plenty of established “old heads” — the newer generation’s emphasis on melody and flow is taking away from the kind of lyrical craft that has always defined the best rappers. These critiques have some merit, but they’re largely sour grapes from artists who feel hip-hop has passed them by.
(11/04/19 7:50pm)
Bojack Horseman, the animated star of the Netflix series that bears his name, has always been riddled with imperfections. The animated character has more in common with TV drama icons like Don Draper and Walter White than with his precursors in adult animation — Homer Simpson, Eric Cartman, Philip J. Fry. By bringing elements of prestige TV to a genre usually dominated by goofy, comedic characters, “Bojack” creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg has blended the existential and the silly to make something entirely unique. In the first part of the sixth and final season of “Bojack Horseman,” Bob-Waksberg and company continue to tell emotionally resonant stories centered around talking animals.
(09/17/19 1:56pm)
JPEGMAFIA, born Barrington Hendricks, is perhaps the ultimate exemplar of the grungy, DIY hip-hop that has found a home on the internet in recent years. His forefathers include Death Grips and Danny Brown, some of the biggest names in indie rap, but JPEGMAFIA ups the ante by blending their hardcore sound with erratically shifting soundscapes and readily memed song titles. JPEGMAFIA — or Peggy, as he calls himself — embodies the schizoid, irony-poisoned nature of the internet more than any artist currently working and for this reason alone is worth studying. At the same time, he’s also symbolic of the creativity and individuality that the internet age at its best has produced.
(08/02/19 4:15pm)
More than two decades after the first “The Lion King,” a star-studded reboot has arrived to capitalize on nostalgia for the original. Just like 1967’s “The Jungle Book,” which received its own reboot from director Jon Favreau in 2016, the new film was produced using state of the art computer animation which makes the characters look like photorealistic animals. Similarly to “The Jungle Book,” the animators of “The Lion King” create a world filled with breathtaking landscapes. However, Favreau’s new release leaves out the charm of the original film.
(05/21/19 2:38pm)
Vampire Weekend, the longtime indie-pop favorite fronted by Ezra Koenig, has spent a decade as one of the biggest bands in the world. In that time, the band released albums from the twee “Vampire Weekend” in 2008 and “Contra” in 2010 to 2013’s more dense, philosophical “Modern Vampires of the City” before taking a six-year hiatus. Now, they are back with a new record that merges their early work’s sunny sound with the ruminations of “Modern Vampires.”
(03/26/19 11:18pm)
Authors Christina Dalcher and Adam Nemett addressed a crowded room at Central Jefferson-Madison Regional Library Thursday as part of the 2019 Virginia Festival of the Book. Both authors have recently written dystopian novels which take place in the “not-distant future,” to use the phrase provided by the Festival. At the event, titled “Cautionary Tales: Fiction from the Not-Distant Future,” they discussed their novels and the ways which they are and are not reflective of the moment we live in.
(03/26/19 2:09am)
A decade ago, record labels were in a panicked state, desperately trying to increase sales and decrease piracy — which at the time was threatening the foundation of the music industry. Today, the industry is booming again and has undergone a kind of democratization — led by streaming services like Spotify — meaning label executives have less control over what becomes popular, leaving the door open wider for independent artists than ever before.
(11/29/18 7:55pm)
Long, white ribbons are used as a visual symbol throughout Rungano Nyoni’s “I Am Not A Witch.” In the film, these ribbons tie women accused of being witches in one place, a representation of strictness towards women in Zambia, Nyoni’s birthplace and the setting of the movie. The image of these ribbons floating in the breeze is a striking, poetic image which in many ways ties Nyoni’s movie together, giving the story a key hallmark and revealing its main focus.
(11/01/18 1:12am)
The first season of Leon Neyfakh’s “Slow Burn” podcast dives deep into Watergate, a true “slow burn” of a scandal that unfolded over multiple years and ended with a resignation. The subject of the podcast’s second season, which concluded this month, didn’t end with a resignation but rocked American politics nonetheless. Neyfakh leaves no stone unturned in season two of “Slow Burn,” which unearths the forgotten elements of the affair between then-President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Most fascinating of all is his dissection of the feminist reaction to Monica Lewinsky, an aspect of the saga which has new meaning in the era of #MeToo.
(04/19/18 4:37am)
As the last event of the Tom Tom Founders Festival and a hallmark of the Belmont community, Porchella took place Sunday night in the middle of a thunderstorm. That didn’t stop many members of the community from coming out to hear local musical acts play, and although they had to huddle together under tents and on covered porches, their enthusiasm was undamped.
(03/30/18 3:08am)
NBC’s new series “Rise” seems formulated to follow in the footsteps of its previous high school hit “Friday Night Lights.” Along with “Hamilton” producer Jeffrey Seller, “Friday Night Lights” executive producer Jason Katims is one of the chief creators of “Rise,” a show which shares multiple similarities to Katims’ previous work. Like “Friday Night Lights,” “Rise” is also set in the high school of a blue-collar town and stars a supposedly inspiring white man as its protagonist. Unlike Katims’ previous show, however, “Rise” fails to instill confidence that said protagonist is anything other than a pompous, speechifying narcissist. While the series shows flashes of potential, they largely take place when drama teacher Lou Mazzuchelli (Josh Radnor) is offscreen. Going forward, the show would do well to focus more on the kids that Lou is purportedly helping.