Evaluating Trevor Noah After His First 'Daily Show'

Low expectations may have helped Trevor Noah, who took over for the beloved Jon Stewart as the new host of The Daily Show. A relative unknown, Noah came across as charming, self-effacing and funny, while leaving the show's familiar format basically unchanged. He wasn't swinging for the fences -- he just wanted to get the ball in play. He succeeded handily, as I explain in my Rolling Stone recap.

Stephen Colbert's First Night on 'Late Show'

For Rolling Stone, I wrote about the debut episode of Late Show With Stephen Colbert. I haven't talked to too many others who watched the show -- I've been traveling all day -- but I sure laughed a lot. Here's my recap.

Jon Stewart, Newsman

Throughout his run on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart was quick to say that he wasn't a journalist -- he was a comic. For Rolling Stone, my colleagues and I chronicle the times that the show actually made news. (Judith Miller probably still doesn't know what hit her.) Here's the piece.

Jon Stewart's Favorite Punching Bags

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart ends its run this week. For Rolling Stone, I looked at 10 of the show's most reliable comic targets. Many of them were political figures. One was Arby's. You can read my piece here.

Trevor Noah, 'The Daily Show' and the Future of Late Night

As you've probably heard, 31-year-old comedian Trevor Noah will take over The Daily Show after Jon Stewart steps aside. What does it mean for fake news? Over at Rolling Stone, I explained why Noah's roots (he's from South Africa) and relatively low-profile signal a significant change in the late-night landscape. (Plus, it gave me a chance to rave about Last Week Tonight.) You can read my piece here.

Taylor Swift - "Welcome to New York"

My understanding is that some people hate "Welcome to New York," the opening track off Taylor Swift's 1989. Apparently, Swift should be caned because, as a pop singer, she had the audacity to write a song about New York as an idealized place where young people can reinvent themselves, find love and perhaps live happily ever after. Doesn't she know there is a lot of crime and economic inequality in New York??!?!? What's wrong with her??!?!? Swift, who just turned 25 and was never expected to be an expert on economics, responded to the criticism exactly right....

[W]hen you write a song, you're writing about a momentary emotion. If you can capture that and turn it into three-and-half minutes that feel like that emotion, that's all you're trying to do as a songwriter. To take a song and try to apply it to every situation everyone is going through -- economically, politically, in an entire metropolitan area -- is asking a little much of a piece of a music.  

I'm as optimistic and enthusiastic about New York as I am about the state of the music industry, and a lot of people aren't optimistic about those two things. And if they're not in that place in their life, they're not going to relate to what I have to say.

I've never lived in New York, but I can't think of a song in the last few years that's so captured that giddy rush of being young and living in a big city -- of thinking that the whole world is in front of you and oh my god, it feels amazing. "Welcome to New York" conveys that sensation perfectly. It's what being in your mid-20s sounds like.

In fact, the track reminds me of two very different artists: PJ Harvey, whose own New York album, Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea, opens with a "Welcome to New York"-like tune called "Big Exit" and is full of similarly euphoric romantic abandon; and Liz Phair, whose 2003 self-titled album opened with "Extraordinary," which like Swift's "Shake It Off" is about the woman she is versus the woman other people assume her (or want her) to be.

I haven't finished filling out my Pazz & Jop ballot yet, but "Welcome to New York" might make the cut. I can say for sure, though, that it always sounds great blasting out of my speakers on the freeway. Here she is performing it on Late Show With David Letterman -- right, in New York.

What's the Best Recurring Segment on 'The Colbert Report'?

Is it "Better Know a District"? "Difference Makers"? "The Word"? "ThreatDown"? For Rolling Stone, I counted down the 30 greatest regular features of The Colbert Report. I spent way too much time on this, and it was totally worth it. The whole list is here.

All Hail Stephen Colbert

For Rolling Stone today, I tried my best to explain why Stephen Colbert is like a 21st-century version of David Letterman, thereby making him the perfect choice to succeed him. I hope you enjoy.

Future Islands - "Seasons (Waiting On You)" (Live on 'Late Show With David Letterman')

I haven't had a chance yet to really dig into the new Future Islands album, Singles, but I've been enjoying its first single, "Seasons (Waiting On You)," for weeks. On the album, it's a deeply nostalgic, lovely synth-pop track, but when the band played it on Late Show With David Letterman, front man Samuel T. Herring turned it into performance art.

Rob Harvilla, my editor at Deadspin, described Herring's performance this way:

[H]e is absolutely mesmerizing. The power-schlub attire: black T-shirt smartly belted into black dress slacks, somehow recasting his hint of a gut and encroaching male-pattern baldness as assets, as seductive weapons. The knee-buckling electric-slide dance moves, so instantly iconic Dave worked them into his monologue the following night. The feigned-nonchalance-into-fist-pump lunge Herring pulls out for the choruses. The summer-stock-theatrical crease of pained sincerity on his face as he croons, "People change / But certain people never do," pounding his chest so hard his mic picks it up. The alluringly incongruous death-metal growls.  

He combines the jovial menace of the Pixies' Frank Black, the erudite yearning of Morrissey, the hammy ardor of Tom Jones. You want him to take you on a date, in a Venetian red Subaru Outback, to the Macaroni Grill. You belong together. 

[cut]

[On the album] Herring has the crisp diction of a knighted English actor and the sneak-attack uber-goofball flair of Jack Black in High Fidelity (WWWAAAOOWW), but he wisely refuses to acknowledge that he's in on the joke, or that there's even a joke here at all, and there actually isn't: He sternly roams these ersatz-'80s vistas like Flight of the Conchords channeling David Bowie channeling King Lear.  

Dude is dead serious. There is a song called "Sun in the Morning" ("She feeds me daily soul"); there is a song called "Like the Moon" ("She looks like the moon / So close and yet so far"). The death-metal growls resurface big-time on climactic ballad "Fall From Grace." These are karaoke songs for when you wish to disguise your crushing depression in a veil of pompous vocal radness so intense it makes your monocle fall off.

This is a great way of putting it, although I'd argue that there seems to be less calculated thought put into it than Harvilla suggests. Although Future Islands' members have art-school backgrounds, Herring is so daringly genuine that, if it's an act, it's an incredibly persuasive one. The dorky dance moves, the oddly placed growls: They're all really charming, almost sweet, and they complement the song's hopeful, pining tone. The performance is funny, but it's also brave, which makes it sorta inspiring.

David Letterman - First Show After 9/11

Last night's Late Show will go down as one of the handful of truly unforgettable episodes David Letterman has filmed over his now-27-year career. Not because it was an exceptionally great episode -- it's just that Letterman talked to his audience about an extortion attempt regarding sexual encounters he's had with female staff members. That means it was big, juicy news, which means lots of people who usually don't care about David Letterman suddenly started caring about him a whole hell of a lot.

Last night was riveting television, and for those of us who love the man, it demonstrated yet again what makes him a fantastic talk-show host: his charm, his integrity, his wit. The argument can be made that if he had more integrity he wouldn't sleep with underlings, but I think if one is going to acknowledge past failings, you couldn't have done it much better than he did last night.

This got me thinking of his most memorable Late Show moment, which has to be his first show after the 9/11 attacks. Forgive the mediocre video quality of the below clip, but I think the essence of the man's decency comes through regardless. Again, the argument could be made that to draw comparisons between one man's romantic infidelity and a nation's great sadness is perverse and a bit of a stretch. But I think that Late Show is at its best when Letterman talks straight with us. Last night, he did that. And eight years ago, he did it as well.