Taylor Swift - "Cruel Summer (Live From 'Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour')"

Because it's currently Susan's favorite song. ("Oh, hi!")

'Wilco the Podcast': Reviewing 'Cousin' (Part One)

You may remember earlier this year I was on Wilco the Podcast to discuss my book, Wilco: Sunken Treasure. The guys asked me to come back to review Cousin, the band's new album, which I was thrilled to do. The conversation we had was so long, going track by track, that it's actually being released in two parts. This is Part One, which covers the first side of Cousin. (We also talk a little Taylor Swift and fall awards-season movies.) Check it out.

The Grierson & Leitch Podcast: Taylor Swift, 'The Mission' and 'The Burial'

On this week's podcast, we review the biggest movie in the world (Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour) and two much smaller ones. A very fun episode. Check it out down below.

Taylor Swift - "...Ready for It?"

Still reeling from Wednesday night.

'Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour' Review

It's 169 minutes long. It's a lot. But it's a lot in a really great way. I reviewed The Eras Tour for Screen International.

Paul Simon, Chevy Chase and "You Can Call Me Al"

Taylor Swift's video for "Anti-Hero" features several comics. But she's hardly the first musician to hang out with funny people: For Cracked, I wrote about how "You Can Call Me Al" came together.

Sundance 2020: 'Miss Americana' Review

The Sundance Film Festival kicks off with Netflix's documentary about Taylor Swift, who I think is a fascinating pop star. Sadly, Miss Americana only scratches the surface.

Taylor Swift - "New Year's Day"

Happy New Year, everyone. May 2018 be better than 2017.

My Interview With Dan Wilson

Well, this was fun. For MEL, I chatted with Dan Wilson, who fronted Semisonic in the 1990s and went on to become an in-demand hitmaker for everyone from Adele to Dixie Chicks to John Legend. We talked about his career, the advantages of being the nice guy, and how he approaches his collaborations. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and I hope you do, too.

Why Does the Alt-Right Love Taylor Swift and 'The Matrix'?

For MEL, I spent a little time researching artists that are beloved in the alt-right world. Why? Because I'm fascinated why these cretins enjoy some of the same stuff that I do -- albeit for really different reasons. Dive in.

Taylor Swift - "Style"

My cousin gets married today. In honor of him and his bride, here's a cut from his favorite album of 2014.

2014 Pazz & Jop Poll Predictions

Almost 30 years after its release, Brothers in Arms is going to win Pazz & Jop. The War on Drugs' third album, Lost in the Dream, is my pick to top the annual music critics poll, whose results will be announced on January 14. I like Lost in the Dream -- its pretty guitar textures get to me when I'm in a certain mood -- but it mostly reminds me of Dire Straits' 1985 record, which I would describe as "elegant" and "accomplished" and "sophisticated" and "dreamlike" and "perfectly fine but also a bit much." (By the way, Brothers in Arms landed at No. 20 on that year's Pazz & Jop poll, just barely beating "Money for Nothing" guest vocalist Sting's first solo album, The Dream of the Blue Turtles.)

If Lost in the Dream does win, it'll be the first time a straight-up indie-rock band won the poll since Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion in 2009. The War on Drugs' strongest challenger will be St. Vincent, the only good thing that's ever come out of the Polyphonic Spree.

Here are the rest of my predictions for the Top 10....

1. The War on Drugs, Lost in the Dream
2. St. Vincent, St. Vincent
3. Run the Jewels, Run the Jewels 2
4. D'Angelo and the Vanguard, Black Messiah
5. FKA twigs, LP1
6. Taylor Swift, 1989
7. Beck, Morning Phase
8. Angel Olsen, Burn Your Fire for No Witness 
9. Aphex Twin, Syro 
10. Sharon Van Etten, Are We There  

I'll talk about my own ballot once the Pazz & Jop results go live Wednesday. But for now, I'll just say that two of the albums I'm guessing hit the Top 10 made my own album list.

(Update: Wow, I was wrong. I assumed that the very late arrival of Black Messiah at the end of the year would keep it from topping the poll. But D'Angelo is indeed your winner. I got the top five right, but in a different order. Overall, I was correct about seven of the top 10, which isn't too shabby. My own ballot is 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.