Today I continue my ongoing feature showcasing my personal picks for the best songs of the past decade, posting ten songs at a time.
90. AC Newman – Drink to Me Babe Then
The head writer for the New Pornographers had an impressive first solo outing – The Slow Wonder combines the melodic superiority with a mellow, easygoing feel. “Drink to Me Babe Then,” introduced to me by my dear friend Kim way back when we were still on college radio, is a gem and the highlight from the album. Adding an acoustic sway to the sweet pop Newman is known for, the song easily peaks with a sweet whistling interlude.
Music, Movies, Television, etc. Pop culture reviews for the short-attention-span Internet age.
Love and Other Drugs
Watch the two-minute green band trailer and you know exactly how this movie goes, more or less. Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway fall in love, separate, and get back together again. Welcome to the standard rom-com formula, unchanged since the beginning of time. That’s not to say the movie isn’t enjoyable (up until the trite ending, which everyone sees a mile away); there is great chemistry between Gyllenhaal’s take on a career-minded, smart-ass, sweet-talking med salesman and Hathaway’s sarcastic, quasi-misanthropic, surprisingly charming twenty-something with Parkinson’s. Add a dash of breasts, a ton of male ass, and many many boner jokes (the character is selling Viagra, after all), and you’ve got a decent date movie, even if the first third (which is mainly focused on career moves and less on romance) is more interesting than the eye-roll-worthy rest.
Today has been a rough day for me, though hardly anyone my age feels the same. On December 8, 1980, around 11:15 pm EST, we lost a musical icon and the finest Beatle of them all, John Lennon. Just Google his name or search for him on Twitter and you will find a plethora of tributes, videos, eulogies, playlists, archived news articles, etc in honor of this sad anniversary. My favorites today are a few from Huffington Post, Death and Taxes, the Village Voice, and Yoko Ono herself, declaring John as the “Teamaker” on her blog this morning. Although I have nothing incredible or revolutionary to add to the discourse, I would feel empty if I didn’t dedicate today’s Culture Greyhound post to the man and the impact he has had on my life.
As far as posting goes, I’m pretty late to the game on this one. I suppose December serves as the month I catch up on all the good stuff I didn’t get a chance to mention before, or only mentioned in passing.
The Walkmen’s track record is impeccable, and Lisbon is no exception. The group is as gloomy as ever, and the slightly progressive approach to their signature sound pays off. I am looking forward to hearing the new material live at Stubb’s in March. Below is a sampling of some of my favorite tracks from the new record, epic and grandiose and depressing and brilliant all at once.
My favorite noise-punk, Half Japanese-channeling brothers the Numerators have been repping Lubbock right lately, receiving much-deserved press in Weekly Tape Deck and Pitchfork’s black sheep sister site Altered Zones. And while those sites all by themselves get enough traffic to provide my old triangle-loving friends some crazy publicity, I just wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t do my part here at Culture Greyhound.
The guys have a limited-release split 7-inch with Athens’ the Coathangers, available from Suicide Squeeze Records. Grab it right here. The song on the vinyl in question is one of the finest Numerators tracks, like, ever – a grimy, loud, distorted bounce-worthy tune called “Strawberry Dreams.” Grab it and become a fan already!
