Big-budget movies have artistic potential, but first and foremost, each and every movie produced by major production companies is made for a profit.
The Ante Room, a hole-in-the-wall venue in downtown Charlottesville, is easy to miss while driving along Main Street.
From the very first song on Carly Rae Jepsen’s album “Emotion,” it is clear the Canadian singer is far from a one-hit wonder.
A powerful entity in their lives and society in general, money is a common inspiration for songwriters. As such, many songs exist that detail artists’ views toward money, portraying it in many different lights, from an object of desire to the root of society’s problems.
Despite high expectations, “Fear the Walking Dead” falls flat.
Summer is generally known to be a television wasteland. Network channels slot all of their clunky shows for this time to burn them off with no regard to quality.
The summer movie season had a diverse mix of big budget blockbusters, comedies, and smaller indies.
David Burd, better known by his stage name of Lil Dicky, released his debut album on July 31st. For those who don’t know of Lil Dicky: the rapper was popularized thanks to the viral music video for his song “Ex Boyfriend,” and for several other videos that followed. While the majority of Dicky’s work to date has been comedic, he did illustrate his rapping chops on his first mixtape “So Hard.” While Dicky’s new album expands upon his skill as a “serious” rapper, it still maintains the comedic character that gained his initial following. On the opening song of “Professional Rapper,” LD (as he calls himself) refers to his genre of rap as “anti-rap.” This is due to his atypical rap background, style and lyrics.
Full disclosure: I love Jerrod Carmichael. He may very well be my favorite active comedian. I don’t know how many times I have watched or recommended his HBO special “Love at the Store,” but I’d be willing to bet any reasonable guess would be far too low.
This past weekend’s 32nd annual VMAs, hosted by Miley Cyrus, were quite the spectacle. In a word, the show was crude, simply put.
“Depression Cherry” opens with a slow burn: a single organ tone which grows into an airy open chord, buoyed by the introduction of a light, tinkling electronic drum loop, all of which faintly crescendo to meet the rich, gentle voice of lead singer Victoria Legrand.
On Saturday night, the season and series finale of NBC’s “Hannibal” aired.
The year is 1947, World War II has recently ended and Sherlock Holmes has retired from world-class detective work to the English countryside.
Antoine Fuqua’s “Southpaw” tells the story of fictitious lightweight boxer Billy Hope. The film follows his life from utter turmoil to eventual triumph.
When asked in a 2006 interview with Popworld whether heavy metal band Bullet for My Valentine would go more commercial, the band’s frontman Matt Tuck replied, “We would never do [that] ... We’re more interested in what our music sounds like than what our f---ing hair looks like.” Since then, the band has lost its catchy sound and dropped their iconic screaming for radio-friendly vibes. Nevertheless “Venom,” BFMV’s fifth album, has stopped the band’s spiral into mediocrity.
Dr. Dre released his third and final studio album, “Compton,” on Aug. 7, 16 years after his last album, “2001.” A compilation of everything that makes Dre, Dre, “Compton” is an ode to his hometown, reflects on his upbringing and features many of the rap artists he’s helped along the way. “Compton” does its best to transport listeners to the city of Compton, beginning with a newscast-like introduction to the story of Compton’s potential glory and rapid downfall.
New York punk rockers Titus Andronicus will be lighting up the stage at the Black Cat in Washington, D.C.
USA Network has long been a safe harbor in the often-overwhelming sea of television choices, offering non-challenging shows with procedurally formatted single-season arcs.
With all of the auto-tuned and heavily edited studio beats present in modern music, it isn’t every day a band sounds better live than on iTunes.
“Almost, Maine” is almost bearable. Almost every character in the play is trite and one dimensional.
