Kudos to Rolling Stone magazine for an updated list this year of the 500 best songs of all time. They’ve got some real bangers going there. “Banger” is a word I learned recently on the internet but etymologies say it’s been around since at least 2008, in the sense of “an energetic song that is very striking or extraordinary.” My list is full of bangers—50, … Continue reading Top 50 Favourite Songs Since 2017: Jeff Pike
This was fun but really hard. I made the job easier by taking hip-hop off the table from the start: as with jazz, I like listening to it but don’t feel qualified to judge. But even from that narrower field, choosing just 50 songs from across more than six decades is bound to be unrepresentative. On the other hand, representative would mean leaning hard on … Continue reading Top 50 Favourite Songs: Tom Sawyer
No Velvets, Bee Gees, or the Rolling Stones… The Beatles are here, though (I’ve tended to undervalue them on previous lists, curiously enough), an 11th hour add, replacing either Wussy or ZZ Top or Eno or…hard to keep track anymore. So, my 50 favourite songs as at 10/6/21. I didn’t fret about the songs/singles distinction while compiling the list, but there are more of the … Continue reading Top 50 Favourite Songs: Scott Woods
I lost a lot of my passion for making lists when Pazz & Jop went under two or three years ago. This one is made up of a number of holdovers from a Top 100 I put together for Facebook in 2010, plus a few things from a decade-end I compiled in 2019. There are probably only two or three songs that are completely new … Continue reading Top 50 Favourite Songs: Phil Dellio
Rolling Stone, you may have noticed, recently posted its (second) 500 Best Songs of All Time list, which was compiled from more than 250 ballots (critics, musicians, industry folk), with each voter choosing 50 songs. In response—as a sort of answer record—I’ve asked a few people to contribute their own Top 50 Favourite Songs ballot, and I’m opening this up to any other readers who … Continue reading Top 50 Favourite Songs: Prologue
[Originally appeared in Popped in 1999, then rockcritics.com in 2000] How Perfectly Goddamn Delightful It All Was: Movies in the 1990s By Phil Dellio If it seems premature for a best-films-of-the-90s list, don’t worry, it’s not: I phoned Hollywood and they assured me there would be no good films released in 1999. I don’t have any great theories about the course of film history over the … Continue reading From the Archives: Movies in the 1990s
Ten Charlie Watts performances that cut me to pieces. R.I.P. 1. “Honky Tonk Women” – In which the drummer adds an entirely new dimension to Stonesiness, injecting funk and swing into their hard rock stomp (there were hints of this in “Under My Thumb”), his spacious rhythm in effect sharing duties with Keith’s guitar as the lead instrument. The tension between the two poles (rock/swing) … Continue reading 10 x Charlie
By Phil Dellio On the second-last day of school this year, I showed my grade six class American Graffiti. Pop music and film already exert some influence on most of my 29 kids, though clearly not as much as television, the Internet, or Digimons. My hope was that this would be the first time they’d experience pop music used expressively in a film (as opposed to … Continue reading From the Archives: Strange Magic: The Pop-Music Soundtrack From American Graffiti to Sofia Coppola
A Celebration of Dave Marsh’s Work and Vision. “A combination of tributes, conversations, and panel discussions, this online celebration will take place over a series of three weeks this April and May. The goal is to re-create online the kind of warm, smart, and iconoclastic community that Dave Marsh has nurtured for many years.” All are invited via Zoom. Long list of featured speakers. Continue reading Land of Hope and Dreams
By Aaron Aradillas If Siskel & Ebert taught us how to argue, and Pauline Kael taught us how to read and write–and think–about the movies, Owen Gleiberman is a one-stop critic who provokes, angers and, above all else, entertains. Writing for Entertainment Weekly since its launch in 1990, Mr. Gleiberman has cultivated one of the most distinctive critical voices in America. At turns funny, perceptive, infuriatingly dismissive, … Continue reading From the Archives: Interview with Owen Gleiberman (2004)
