Tramps like Us: Working on a Dream

A complete run-through of Bruce Springsteen's discography, written every once in a while by Joe.

I don't like being one in a crowd. I don't like the idea of thinking the same way as everyone else. If I'm going to spend a non-negligible amount of time typing about the subject of Bruce Springsteen on this blog, then I want it to be worth it. I want to present to you some fresh ideas. I don't want to just regurgitate the same things that other (and, let's be real, more qualified) sources have already told you on the vast pages of the internet. What the hell would be the point of that?

That's probably why I find myself making such statements as "I like Magic almost as much as I like Born to Run." On the one hand, that's true, I really did enjoy that album, and felt that special feeling within my heart while listening to it, and that feeling was comparable to the early days of listening to Springsteen's early classics, a feeling that basically boils down to: fuck, dude, music is fucking AWESOME. On the other hand, I can feel myself straining to make outrageous claims, something that your typical Springsteen fan or even Springsteen skeptic is gonna come in contact with and stop and be like, hold up, what the fuck is this guy saying now?

But this is Bruce Springsteen we're talking about. His bonafides have been long established. He released classics that established him as a force in rock 'n' roll, he got over his rocky period to enter a legacy period later in life, and he continued to release more-than-worthy albums well into that legacy period. Saying that you like Bruce Springsteen would not be an outrageous thing to say, based on the evidence that his music is extremely likeable. Saying that you don't like Bruce Springsteen would be outrageous, sure, but you know I'm not approaching it from that angle, because I'm writing a goddamn blog column about him, and that's not something you do for an artist who sucks.

Now, the point of doing this column one album at a time is to track the ebbs and flows of the discography. He might be a great artist but not every single piece of art is going to be great. There are going to be missteps and outright failures along the way. To me, it's interesting to take what is considered an artist's worst album—e.g. in this case might be Human Touch—and then consider the ways in which that album might be considered, at the very least, interesting. Even if what's interesting about it is that it's bad but not as bad as people say. I think that's okay, to think about it that way, and I think it's a good way to keep the joy in the act of listening.

The thing about Human Touch (and Lucky Town to a lesser extent, and maybe even The Ghost of Tom Joad too) is that I was aware that they had a less-than-stellar reputation. I wasn't expecting to listen to Human Touch and find something revelatory, I wasn't expecting to love it. My expectations were appropriately set, and I walked away from those experiences with an appreciation for those albums, even though, sure, okay, they weren't the best thing this dude has ever made.

When I say that I didn't like Working on a Dream, well, that's something completely different. I wasn't expecting to dislike it. I liked The Rising a lot and I liked Magic a lot, and Little Steven Van Zandt has said that those two albums and Working on a Dream completed a trilogy of music. On top of that (and spoilers for next time!), I've known Wrecking Ball since it came out and have liked it a lot the whole time since. So my expectation was that I would like Working on a Dream. I was... disappointed. I think there is still some good stuff in here, but I think overall, this is the most disappointed I've been in an album throughout this entire project. It's all about expectations, I know, but still!

Okay, so we'll get to the Why of my opinion in a minute, but I'm talking about expectations first, and I'm talking about expectations specifically for this blog project. Those expectations include the idea that I should be saying something different. And if that's the case, then okay, we can work with a bad album. What if I don't like Working on a Dream, but I'm the only one? That would be interesting. I could explain my thought process, and compare that to the rest of the Springsteen fans, and if those are different, then that becomes the crux of the blog post.

So the second layer of disappointment comes when I discover that, whoops, Working on a Dream is actually considered his worst album of this '00s revival time period by almost everyone. That automatically makes my opinions less exciting. Which is fine. Sometimes universal opinions are right, or, like, sometimes millions of people can't be wrong, ya know? There's always a chance that the next generation could reevaluate something, but I don't think we're quite there with Springsteen's post-9/11 output just yet. And so I'm stuck firmly with everyone in my own generation who has evaluated this album of music and said: ehhhhhhhh, it's fine, at best.

Time to talk about my sources, briefly. Because that's important too. If my only source was, say, Rolling Stone, then we might be getting a different impression here. Rolling Stone gave Working on a Dream five out of five stars in their contemporaneous review, which, I mean... talk about different generations, right? Holy moly. In any case, I looked to two sources for the millennial take on this work. The first is something that I've used as a source throughout this entire process so far, and will be able to for at most two more weeks—Stereogum's ranking of every Springsteen album, as of 2013. This was written by Ryan Leas (I'm pretty sure, though I'm noticing today that the byline just says "Stereogum" now, for some reason). Leas is about five years older than I am, and firmly a millennial. He has Working on a Dream as the third-worst, after the aforementioned Human Touch / Lucky Town combo. The second source is RateYourMusic, where I'm probably five years older than your average user, but still mostly millennial I'd guess. They have Working on a Dream as the second worst (Lucky Town beats it by 0.05 average points).

Okay, so this isn't a secret, that Working on a Dream isn't the best Springsteen album. It's still kinda weird, though. Why? Why is there a stinker here, in the middle of what is otherwise a pretty great run? After Wrecking Ball, we'll have covered a ten-year period in which Springsteen released six albums, and, in my documented opinion, five of them are fucking great. And it's not like Springsteen took a big swing and simply missed with this album. It has the same producer as The Rising and Magic, and has the same production quality. It has the same players. Like we discussed last time with Magic, this album too finds Bruce Springsteen once again being "serious" as opposed to "fun," which can be fun sometimes anyway, but is not fun here. Why?!

One theory I don't know if I buy is that Working on a Dream is about the good times of the Obama years, which felt toothless compared to The Rising (about the horrors of 9/11), Magic (about the horrors of a completely unnecessary war overseas), and Wrecking Ball (about the horrors of capitalistic pigs gutting our nation). I don't know if I buy it because we have seen, before this '00s span of albums, and now after them, that Springsteen doesn't need a "horror" to combat via music. The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle is about good times. Letter to You (spoilers) is about thinking about those good times. If Springsteen wants to spend the last couple years of the aughts singing about Outlaw Pete while our first Black president kicks ass, then that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the quality of the work.

Here's my theory. I don't know if it's true (and we're going to have to touch back to this theory when we get to Only the Strong Survive, since Springsteen makes the theory explicit on that one), but it's a hunch that I'm getting, and only because this is something that I'm noticing for the first time on here, and for the first time found it a little grating. My theory is that Springsteen, during his legacy period, kept working on himself, kept trying to improve his craft, and for whatever reason before Working on a Dream got it into his head that he needed to improve his vocals. When he was younger, Springsteen's untrained voice and untamed energy hid the fact that he wasn't the world's best singer, because it didn't fucking matter! This was Springsteen! His voice was his own! On Working on a Dream, however, he's really going for it. He's singing like he got lessons on how to sing. Listen to "Kingdom of Days" and tell me that vibrato isn't a fucking put-on.

It's not on every song, but on some, and that's what makes the difference for me. Of course, on the songs where he's all gruff and occasionally off-key and getting by on pure cockiness, not even those songs always hold up. So maybe it's a bunk theory that I'm presenting here, I don't know. Maybe it's just that the songwriting was subpar on this album, for whatever reason. Look at "Outlaw Pete," the opening song that's for some fucking reason stretched to eight minutes long. This might be my least favorite song on the album, but I don't get the sense that Springsteen is doing any "I'm a studied vocalist now" thing on it. I just think it's stupid. "Outlaw Pete, can you hear me?" is a lazy-ass chorus, and it becomes a parody in the back half when it's slowed and stretched. It's just not good songwriting.

Then I go on RYM and I see multiple reviews that were like "the song 'Outlaw Pete' is the only good song." What?! Could be because it's the first song, but it could also be that Springsteen is at least singing from the heart and not the trained vocal cords. It's a dumb fucking song but at least it's passionately dumb, right? If I was trying to like "Outlaw Pete" (not gonna happen, I'm speaking hypothetically), then maybe it would be beneficial to compare it to "Queen of the Supermarket," which is songwriting almost as bad, with the singing that grates me. I'm afraid to look it up, but this is probably considered Springsteen's worst song, right? At least in the bottom five?

Even considering everything that's wrong with this album, and even spotlighting the worst songs, and I can't bring myself to say that Working on a Dream is a BAD album. It's flawed, and it's bad compared to what's come before it, but it's actually, at worst, a pretty alright album. I think "Good Eye" is strange and fun and feels like it could've taken Devils & Dust in a different direction if it existed back then. I think that "Surprise, Surprise" has a chorus dumber than the chorus on "Outlaw Pete" and yet ended up being the chorus that was stuck in my head after every spin of the album. "My Lucky Day" is often lauded as the best song on the album, and it's got heart in it for sure. (You should note too that I don't fuck with bonus tracks, so I can't speak to the claim that "The Wrestler" is any good, let alone the best on this album, since it's not on this album.)

I was disappointed in listening to Working on a Dream, but I do think that this was an instructive experience overall. I was getting too worked up over the fact that Springsteen doesn't release stinkers. He does, of course. He is human. He's not perfect. It's important to remember that, I think. This shouldn't be a worship column. I need to keep both feet on the ground. There is so much great music to be found throughout this dude's discography, but that fact becomes meaningless if it's all great. There needs to be some not-great music to compare it too. We need something like Working on a Dream, to keep our heads level and our wits about us.

Song for the "Tramps like Us" mixtape: "Surprise, Surprise"

Stream the whole album below:

Never Seen It #318: Pillow Talk

Mr. Blog, this may come as a surprise to you, but there are some men who watch 500 movies they've never seen before and don't end every sentence with a proposition.

Pillow Talk

1959

Michael Gordon

Zoom: June 23, 2026, 9 PM to 10 PM

Participants: Brianna, Joe, Sam, Stef (w/Bobby M.)

There were a few themes woven through our hourlong discussion on Zoom the other night, but the most impactful, in my opinion, is the prevailing idea that movies like this need to be seen. Not because they are more "important" than other movies, or deeper, or more moving, but simply because they are good, and they are disappearing. You can't stream this thing anywhere, no one owns it on DVD, none of us on the Zoom call had ever even heard of it before it arbitrarily showed up on our Film Club doorstep. But it was good. Real good. Fun and light and enjoyable and motherfucking good. And it's up to us to watch these movies and keep them alive, or else the four corporations that own everything are going to swallow 'em up and shit 'em out and bury them forever.

Some more thoughts pertaining specifically to Pillow Talk:

• This was one of the rare FC Zoom movies that everyone really liked. Maybe with more people there would have been a dissenter, but I don't think so. There's not really much to dislike. It's just fun.
• Maybe something to do with the "morality" of Brad deceiving Jan? Our discussion landed on "this is fun enough that we can brush it away," but I did have a thought during the movie that maybe there was too much deceiving in here? Like, maybe the deceiving made Brad's typical romcom redemption unearned?
• How do we feel about romcom "grand gestures" in general? Do they ever feel earned, or is that just a symptom of movies having a limited running time?
• Is it a stretch to say that Brad would change for Jan? Does this have anything to do with the 1950s and how it was "unnatural" to be single at Brad's and Jan's ages?
• The pregnancy running gag was excellent, possibly ahead of its time?
• Apparently this film has been "claimed" by the LGBTQ community, for this joke and for its subtle queer themes? And bright colors? Adding a layer to these thoughts, Rock Hudson was gay, an open secret in Hollywood at the time, and he was one of the first actors to die of AIDS. So he's in this movie as a gay actor playing a straight character who is pretending to be another straight character being accused by the first straight character of being gay.
• Perry Blackwell was the piano lounge singer. She doesn't have any other credits, movie-wise or music-wise, beyond this. Who is she? How did she get here? Does the mystery surrounding this have anything to do with race stuff that maybe wasn't handled great (tokenism? minstrel-esque?)?
• The idea of a party line was new to almost everyone here, but it was nice that the movie explained it a little bit, and there was enough context to fill in the missing pieces. What a time, though, to be sharing a phone line with a stranger!
• Tony Randall is so good in this. Thelma Ritter is great as always, but perhaps a little wasted (ha), not needing to be the comedic relief.
• The scene where Jonathan slaps Jan and then immediately gets punched by the locals was interesting.
• Interesting too that Jonathan specifically warns his buddy Brad that he's gonna be upset if Brad steals Jan from him, but then Brad does it anyway.
• And what's up with the Dennis Reynolds apartment-trapping technology? How much does that cost? Are these people rich?

So yeah, we filled the hour. It's interesting to consider movies like this in the context of a Film Club, because it being a light and fluffy feelgood romcom sometimes does a lot to wipe away concerns or discussion points that you might normally have for other movies. Is it worth discussing, for instance, the idea of the morality of Brad's deception, when it's not really that type of movie? I don't know. I think Film Club can have it both ways. We can acknowledge that such a discussion is probably not necessary, and we can have the discussion anyway.

I'm gonna drop a 4.5 pukes out of 5 on Pillow Talk. I was probably between 4 and 4.5 before the discussion, but sometimes the shine of collective joy makes me round up. Sometimes a fun movie is just a fun fucking movie and deserves to be celebrated.

What did you think? If you couldn't make the Zoom but still watched the movie, is there anything we missed? Let's talk Pillow Talk in the comments.

NEXT TIME: Brianna's small-group pick is here with the two-and-a-half-hour and highly recommended Amadeus.

Discussion — Week 385: Easier Said Than Done by Pool Kids

You think this picture is fake? I don't want to get in the habit of saying "AI," because Photoshop still exists. It could be Photoshopped. Remember before AI when Photoshop was the big concern in terms of lack of veracity? Those were the days. Now you go on the internet and you search pictures of pool kids and you gotta worry about robots jamming up the system.

It's Pool Kids review day! How'd you like it? How were the reviews? How did they compare to Nate's other four reviews? Anyone gonna be sitting down to listen to W.H. Lung today? And from below that: what's your favorite Districts album?

I'll officially be on vacation starting tomorrow, but the blog is still running.

Discussion — Week 384: Amanda Leigh by Mandy Moore

The only reasons that the celebrity-gossip-rag discussion of "did this celebrity get too much plastic surgery" could possibly be relevant in this Record Club discussion about a musical work of art are 1) because we have arrived at Mandy Moore as a Record Club artist based on the fact that one of our members found her attractive, a subjective measure that might and should change based on the factors of that measure and how they are adjusted in the act of plastic surgery, and 2) because I needed to find a bunch of pictures of Mandy Moore as header images for our album reviews, and the annoyance of people's obsession with celebrities getting plastic surgery totally crowded the top of the image search results for "mandy moore," and so I had to adjust to "mandy moore 2010s" to get some relevant photos to use.

Let's throw the whole goddamn thing in the trash and focus on what matters here. Did you like the reviews? Did anything about them change your opinion? And hey, any thoughts about any of the new or old albums covered in our fresh RCAA feature? No? All good! Happy Friday, everybody.

In My Place 155

June 4, 2026. 39.95358, -75.16364. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

A decent amount going on in this picture, a good list of conversational topics that I could pull from the scene that the wide lens has captured. I could maybe talk about the new plaza outside the Municipal Service Building, how nice all the greenery is, contrasting with the ugly flattop that used to take up this space, though seen cynically perhaps a ploy to make it seem like Philadelphia is nicer than it actually is to all those international tourists visiting for the soccer thing. That's a whole fucking tangent. No time for that now. Because I want to draw your attention to the statue on your far right. It's a guy and... I think a printing press? It's been there forever. I want you to know that, at one point—though it has since disappeared—there was a video on PornHub of a hot woman peeing on this statue. I didn't want it excessively, I'm not into watersports, but I did think it was funny that I was familiar with the statue featured in the video, and I do think that it proves once and for all that hot women can do pretty much whatever they want and the act itself becomes hot simply due to the woman's hotness. If some old dude was peeing on the statue, I wouldn't say it was a hot. It's not the peeing that's hot, it's the hot woman peeing that's hot. You get it. Everyone gets it. Everyone who is visiting for Mayor Dipshit's 250 Year Vanity Project is going to get it. They are going to see the famous PornHub statue and be like, wow, we are very glad that we were able to visit this great city, despite its infamously incompetent leaders, simply because we are now able to bear witness to this very statue, the one from the video, the hot video of the hot woman peeing hot pee all over the place. Thank you to the mayor for making it happen! Yeah buddy!!!

Song of the Day: "Chills"

A column about music, and about how the music informs our lives. Today's author is Joe. See the previous songs HERE.

"Chills"

Acetone

from Cindy

1993

I've told you about Record Club. Est. in February 2019, this ongoing weekly feature rotates through a different album each week. An album is announced on Sunday, and anyone who wishes to listen together (separately) can do so throughout the week, a ritual that culminates in the publishing of individual reviews on Friday morning. It's a discussion, in pieces, fractures of a discussion that can be put together and look eventually like a mosaic of a conversation about one single piece of musical art, the album. And then the following week, we do it all over again, with a different album from a different artist, over and over and over until who knows when.

I haven't told you about the other Record Club though. Well, okay, it's not called "Record Club," it's called "Catalog Club." Basically the same thing though. Kind of. Not really. The focus is still on music, on an album, one album per week. Except this one is more of a monthly rotation. Meaning that each month, Catalog Club focuses on a different artist, and each week for that month, Catalog Club covers a different album from that artist's discography (or catalog, I guess).

I haven't told you about Catalog Club yet because it's not my club, I'm just one member of it. Catalog Club is run by Steven Hyden, who is a professional music critic. You may have seen his work around the internet. You may also recognize his name from Puke on Your Birthday. He is not aware that this blog exists, but this blog has written about Steven Hyden a few times. I jokingly refer to him as "the foil" or "the antagonist" of Puke on Your Birthday sometimes, and I think that's still true, even though, were I to ever meet Hyden in an elevator and express these thoughts to him, he'd absolutely be the Don Draper to my Michael Ginsberg.

More importantly, he's really good at what he does, and that is being an effective music critic. He's self-aware that being a music critic is like the dumbest job there is, but he's really good at it anyway, and it's fun thinking about the points that he makes, which is good for me, because I think music criticism is dumb and fun too. We're just fucking around here, in this game. Not to quote Michael Ginsberg directly right after sarcastically calling myself that, but I actually do feel bad for Steven Hyden sometimes. He's the one getting paid for his takes, which creates a lot of pressure. He had to create a Substack and charge people for it just to put food on the table for his kids. I'm just typing dumb rock 'n' roll takes on the internet for free, which means I'm free of stress too.

I finally paid for a subscription to his newsletter on Substack, Evil Speakers, just because, I dunno, I don't really spend any money on any other pleasures in my life, and so why not give this schlub sixty bucks for a year's worth of music criticism. And then there's the access to Catalog Club, which is inferior to Record Club I'd argue, and yet still, I figured it might be fun to give it a try.

I waited about four months to join Catalog Club, so I missed months for Lucinda Williams, Grizzly Bear, Ramones, and Al Green. I joined right around the announcement of the fifth artist covered in Catalog Club, with—and this is a coincidence—this artist being the first artist in Catalog Club that I had never heard of before the announcement. Have you ever heard of Acetone? I thought it was particularly interesting to go through the ritual of Catalog Club under these circumstances: a completely blank slate, no preconceived notions about the artist whatsoever. So for the past four weeks, I've downloaded a new (to me) Acetone album, and dutifully listened along with the rest of Catalog Club, and participated in the discussion. I wasn't the only one who had never heard of Acetone before this.

I'm not here on Puke on Your Birthday to rehash a discussion on another blog. If you want to chill with us over on Evil Speakers and talk shop, hit me up, I have free monthly trials to give out if you're interested. It's definitely a different experience than what you'll find on Puke. Mainly because you're chatting with people you don't know in real life. You're chatting too with Steve Hyden, who, despite what I might make it seem on here, I also do not know in real life, and never will. I think it's fun to go onto his blog and pretend like I do know him, however. This is what I did during Week 1 of Catalog Club Featuring Acetone.

If you'll note from the song embedded above, called "Chills," a standout from Acetone's first album Cindy, the song directly quotes Grease's "You're the One That I Want." This was particularly good timing for me, listening to this song after a couple weeks of rewatching Grease and then watching Travolta in Face/Off and Newton-John in Xanadu. I was primed to get the reference. Not only that, but Steve Hyden's internet avatar has been, for as long as I could remember, a picture of John Travolta (from Pulp Fiction, I think?). So I thought for sure that Hyden was going to give a shoutout to the Grease quote on this album. When he didn't, I popped into the comments, wondering what his thoughts were about it.

And he got all snarky with me! Which I understand. You go through all this trouble to put together a thorough essay (in audio form for Catalog Club—don't you dare call this a podcast though, for my own mental health), and some little random snot rag dude hops in and tries calling you out for not mentioning something extremely unimportant. That's annoying, to have to shift the discussion to something that you didn't feel could possibly be important enough to mention in the first place. He's like "what the fuck do you want me to say about it?" or something like that. Which is fair, and also not. That's not how we do things at Puke, you know? If someone told me that there was, I dunno, a Waking Life quote in the Slayyyter album that I thought was fun but not revelatory, then I would LOVE to chat with someone who thought it was the centerpiece of the album.

It did actually end up spawning a mini-discussion, mainly about how the quote can either be seen as sincere appreciation or ironic dismissiveness, and some people more familiar with what the term "L.A. music" might mean chimed in and claimed it was ironic, that Acetone were poking light fun at anyone who don't hold ironic detachment for entertainment that spawns from this ironically detached city. I think that this adds to the art, this discussion!

To Steve Hyden's credit—and this is why people pay him for this shit—he briefly shouted out Grease in the second Acetone installment of Catalog Club. This was absolutely designed to be a button on the conversation that was had during the first week, and also to show acknowledgement that he himself, Steve Hyden, is an active part of Catalog Club, that he hears what the people are saying in the comments, and that he appreciates the conversation and considers it important, despite his initial skepticism about this particular subject. To say it more succinctly: Puke on Your Birthday is shaping what Evil Speakers is talking about, and that feels good. Worth the paltry sum it takes to have access to this additional arm of a lifelong hobby.

The Grease nonsense aside, it's also nice to participate in something somewhat passively, to be a follower and not a leader. With PoYB, there's always this dark thought in the back of my mind that whispers at me something like "you're doing all this work, and no one cares." Which I know is not true, I have some friends who read and some friends who participate and some friends who care. But the voice gets to be pretty loud sometimes, and does a good job at discouraging me from being truly happy about these millions of words that I write. With Evil Speakers and Catalog Club, I don't hear the voice, because it's not my problem. If I want to listen for 35 minutes to Steve Hyden's droll voice drone on about how he is somehow connecting this very third-Velvet-Underground-album-sounding third Acetone album to the Rolling Stones' Tattoo You yet again, then I can just listen. I have no responsibility here. I can just listen and enjoy, and find enjoyment too in the idea that other people whom I'll never meet are listening to the same slightly obscure slowcore rock album that I am.

There's a difference, I think, between engaging with art and creating art yourself, and I've always been more comfortable with the latter than the former. Or, like, maybe more comfortable with adding the latter to the former (and of course, it's a stretch to begin with to consider what we do here on this blog "creating art," but stay with me). It's one thing to listen to an album (or watch a movie, or follow a TV show, or read a book), it's another thing to put yourself out there and tell someone what you think of it, and what it means to you, and what your value system looks like, and, like, expose something about yourself, be vulnerable. Yes, that's art. Yes, that takes a lot out of you. It's nice to just listen to Acetone and then see what Steve Hyden thinks about it.

Bottom line here is that we need Record Club to outlast Catalog Club. I am trying to stay healthy and outlive Steven Hyden to ensure that this happens.

Postscript: the next month of Catalog Club is four Rolling Stones albums in the 1980s, which means we are already looking at Catalog Club x Record Club crossover. I'll check back in to let you know how it goes.

In My Place 141

May 21, 2026. 40.04831, -75.13166. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

I've mentioned in this column before that the pins on the In My Place map will eventually form a thick line that traces my driving route from home to my chosen public transportation hub. But maybe that's not entirely true, because I don't take the exact same way every day. The grid system of most Philadelphia neighborhoods, including this one, allow for some split-second decision-making along the way, a left turn here or a left turn at the next block depending on where there's a red light or where there is too much oncoming traffic, and so on. Maybe sometimes I go down one street and there's a tree knocked down, blocking the road, like this morning, and so I back up and go down a different road and go past a pleasant garden that I like on a particular corner.

A garden with a conspicuous stone obelisk thing, not huge but definitely noticeable when you're driving down the street, this huge fucking thing right on the expanse of a big North Philly lawn. Good news, I was able to figure out how to translate what's written there. The internet is mostly bad but it isn't all bad.

The "tower of longing for home." Goddamn. Adds some extra meaning to my travels to work, as "long for home" is the fundamental thought that runs through my mind every time I'm away from it for droll employment reasons.

A Year of Blind Spots: Vol. 4

Joe is working through a list of albums that he considers "blind spots," i.e. albums that he's never heard but feels like he should.

You ever hear of the Five-Albums Test? Made up by music critic and PoYB foil Steven Hyden, it's a theory that an artist is only one of the greats if their discography features, at any point, five near perfect albums in a row. This test exists for music geeks who get their rocks off arguing about this kind of shit. I am one of those geeks, and so I think about the Five-Albums Test a lot. You can argue about which bands pass the test. You can also argue about whether a band's failure of the test means that the test is flawed. Like, Wolf Parade is absolutely one of the all-time great bands in rock history, but according to the test, they aren't, because we can all agree that 2020's just okay Thin Mind halted the streak at four near perfect albums.

When I was reading about Hyden's takes on Spoon for that Blind Spot a few months ago, I came across this mention of Black Sabbath: "I personally feel like Black Sabbath made ten awesome LPs in a row, from 1970's Black Sabbath to 1981's Mob Rules. But am I prepared to enter a court of law and testify on the record that 1976's Technical Ecstasy and 1978's Never Say Die! are top-to-bottom perfect albums with no filler? No, I am not." Subtracting from there, we can deduce that Hyden believes that the first six Black Sabbath albums are near perfect. They pass the test.

I don't think I'm going to get there. Going slightly out of order, I'm now familiar with their first four. Paranoid came to me before blogging about every piece of music I listen to was a thing. Master of Reality was an early Blind Spot. Then the self-titled debut hit Record Club. Now we are considering Vol. 4, obviously their fourth LP. I have similar feelings about Sabbath but with much less commitment than Hyden: all four are awesome albums, but I'm unwilling to say any of them (maybe Paranoid at most) are near perfect.

My issue is that, after you do this enough times, the music starts to sound the same. Black Sabbath were pioneers in hard rock, I know that. This is a classic sound. But I think at a certain point, "near perfect" is gonna have to involve some intense improvements or adjustments. And while Black Sabbath stand far and above most of their peers when considering the discography at large, I don't think Vol. 4 does enough to distinguish itself from any of the three albums that came before it.

That's an extremely pessimistic way of describing this badass album. On top of the pessimism, it's borderline moronic, since Vol. 4 really does a lot of heavy lifting in terms of "adjusting" Black Sabbath's sound. That's what a fourth album should be, right? By the fourth, it's time to mix it up. One of the most famous Sabbath songs, "Changes," is on here, and I think that alone qualifies Vol. 4 to be "something new." A slow piano ballad? Absolutely new for these guys at this juncture. I don't know if I necessarily like it, but I appreciate the fact that the ballsiest thing that Black Sabbath could have done and did actually do on this fourth LP is slow it down and make it sappy.

"Changes," though different, remains an outlier (as does the nothing song "FX"). The rest are the standard heavy metal that you have come to expect from these guys. Not a bad thing, but nothing that's exciting me, four albums into this. It's not a good sign when the big headline in the story of the making of this album is "it's more of the same, plus a lot of drugs this time!" Just about the only noteworthy thing that can come from that is that a band is good enough to overcome the handicap of intoxication. I've never been on coke, but I'm assuming it's harder to make music when you're high on coke 24/7. It's mildly funny that they wanted to call the album Snowblind originally (making the excellent "Snowblind" a title track) but couldn't because no one wanted them to name their album after cocaine. I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that it makes the album "sadder" or whatever (maybe I just have more sympathy for the drinkers than I do the sniffers), but I could see the argument being made.

Whatever the case may be, I'm not here arguing that it's a bad album. I'm just saying that it's not much that I haven't heard from these guys before. Which is also not a bad thing, because Black Sabbath kick ass. But I cannot say that they pass the Five-Album Test. Down to argue some more about it, though, if you are.

Never Seen It #299: Mother

Rubbing my temples to remember any of the other 400 movies I've never seen before...

Mother

2009

Bong Joon-ho

Zoom: March 24, 2026, 9 PM to 10 PM

Participants: Batts, Bobby M., Brianna, Joe, Kait, Sam, Sunny

Here's how we got here. The pre-Film Club Never Seen It list featured Snowpiercer. Sunny and Fisher spoke to me about it. In the conversation, Fisher claimed that if you love Parasite, you'll love Mother. So it was put on the Film Club Never Seen It list. I liked Parasite, and I liked Snowpiercer, and I liked them because they were fun films, and moreover interesting films. Like there was something to talk about with them, ya know? Perfect for a Film Club Zoom discussion.

I had a great time, as always. Thanks to all who showed up. I liked how we dove right into the themes. We should do that more often. Here are some ideas that we discussed. Make sure to add your own into the comments! Or at the very least remind us of the shit that I missed while taking notes during the Zoom.

• Thoughts on how the film portrayed the mentally challenged?
• Thoughts on whether he was born like this, or it was in fact a physical illness borne of being half-euthanized? Was this child abuse or child neglect, basically?
• There was talk about inconsistent characteristics with Do-joon, thought opposing thought that maybe that was the point.
• Overarching themes of Bong Joon-ho movies: classism, social commentary—but how sometimes those are presented in cartoonish ways
• Why is it called Mother? Do we care about the mother's journey?
• Sympathy for when Do-joon remembers the poisoning, sympathy for JP who gets wrongly convicted
• Mirror moment: begins with dancing, ends with dancing. Why???
• Does Do-joon know that his mother killed for him (the acupuncture kit found)?
• Discussion about Moon Ah-jung's role in this film, how she is resigned to her lot in life, and how her story runs parallel to Do-joon's in their tragedy (doubly tragic how their lives intertwined in deadly ways)
• Are there moments that are unnecessary for the movie? The voyeur scene, for instance?
• Or are they red herrings?
• Or at they trying to keep the audience guessing as to what kind of movie this is?
• Back to the dancing—is she "dancing to forget"?
• A character affirmation, NOT a character arc
• Ebert: "averts expected outcomes"
• Is there pessimism for motherhood? Is there any sympathy for the mother?
• Or is this all just a vehicle for the theme about class disparity?

The point was brought up a few times that this is just a straight-up fun movie, plot-wise, that it took twists and turns and ended up somewhere that was interesting and unexpected, with fun tangents along the way. There are many different kinds of good movies, but ultimately it boils down to whether a movie is fun to watch or fun to think about, or both, or neither. This felt like a "both" film, but even if you weren't sold on it due to personal misgivings (ableism) or cultural barriers, you can still maybe see that it was just a decently fun movie to sit down and watch.

In that regard, I'll personally give it a 4 pukes out of 5, with the temptation to bring it down a little bit further after the discussion, since it included some really well-put criticisms that I didn't think about prior to. But fuck, dude, did I have fun watching it. Sometimes that's the thing that matters.

What did you think? We can keep the conversation going down below if you want. I'll check in occasionally! Let's hear what else you got!

(NEXT TIME: It's the 100th movie for Film Club, so I'm gonna bust my ass and try to watch Degrassi High: School's Out in time. If I can't get there, then we'll move right along to Force Majeure.)

Never Seen It #293: Blood Simple

The world is full o' bloggers. An' the fact is, nothin' comes with a guarantee. Now I don't care if you're the pope of Rome, President of the United States, or a man watching 400 movies he's never seen before; somethin' can all go wrong. Now go on ahead, y'know, blog, write your problems to your neighbor, ask for help, and watch him fly.

Blood Simple

1984

The Coen Brothers

Zoom: February 24, 2026, 9 PM to 10 PM

Participants: Frank, Joe, Sam, Sean E.

Wait, is Blood Simple a dudes movie? This is not something that was mentioned during the Zoom for even a second, it's just purely me thinking about it afterward. I think I'm a little sensitive to the fact that a lot of the stuff we do on the blog here is majority-male, not to mention my participation in two separate book clubs that are all guys. This isn't a conscious decision, which is why I'm sensitive about it. There was an incident a couple years ago in which one of our female members of Record Club sent out an email exclusively to every single other woman on the Sunday email, asking for women to write an album review that week, and not a single person responded... so this is definitely not me saying "guys only," ever. If anything, I'm working my ass off to balance the gender disparity, and am honestly at a loss on how to do it at this point.

At the same time, I know for a fact that at least two female members of Film Club watched Blood Simple and just simply couldn't make the Zoom, which is fine! That's what this post is for! And for the record, I don't think Blood Simple was a "dude movie," even though, sure, most of the actors were male, and maybe "violence" is typically seen as "male" or whatever. I'm getting way off track here. We didn't talk about any of this.

Here's what we talked about:

• Most importantly, that Blood Simple was the Cheshire Cat of Coen brothers movies
• There was an appreciation for how compact the movie was, a brisk 90 minutes, all killer no filler
• Those among us who were well-versed in the Coen brothers' filmography** found joy in seeing some of the Coen tropes employed here for the first time***
• **I (Joe) have now seen seven of the eighteen films. That was the lowest of the four of us, I think. There was a question as to whether which number this is for you might affect what you thought of it.
• ***Did they know it was a first time? In other words, did the Coen brothers say "hey, we're gonna try something new," or was it "hey, remember when we did something like that for Blood Simple? Well, let's try it again, with a twist"?
• These are all characters actors (even McDormand, technically, since this was her first role). Is that to the film's benefit or detriment? Should Walsh's PI have been as prominent as he was?
• I remember thinking "hmmm" after seeing Joel Coen's name in the credits for The Evil Dead, and it was cool connecting the dots here, seeing the movie he/they made after that. Does this movie have the same sort of feel as The Evil Dead?
• "In Texas, you're on your own." This quote starts the movie. Sam talked about the rule in literature in which the statements at the beginning are establishing world rules, and what that means for the actions in this film, how everyone really is acting on their own.
• Big discussion on how these characters are not fleshed out. There was a general question of: do they need to be fleshed out? Or can not fleshing out characters be a conscious filmmaking choice?
• There was a general feeling of "anything could happen" throughout the film, which made more effective the use of the PI's fake photo. Could this movie kill its main characters in the first half hour?
• Lots of tricks in this film calling back to Hitchcock.
• What is "blood simple"? It's the reaction you have in the moment after intense violence.
• Do these characters, specifically the male characters, believe that they are "tough guys"?
• The theory that this is when you pull characters out of a different genre (sitcoms), and place them in this one (thrillers), and what happens to those characters when that happens.
• How visceral were some of these scenes? The hand-stabbing, the empty bullet chambers, and especially the dirt moving slightly after Marty is buried alive.

I would personally probably give this movie 4 pukes out of 5, but I think that grade for you is gonna be determined by how much you are willing to invest in a movie that has no interest in investing in its characters. At least that's the sense I got during our discussion.

But what say you, reader who watched the movie but couldn't attend the Zoom? What did you think? See me in the comments, let's hear it.

(NEXT TIME: Film Club takes a brief detour as Joe considers the life's events that brought him to Yaadein.)

Never Seen It #287: 24 Hour Party People

It's my belief that history is a blog. "Inconstancy is my very essence," says the blog. "Rise up on my spokes if you like, but don't complain when you're cast back down into the depths. Good times pass away, but then so do the bad. 400 films we've never seen before is our tragedy, but it's also our hope. The worst of times, like the best, are always passing away."

24 Hour Party People

2002

Michael Winterbottom

Zoom: January 28, 2026, 9 PM to 10 PM

Participants: Brianna, Joe, Kait, Sam, Sean E., Stef, Sunny

There was a question toward the end regarding whether this movie was what I wanted for a group discussion. I've said too many times in this space that we can talk about anything, and I think that's true, but I always end up saying it here because I'm typing this in the glow of post-Zoom satisfaction. It's cool hanging out with my friends, and I think we can chat about anything. But in terms of what I wanted to chat about with this movie specifically? I guess I was hoping to chat about music in addition to the movies, and 24 Hour Party People got us closer than we usually get (thought there has been a couple country music movies so far, hasn't there?). I also wanted to challenge myself with something British, which is not something we touched on in the discussion (full disclosure: I needed those subtitles desperately). 

Here are some other topics we passed around:

• Parts of this felt like an inside joke that you weren't a part of, especially if you're not familiar with post-Smiths Brit rock or the Madchester acid house scene.
• There was discussion as to whether you need to like the music featured in the movie to like the movie.
• All of this was undercut by the fact that the movie was very explicit about printing the legend and not the truth.
• Would knowing that Ian Curtis was going to kill himself change how you viewed him throughout his parts of the movie? Undercutting that thought process is the fact that the film itself said that it wanted you to picture Curtis, not hanging from a rope, but hanging off his friends' shoulders as he sang "Louie Louie."
• Tony Wilson says that this story isn't about him. Is that true? If it's not, why would he say it? What is the purpose of this film? (Answers were given, but let's hear your answers in the comments.)
• The fourth-wall-breaking felt to some like a movie like VICE. Is there something to the contrast between being snarky about a serious subject vs. being snarky about an unserious subject (music)?
• This is a movie that you need to google the characters. But do you really need to? Or can you go along for the ride without knowing everything?
• Plenty of funny jokes (the table, the two Tonys). What's your favorite?
• The joke about the frontman of the Happy Mondays being comparable to W.B. Yeats was funny, and definitely a signal not to take anything Tony Wilson says seriously.
• These people were young! There was the big about Ian Curtis calling David Bowie a liar for living into his 30s. He says it like a joke, but knowing that he's going to die, and also knowing that lots of kids struggle with the idea of getting older and growing up, make it sound not like a joke at all.

What am I missing? Besides the button of Muppets Christmas Carol at the end, which I forget how that tied in.

Bobby M. couldn't make it this time, but we mentioned in the Zoom how this is one of his favorite movies, and before the Zoom, he sent me a few texts about his thoughts, so I'll reprint them here:

My contribution would have been the influence that Guy Debord had on the Manchester scene. It was locally popular amongst the local musicians and Tony Wilson, and influenced a lot of the decisions they made. Specifically when it comes to live performances. The fact that rave culture grew out of an alternative post-punk scene makes sense in that context. It's all about pulling people out of their day to day lives and grounding them in real, physical experiences. 

I could talk about the scene all day, but I would say that essential media related to the scene:

— Among the Thugs (book about the football hooligan culture pre-Madchester)

— How Not to Run a Club (book about the Hacienda Nightclub)

Albums:

— The Stone Roses' self-titled (a literal perfect album, masterpiece)

— Happy Mondays' Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches

Also fascinated in the scene because of death of both subculture in a geographic sense AND the subsequent death of monoculture with the internet. Something like the Madchester scene just could not happen today. It would commodified, stamped out, and killed immediately. Cultural production exists outside of local geography with the existence of social media, and I think it's a net loss for the world.

...And yeah, it's a weird scene because the bands were so different from one another, and eventually evolved out of it after the scene died down. Blur's first album was a Madchester album, and they dropped it when the scene died off.

Thanks Bobby, and thanks to all who made it out to the Zoom. I think some Zooms make me reconsider my position on a film, and I don't think that this was one of them. A solid 3.5 pukes out of 5, meaning that I felt a little defensive of the more negative takes, but also understood some of the criticisms, like maybe I would've benefitted from knowing this scene a little more beforehand.

How about you? Drop your grade or your further thoughts in the comments. I'll be down there to respond. Thanks again, everybody!

(NEXT TIME: Before we start our round robin for the next three months, let's take a little sojourn with 3 Ninjas, with a special appearance from a Film Club non-member.)

In My Place 008

January 8, 2026. 39.95624, -75.16558. See the updated map here.

Whenever I walk down Mole St.—which isn't every day, but is still surprisingly often—I think about a friend that hung out with our college friend group for like six months (this is another blog post, but isn't it funny thinking about all the people who come into your life like a faint asteroid and leave just as quickly and then you're looking back at certain time periods of your life like "huh, yeah, I guess that was around the same time that so-and-so was around on weekends"?).

He (it's been so long, I had to use the alphabet method to even remember his name, which took a while, since I had to go all the way down to S before my memory was jogged) had this project—and a Facebook group to keep track of it, should've had a blog, bro!!!—in which he planned to walk down every block in Philadelphia, and document his travels.

I can't imagine this is the first time I'm mentioning it on this blog, because it's a project that I think about often. I think about whether he's still going, still walking down random-ass city blocks in Olney or Kingsessing or Packer Park. I would imagine not. There are, what, tens of thousands of blocks throughout Philadelphia? At least? That's an impossible task. One a day, a decade later at least, and he'd still not be done. No, Occam's razor says that it was just one more internet project left by the wayside over the years. There are plenty of those right here on PoYB, so I get it.

But this is Mole St. He definitely walked down this street. I remember the Facebook post he wrote about it. Not every word, but I remember a word he used to describe it: an "oasis." Meaning that it was a quiet, tree-lined, intimate street placed right in the middle of a skyscraper-strewn urban metropolis. As someone who doesn't thirst when he sees the "desert" of big city building, I more appreciated the metaphor than related to its emotionality.

I dedicate this blog project to my long-lost acquaintance, wherever he is, regardless of whether that Facebook group (whatever it was called) is still up and running. And I vow to keep this one going, and keep walking, no matter the cost.

Discussion — Week 360: LP by Taylor Swift

When I insert the word "taylor" into a Google Image search, the weirdest thing happens. Some random fucking lady pops up, again and again. I don't know who she is and I don't care. Possibly it could be some AI-generated slop. I scrolled through, and the first pic that didn't feature whoever the fuck that is in the search results was a handsome picture of James Taylor. So that's what you're looking at when you gaze toward the top of this blog post. James Taylor. There were no pictures of Taylor Swift in any search that I did (Taylor Swift being a relatively private band, I am getting the sense), so I used pictures of other famous Taylors at the top of the album reviews. We are all Taylor Swift New Brunswick Screamo Band today, all of us.

Hope you had a good holiday. If you're here: welcome back. If you're not: see ya next week. To all those who are bored: I'll see you in the comments.

Album of the Week: LP

Happy holidays, Puke on Your Birthday. Hanukkah is finishing up this week, and Christmas is on Thursday, so let's be real. Blogging is on the backburner. That's fine! That's how it is every year, and no one expects otherwise in 2025. Maybe especially 2025. It's been a long year. But maybe ultimately a good year? Not sure. You tell me.

In any case, it's a light week here on the blog. Let's just relax with a six-minute Taylor Swift album. (Warning: it is a screamo album, by the band Taylor Swift.) Send me your thoughts at some point. That's it. That's all we need from you. Otherwise, you enjoy your week, and we'll check back in next time.

Record Club:

archives | supplemental

spotify playlist | youtube playlist

choose | writing

WEEK 360 — December 21-27, 2025

LP

by Taylor Swift

LISTEN:

Spotify | YouTube | Bandcamp | Apple

Download or Stream from Google Drive:
Individual Tracks | Full Album

~~~~~~~~~~

PICKED BY JOE

JOE'S PITCH: No strong pitch from me. Listen, I just wanted to find a short album for this week, and a six-minute album seemed to fit the bill. I'm a fan of Ogbert the Nerd (emo band), and I thought it was interesting that the main guy had a side project. I wanted to check them out. And then, after I listen to this new screamo band Taylor Swift, I come to find out that some random-ass lady is suing them over some coincidence? And she for whatever reason has high-powered lawyers and forced Taylor Swift's bandcamp page to be shut down? I'm not sure I understand stand what the band Taylor Swift ever did to ignite this fucking lady's ire, but it's kinda bullshit. Really makes you think about the preposterousness of someone "owning a name." I don't get it.

Luckily, I saved Taylor Swift's album to my google drive when I had the chance, so we can still listen to it. Merry Christmas, everyone.

click to enlarge

~~~~~~~~~~

ALBUM DETAILS

GENRE: Screamo

RELEASED: September 11, 2024, rereleased November 7, 2025 

LENGTH: 06:00

TRACKLIST:

1. 1
2. 2
3. 3
4. 4
5. 5
6. 6
7. 7

LYRICS: n/a

~~~~~~~~~~

ARTIST DETAILS

PRONOUNS: he/him/his

ABOUT: Taylor Swift was born of a vision, a vision that came to Ogbert the Nerg frontman Madison James. It has since become a media sensation. There is only one Taylor Swift, and that Taylor Swift is a screamo band from New Brunswick, New Jersey. All other Taylors Swift are henceforth unacknowledged on this blog. Think about it. Who owns a name? Why can't we decide who owns a name? If someone made a prog-jazz band that COINCIDENTALLY had the name Joe K***, then there would be NOTHING I could do about it. So why should anyone else? We don't choose our names at birth. Shouldn't that lack of choice mean something too? Shouldn't we be at the mercy of a choice? I don't understand it. But what I do understand is Taylor Swift, the screamo band. I understand that they are VERY popular right now. Look! They even have a book! My kid read this. I'm assuming it's the children's version of the biography of the screamo band Taylor Swift. No sure why some random white lady is on the cover, I guess I'll have to read the book to find out!

DISCOGRAPHY: This is their first and possibly only album.

~~~~~~~~~~

ADDITIONAL INFO

READING SOME SHIT: Go read the back of my shirt as you kick my ass!!!!!

WATCHING SOME SHIT: Not sure when the six-part Disney concert doc is coming out for screamo band Taylor Swift, but when it does, go watch that!!!!

RECORD CLUB CONNECTIONS: Literally nothing!!!! Besides some coincidental naming errata, but we don't need to make space for that here.

Though, speaking of names, we should definitely note that the album's name (LP) shares a name with an RC alumna (LP). There are no other important name connections here besides that one.

This isn't even the shortest album we've ever done. Damn you, Famoe! Maybe Taylor Swift will be able to best you one day!

MENTIONS ON THE BLOG: I'm searching "taylor swift" and getting nothing relevant. Sorry. (Ogbert the Nerd gets some heat, though.)

~~~~~~~~~

COUNTDOWN:

69 Weeks Until Week 420

Virgin Era

We are tracking and counting down every week from here on out till Record Club Week 420. We started this countdown 69 weeks out. I am happy to announce that during Record Club Week 420, we will be covering Donny Most by the esteemed Happy Days virgin Donny Most. I am also happy to announce that Week 420 of Record Club will feature 69 reviews from 69 different people. 

THIS WEEK: We are 60 weeks away from Week 420.

~~~~~~~~~~

Happy listening, RC family!
Have a great week!

Tis the Season, Joe

I reread the blog post in preparation for this short review. You know the one I'm talking about. "Jake Shimabukuro – King of the Ukulele" by the blog Chevron Says, and in fact the most recent blog post by Chevron Says, dated June 30, 2009. Chevron Says is a blog listed on the right sidebar of the desktop version of the blog, where it lists all the Friends of the Blog. The sidebar gives you the title of each blog's most recent post. That's why, if you Ctrl+F'd "Jake Shimabukuro" at any time in the past 6016 days, you would've gotten a hit. And so why not listen to the mope's goddamn ukulele Christmas album, is my thinkin'.

My thinking extended beyond that at a certain point. My motivation to expand the blog community waxes and wanes depending on how rough of a week I'm having. I suppose during a time period in my life when the motivation was cresting, I had the idea that Record Club should cover Jake Shimabukuro at some point, and that I'd spend that week gathering as many Collegian alumni as I could to cover it. Guess I overshot the place where I needed to explain what the blog Chevron Says was. (This is assuming you missed the drama back in 2019, when I wrote new blog posts for all the Friends of the Blog sidebar blogs, and ruffled some feathers in the process.) As far as I've ever been able to tell, it's an overflow for stories that didn't fit into the Collegian, which was La Salle's newspaper.

So I would've basically tried to gather any of my old friends and acquaintances that were willing to write a few words about a ukulele album for one week only. I have a tough enough time convincing my closest friends to write album reviews, so I don't know if I would've actually been able to or even willing to make efforts to reach out to acquaintances that I haven't spoken to in fifteen years. Though I'd definitely be able to gather some of those friends closer in my social circles. Some are even on this very blog already (you know who you are, and if you don't, scroll through Chevron Says for some names). Liz wrote the Jake Shimabukuro article that is now preserved in amber, and she's on the email for the blog, though has not yet contributed (shoutout to Liz, who will make a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo in the Futureheads review that publishes one minute from now, that for whatever reason I wrote first... maybe she'll be like Beetlejuice and actually write for this blog if she gets one more mention, like in the Big Freedia review or something). We could pull something off.

But the fear is that I'd put in so much effort to gather long-lost pals for some hobby music club, and then they'd all commit to writing... for this? Some limp-ass corny-ass ukulele music? I don't know, man. I feel like I would be pretty embarrassed if a roughshod Collegian reunion was centered around this fucking shit. Definitely overshot the point where I should have mentioned that Tis the Season is a fucking ballsack. Sorry about that. This is literally my first time listening to this guy, after more than a decade of residence in a far corner of the blog homepage. Sounds like some fucking bullshit you'd hear on a Sandals commercial.

I know that's what some people look for during the holidays. They are comfortable with the commercialized plasticity of capitalist Santa making you gifts at your closest Macy's. And maybe someone with more guts could've pulled off something that went against that, using the ukulele as a weapon even. But Shimabukuro can't do it. You know when I knew? When he covered "Mele Kalikimaka." Did he have to do it? He didn't. He shouldn't have. Too easy. Fucking coward.

The only good thing about this album is how we arrived there, which is the reason I spent 70% of this short album review fleshing out the backstory. It's important to know where we are coming from. It's important that I reread the blog post that's been linked on our homepage for all this time. Like, did you know that Liz's Shimabukuro review compares him to Eric Hutchinson? That's some deep RC lore right there. So now I can hear this ukulele music and immediately know that at least two people are going to appreciate it on some level—Gary (who chose Hutchinson for RC) and Rachel C. (who wrote one of my favorite reviews for Hutchinson), two people who definitely didn't write for Chevron Says.

And so, the story continues unravel out, on and on. We are perpetuating it here, in this space on the internet, this blog, connecting other blogs and other friends and all kinds of music, both cool and lame. This is not me being a Scrooge and bah-humbugging Jake Shimabukuro. I'm just explaining the Why is great detail, because that shit is important. I don't like this music, but who the fuck am I? No, this is me in George Bailey mode. My friends are important to me, and I want them to find joy, and so why not gather them all around me as we all sing "Auld Lang Syne" (which is thankfully NOT covered by the ukulele man here).

GRADE: 1.5 pukes out of 5

Never Seen It #281: Bad Santa

No, I'm not talking about that. I blogged the shit out of 400 movies I've never seen before today. But it was for a purpose. It made me feel good about myself. It was like I did something constructive with my life or something, I dunno, like I accomplished something.

Bad Santa

2003

Terry Zwigoff

Zoom: December 16, 2025, 9 PM to 10 PM

Participants: Bobby M., Joe, Sam, Sean E. Stef, Sunny

I got this sense in book club too, that maybe sometimes bad art inspires better conversation. Did I write about this for the last Zoom Film Club movie that was less than good? I'm not going to go back and check. Probably. It makes sense, because it's something that continually impresses me. I would hate if Film Club was just an hour of talking shit; regardless of how good or bad the movie is, it never ends up devolving into boring shit-talking. Never! I think that's cool!

Was Bad Santa a bad movie? The general consensus was yes, but that might be small sample size. And I'd like to think that even the naysayers walked away from the Zoom convo thinking differently about the movie. There's value in turning over the good parts—however few—and examining them. And then, of course, laughing about the bad parts. All I want for Christmas is good discussion about a movie, any movie, no matter the quality. That, and a Fraggle Stick Car.

Some more discussion points that we can continue to talk about in the comments if you want:

• This was "of an era" of comedy, meaning that it had the style of humor that was trendy at the time, e.g. the dick-kicking in the boxing ring scene
• A defender of the film was 2003 freshman-year Sean, who saw this in theaters, and was the target demo at the time, which made us consider once again the idea that certain art can make an impression at certain ages and stick with you, no matter the quality
• What is the motivation of any of these characters? Does any of it make sense?
• This could be considered a flip of your typical Christmas movie, in which everyone is striving to be nice, and in this one, no one makes any such efforts. It drops the Christmas movie archetype on its head (whose head? how can it drop itself on its own head?).
• Billy Bob Thornton's character is trying to redeem his childhood self by protecting the kid... or something. Maybe the movie wants you to think that but doesn't do a good job at making it clear.
• Argument made that this was not like the Stooges, who would heighten the joke, since, for example, when someone got kicked in the dick, another person was kicked in the dick. It was the same joke over and over.
• How many well-known (currently) actors were wasted in this? Why did Alex Bornstein get star billing?
• There was a general thought that there were too many urine jokes, but perhaps that could be parents of young children being triggered????
• There are three versions of this film: the original, the extended X-rated, and the director's cut. The director's cut is shorter. Director Terry Zwigoff wanted to excise all the even remotely heartwarming material from this film, and he got his wish. Does that make this film better or worse? Certainly less complicated? And would that be a good thing or bad thing?
• Sarah Graham looking good, too good; Sarah Graham's character's motivation was shaky AT BEST.
• Apparently having "bad santas" at malls was a thing in the '90s? Is this true, or a misremembering of our early childhoods? If true, is this a parody, or a satire or something?
• There is a very real chance that the child's "conflicting motivation" could actually be his symptoms of Schizoid Personality Disorder (look it up!!!!!!)
• Bad Santa was originally intended for to be a James Gandolfini vehicle. Would that be better or worse? Theory for better: he's a better actor, more emphatic. Theory for worse: Billy Bob Thornton worked so well because his style of comedy juxtaposed with your typical '00s overemphasizing the joke, whereas BBT underplayed a lot of it, or stayed static, and that's what made it so funny.
• Funniest line? Some people liked the grandma bit. Some people liked Bernie Mac saying "half." I was partial to "Fraggle Stick Car," but that's just me.
• Something I would've ended with if I didn't get sick at 10 PM: Do you think you need to hate yourself to love this movie? This is a theory presented in a Letterboxd review I saw, and I wonder if it's true. I don't think it is, but maybe hating yourself gives you a greater chance of seeing yourself in this and relating to it.

What grade would you give Bad Santa? I would personally drop a 2.5 pukes out of 5 on this bad boy, but I wonder if that's an overrate based on the fact that I take my devil's advocating job seriously, and I'm writing this in the immediate aftermath of the Zoom. I think there's enough here to be optimistic, enough funny bits and enough intriguing moments that could've just been fleshed out a little more, all to earn an average grade.

Join us in the comments if you watched the movie but couldn't make the Zoom! Or maybe you were there and I mishandled some of your points above! Or maybe you just wanna hang out with some friends in a digital space and so why not a blog comment section!

(NEXT TIME: Film Club is on hiatus for a week and a half, and we'll pop in to say hey with Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, if anyone wants to watch and write about it for December 30th! Otherwise, see ya in the new year!)

Monday Morning Mixtape 049: Imagine There's No Mixtape / It Isn't Hard to Do

Welcome to Monday Morning Mixtape, a PoYB Contributor-curated playlist of songs, made just for you at the start of each week.

"Imagine There's No Mixtape / It Isn't Hard to Do"

On the 45th anniversary of his murder, let's listen to all the songs that Ghost John Lennon is nodding his head along to in heaven (or hell, or purgatory, or maybe he's still alive????)

chosen by Joe

Spotify

YouTube

"45" by the Gaslight Anthem

from Handwritten, 2012

It's not enough to just grieve John Lennon. I need him back with us. Luckily, Puke on Your Birthday has a running bit that fits just such a need. Welcome back to the PoYB stage, please give a warm welcome to... Robot John Lennon! Thanks for joining us!

I say, did you go to Harrod's? I was there in '58, you know.

Cool. Okay, man. Still smoking that good dank shit, I gotchya. But we're not here for that, we're here to get your take on certain songs that came out after your death. Are you okay with that?

I'm glad you like it. Tell your friends.

I am! All my friends are gathered here for the 45th anniversary of your death! That's why I chose this song. "45" by the Gaslight Anthem. What do you think?

In the end, it really doesn't matter.

I think that sometimes too. But for real. Listening up there in heaven, what do you think of this song, "45" by the Gaslight Anthem?

You believe that? Is there room on your shoulder for both of us?

Okay, I figured this was going to happen. You're not going to give us a straight answer. That's fine! I've never gotten a straight answer out of you in almost seventeen years, so I was expecting this. I'm not going to overtax you with the incredible burden of writing ALL of my blurbs today. But I am going to check in with you at the end of each blurb, and see if I can get you to give an opinion on that song. Sound good?

Yeah okay, Yeah, but I should wear one as well...

Wear one wh... you know what? Never mind. Onto the next song.  —Joe

"Parachute" by Sean Ono Lennon

from Friendly Fire, 2006

I remember downloading this album using some YouTube-to-mp3 software when it came out, and I think it's safe to say that the ghost of John Lennon would be enjoying his son's music. I looked up Sean Lennon on Wikipedia and learned that he describes himself as "a pacifist, capitalist, and anarchist." It's curious to see all of those words lumped together. It feels like either Sean spent a lot of time thinking about this, or absolutely zero.  —Gloria

"Goodbye Johnny" by the Gun Club

from Fire of Love, 1981

I never knew John Lennon. I've known plenty of Johns in my life, though (and some johns, but I won't write about those). My uncle is John, and so is his son / my cousin. An acquaintance from college was John... wait, no, he didn't go to my college, he just married a friend from college, and I guess was there all the time. There was a Brother named John too. I think? The guy I replaced at my new job is John. Why am I blanking on Johns? There was a John in my high school class, I think he was on my second bus in the mornings, but maybe not, he was pretty quiet, I forget. There was a John in the year below me, and I was told maybe a year ago that his old high school band still plays at bars in Manayunk sometimes, which is wild. Checked my phone for Johns. Forgot about John from a year above me in college, my old pal, the other guy in the neighborhood who would throw big parties when his parents were out, even though neither of us made it to each other's parties and only met in college. There's another John at work, though he might not use an h in his name, which opens up a whole 'nother wing of this conversation. My brother-in-law's twin brother is John. Pam used to work with a John, pretty sure he's a maga now. Oh god, how many Johns have fallen out of my life? How many am I forgetting? Life is long, man. So many people forgotten in the onslaught of the detritus of life crushing you.

Hey Robot John Lennon, what do you think about "Goodbye Johnny" by the Gun Club?

You've got my full attention. Going on tour?

No, the Gun Club broke up in 1996, after frontman Jeffrey Lee Pierce died from a brain hemorrhage on March 31st. Fifteen years after you died. Are you guys jamming up there in heaven?

I believe it. Tell me some of the things you like to do?

      —Joe

"When the Curtain Falls" by Greta Van Fleet

from Anthem of the Peaceful Army, 2018

Dude, it would be fucking HILARIOUS if John Lennon was still alive right now. Can you imagine 85-year-old John Lennon and the dumb fucking bullshit he'd say? And y'all would love it. I'd love it too, I'm not gonna lie. He'd say something like "those young lads in Greta Van Fleet are the bee's knees!" and everyone would be like, "oh my, well, I guess we have to like Greta Van Fleet now, if the LEGEND John Lennon likes them!" I wonder if John Lennon would like 100 gecs. I wonder if John Lennon would like Geese. I wonder if John Lennon would like glass beach. I wonder if John Lennon would like Algernon Cadwallader. I wonder if John Lennon would like Chat Pile. I wonder if John Lennon would like the World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die. I don't actually wonder any of these things, because they are all true. He'd love all of them. He'd hate Weezer, I know that too, though maybe he'd have a soft spot in his heart for Maladroit. I don't mind that John Lennon is dead because we can ascribe to him any opinion we so desire. John Lennon would have been a fan of PinkPantheress in the same way that Anne Frank ABSOLUTELY would have been a Belieber.

Hey Robot John Lennon, what do you think about "When the Curtain Falls" by Greta Van Fleet?

You've got my full attention. By remote control.

Are you saying that I should've chosen "Remote Control" by the Clash? Or maybe "57 Channels (and Nothin' On)" by Bruce Springsteen?

Am I saying that youshouldve chosen remote control by the clash or maybe 57 channels and nothin on by bruce springsteen ? I'm not having a press conference, Joe . We're just wriggling about.

Ah shit, the Robot John Lennon is broken again! Anyone got a wrench?  —Joe


"Dead Friend" by Against Me!

from Transgender Dysphoria Blues, 2014

I think there are a couple ways to go with this prompt. One is where John Lennon never died and just fades into old boomer rockstar territory. Another involves him waking up 45 years later and must digest new music. Either way, Against Me! should scratch any itch. With this one, John can pretend like this song is about him in some way. Plus, it says the names John and Paul in it.  —Sam

"Bob Dylan" by Nine Days

from The Madding Crowd, 2000

There was a blurb, but I forget which album it was for. I think I remember where, but not when or why. Either Rubber Soul or Blonde on Blonde, I guess. Something about how Dylan's "4th Time Around" was inspired by the Beatles' (mostly Lennon's) "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)," so much so that it made John Lennon "paranoid." But I knew the blurb first, and I knew it well. Then I learned the Beatles album. Then I learned the Dylan album. Then I realized that the quote of "paranoid" was just a literal quote; for some reason, the wording of the blurb made me think they were referring to a song called "Paranoid" by John Lennon, and I thought this for maybe fifteen years before I realized that John Lennon never responded in song to Bob Dylan's "4th Time Around." I have to imagine that it wasn't the song that made John Lennon "paranoid," but rather the dank-ass weed that the Beatles' drug dealer Bob Dylan was selling them.

Hey Robot John Lennon, what do you think about "Bob Dylan" by Nine Days?

You've got my full attention. Huh?

You keep saying I have your attention, but you always seem to be confused about what I'm talking about.

We'll hold a press conference: I keep saying youhave myattention but ialways seem to be confused about what youre talking about . What the hell! Stands for popular.

I am seriously going to be so sad when your website finally shuts down, RJL.  —Joe


"Hit 'Em Up" by 2Pac featuring Outlaw Immortalz

a single, 1996

I know the connection between John Lennon and 2Pac is so obvious, it's almost cliche to talk about. But thinking about John Lennon's music career, the first thing that comes to mind is his use of music as a weapon. And SPECIFICALLY him using that weapon against Paul McCartney when he wrote "How Do You Sleep" (1971), which global historians unanimously agree was the first diss track of all time. I like to think that John Lennon would be moved to tears at 2Pacs line "Cut your young ass up, leave you in pieces, now be deceased / Lil' Kim don't fuck around with real Gs." Rest in Power to the pioneers of the diss track!  —Stef

"Astral Weeks" by Van Morrison

from Astral Weeks, 1968

In this scenario, John Lennon continues to slide into esoteric crankiness. He becomes an antivaxxer like our Secretary of Health and Human Services, and signs onto autism nonsense. Him and Van Morrison would fit in right together. And while part of this song are pretty good, it's a little self involved—just like John Lennon. Also, he's like a bad dude, right? Definitely abandoned his first wife and son. Lived as a heroin addict for a period to the detriment of his second wife and second son. Probably did way worse. Him and Van can have a pissing match on their transgressions.  —Sam

"God Is in the Rhythm" by King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard

from Quarters!, 2015

(not available on Spotify!)

This song has a floaty, psych-pop Magical Mystery Tour energy that I think John Lennon could get behind. Quarters! is a fantastic album in general; it's a concept album divided into, well, quarters, and has four songs, each ten minutes and ten seconds long. I think he'd like the whole album, honestly. It's a great listen. I actually almost skipped writing again this week, but I put this album on when making coffee this morning and thought, "You know who would love this? John Lennon."  —Gloria

"Imagine Pt. 3" by Smith Westerns

from Dye It Blonde, 2011

I'm torn on the joke. I don't know if it would've worked better if it was called "Imagine Pt. 2." There is no "Imagine Pt. 2." The joke that Smith Westerns are making is that there's no "Imagine Pt. 2," just "Imagine Pt. 1," so it's may or may not double the joke by skipping right to "Imagine Pt. 3." (Or maybe they thought that Sean G.'s rendition of "Imagine" as Smash Mouth's "All Star" should count as "Imagine Pt. 2.") The funniest (or maybe only funny) joke that I've seen on 'Til Death so far was the pasty pie fucker's wife (character actress Kat Foster) getting confused about why the amps in Spinal Tap only go up to 11, and why they don't go up to 40. Character actress Kat Foster would've been a big fan of "Imagine Pt. 3" for the title alone. She and John Lennon are nodding along to "Imagine Pt. 3" up in heaven right now. Oh, what's that? No, no, character actress Kat Foster isn't dead. She's just an angel. An angel who would probably be like "ha ha Smith Westerns, now write an even better song called 'Imagine Pt. 78'!"

Hey Robot John Lennon, do you like "Imagine Pt. 3" by Smith Westerns?

You've got my full attention. I don't like all this dribbling pop-opera-jazz.

What? Dude, that is not the genre for this song at all. This is Smith Westerns. Precursor to the once-great and currently mediocre folk rock band Whitney. Opera? What?

Is that a rhetorical question?

...No?

Yeah, more disgrace, more noise.

        —Joe


"Pop Punk Band" by Avoid One Thing ft. Matt Skiba

from 2003 Warped Tour Compilation, 2003

Or Lennon would be a sneering Charles Barkley type who thinks that the kids these days don't appreciate their roots enough in making music. Irony is weaponized. You are not authentically making new art to elevate your views, but using art to tear down the perspectives of others. Snooze. Also, this song was featured on a Warped Tour compilation I bought in high school.  —Sam


"MAKGEOLLI BANGER" by Effie

from pullup to busan 4 morE hypEr summEr it's gonna bE a fuckin moviE EP, 2025

I heard this song courtesy of Jon Caramanica, who had the EP on his best-of list at the New York Times. You might not think the New York Times is a good resource for hyperpop, but if you think that, you're not reading much Jon Caramanica.

I've listened to this song at least 50 times in the last 48 hours. I played it five times in a row in the treadmill. I made my kids listen to it in the car. I've made my wife listen to it on my big headphones. I texted Sunny about it. If John Lennon were alive, I would have re-downloaded Instagram to send him a DM about it. This is what it's all about. I feel like Yung Lean not sorry for my sins. My boys speak Chinese. Effie, where have you been all my life? Where have you been all of Mark David Chapman's life?  —Nate

"Imagine Dead John Lennon" by Times New Viking

from Present the Paisley Reich, 2007

Wow, holy shit. Not sure where this came from, some dark recessive corner of my brain. Haven't listened to this shit in like eighteen years. I mean, I guess it wasn't from that deep of a level; Times New Viking were a precursor to long odds, so I at least remembered then that Times New Viking spent some time on my iPod. I should probably give it another go. Maybe I'll download it today. Ya know, in honor of John Lennon, our fallen homie. Rest in peace, Johnny. 

Hey Robot John Lennon, what do you think about "Imagine Dead John Lennon" by Times New Viking?

You've got my full attention. Seven days.

No, you're thinking of Nine Days. That was a different song on this mixtape. This is Times New Viking.

I don't see why I should be involved with other people's madness. Someone else just said iare thinking of nine days that was a different song this is times new viking .

Other people's madness, eh? Okay, that's fair. I am, in fact, the person spending his night typing words for a pre-AI chatbot comprised of the words of John Lennon.

I stuck up for you.

It's me and you against the world, Johnny.  —Joe

NEXT WEEK: "Jesus Fucking Christ" — Non-religious songs that mention Jesus (chosen by Joe)