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Lists, Music

The 90 Best Songs of the 90s (Part 1)

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We here at SportsAlcohol.com can get down with a good list, but we’ve never attempted one quite so expansive before: a list not just of a band’s best songs, but the best songs of an entire decade: the ’90s, which have been experiencing a major nostalgia boom over the past five years or so, and which we hope to cash in on in a major way with this very undertaking; we just haven’t worked out the specifics of how that will work. In the meantime, you can send us personal checks.

While we wait for those to clear, let me reiterate: yes, this is the biggest list project yet undertaken by this organization. As it turns out, though, even a big list of 90 songs can feel too short when you’re dealing with a whole and particularly eclectic decade. Over 500 songs received votes, and plenty of favorites were left off the final list. Participants were asked to send their ranked lists of the 40 best songs of the ’90s, and the votes (weighted by ranking) were diligently counted in Excel to come up with the list that kicks off today. No adjustments were made for any reason beyond math. No fudging the rules to include a song by a particularly important artist or to cut down on the number of songs by an over-represented ones. This is the list of 22 children of the ’90s, though many of us approach that designation from different ages, directions, and backgrounds.

Today we’ll unveil songs 90 through 51. Tomorrow, we’ll hit 50 through 11. And on Thursday, we’ll get to the top ten. Look for other Best Songs of the ’90s content on SportsAlcohol.com all week, including our biggest podcast ever where a bunch of us got together to hash out this list.

And before we get started on list itself, I’d like to introduce your Best Songs of the ’90s voters. The panel included beloved SportsAlcohol.com mainstays, editors, and contributors whose biographies and past contributions are available at the click:

Chris Adams
Sara Batkie
Jeremy Bent
Jason Forman
Jesse Hassenger
Craig Iturbe
Rob Kuczynski
Marisa LaScala
Sabrina Lauzon
Bennett Morrison
Nathaniel Wharton

Plus these great people I’ll introduce here:

Shelly Casper is an artist, photographer, and teacher.
Sara Ciaburri is a librarian and former DJ.
Kerry Cullen is a fiction writer and editorial assistant.
Derrick Hart is a music fanatic and librarian from Boston by way of Upstate New York.
Michelle Paul is Director of Product Development at Patron Technology.
Lorraina Raccuia-Morrison edits textbooks and makes pottery.
Cristin Stickles is a book buyer for McNally-Jackson who makes New Jersey look good.
Erin Styne is a teacher and mother.
Alex Templeton is a middle school teacher, voracious reader, and writer in Philadelphia.
Bayard Templeton is a teacher, Mets fan, and theater enthusiast.
Jennifer Vega is a birder, administrator, and Mariah Carey scholar.

I am especially proud of two things about our contributors:
1. The gender makeup is majority female.
2. None of us are professional music critics.

Now then:

The 90 Best Songs of the 90s (Part One of Three)

Continue reading The 90 Best Songs of the 90s (Part 1) →

Movies, Podcast

The SportsAlcohol.com Podcast: Indie Movies of Summer 2015

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The SportsAlcohol.com crew has talked about a lot of blockbusters this summer, including Jurassic World, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Mad Max: Fury Road, and Avengers: Age of Ultron. But there are plenty of other moviegoing options outside of standard multiplex fare, so Nathaniel, Sara, Marisa, and Jesse got together to discuss the wide variety of non-blockbuster independent-type films that played in theaters this summer (and in many cases are still playing, or are available on VOD!). We chatted in beautiful Prospect Park at dusk, so this episode has ambiance to spare as we talk about over a dozen different indie movies.

How To Listen

      We are now up to

SIX (6)

    different ways to listen to a SportsAlcohol podcast:

  • You can subscribe to our podcast using the rss feed.
  • I’m not sure why they allowed it, but we are on iTunes! If you enjoy what you hear, a positive comment and a rating would be great.
  • I don’t really know what Stitcher is, but we are also on Stitcher.
  • SportsAlcohol.com is a proud member of the Aha Radio Network. What is Aha? It’s kind of like Stitcher, but for your car.
  • You can download the mp3 of this episode directly here.
  • You can listen in the player below.

Music

They Might Be Giants: Biography and Bibliography in Brooklyn (May Edition)

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They Might Be Giants is playing a show on the last Sunday of (almost) every month of 2015 at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York. Marisa and I have been attending them, and we will be reporting on each show. Here is the fifth installment of our TMBG musical biography, arriving more than a little late.

They Might Be Giants at the Music Hall of Williamsburg: 5/31/15

1. Climbing the Walls
This was a show spotlighting TMBG’s 2007 album The Else, an interesting conceit because their album-spotlight shows tend to revolve around the first three releases: the Pink Album, Lincoln, and Flood. There have been occasional Apollo 18 and Factory Showroom shows in the last decade, but none that I’ve been to, and anyway, that still doesn’t include any of their post-90s albums. In a recent SPIN piece I’ve already read several times (and no one is more surprised than I am to read that clause), Linnell mentions that he really likes The Else and how that record “in particular made [him] very concerned and worried subsequently about trying to match the quality of that recording,” especially interesting to me because it seemed like, at the time, the sparer and weirder Join Us was talked up as a corrective to the heavier, more rock-and-roll vibe of The Else, and a lot of TMBG fans (who do sometimes fetishize the band’s weirdness, experimental work, and/or lack of guitar solos) seemed to agree. So I’m pleased that the band was interested enough in revisiting a relatively recent album to plan a show around it. A song like “Climbing the Walls” probably won’t make many best-of-TMBG lists but, like a lot of these songs, it is a perfect example of what it sounds like to listen to They Might Be Giants.
Continue reading They Might Be Giants: Biography and Bibliography in Brooklyn (May Edition) →

Movies

East Coast vs. West Coast: On Straight Outta Compton and Fort Tilden

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Straight Outta Compton doesn’t exactly qualify as a nontraditional biopic; in terms of structure, it mostly adheres to the rise/fall narrative with the option for an additional rise. Earlier this summer, the Brian Wilson movie Love and Mercy toyed with those boundaries with far more innovation. But even set half in the ’80s, Love and Mercy, like so many movies about popular music, was rooted in baby boomer music of the ’60s; Straight Outta Compton, in telling the mostly sanctioned story of N.W.A., actually starts in the 1986, which still counts as a novelty. True to its title, the movie roots itself in the streets of Los Angeles and surrounding environs; an early scene catching Eazy E (Jason Mitchell) in a drug raid looks positively apocalyptic. But the imagery doesn’t just come from gang violence; it’s the police battering ram tearing apart a house that makes the scene look so untenable.

As the movie skips from Eazy to a young Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins) and Ice Cube (O’Shea Jackson Jr., playing his dad), police harassment is a common theme, along with the recurring image of black men being slammed against car hoods for no reason. Cube and Dre are more interested in lyric-writing and DJing, respectively, than the drug trade, and E wants out, too. But even when they’ve signed up with a manager (Paul Giamatti) who looks shadier as the movie progresses but downright friendly in the context of Compton, the cops won’t leave them alone: putting them on the ground, asking what they’re doing outside a recording studio, daring them to fight back. Some of this is broad (“rap is not an art!” one cop – a middle-aged black man – spits contemptuously); it’s also feels undeniably and depressingly relevant. Pop biopics often traffic in simplistic song origins, but when Straight Outta Compton cuts hard from N.W.A. getting harassed on the streets into them performing “Fuck Tha Police,” it’s not just a pat explanation of a famous and controversial song. It makes audiences (some of whom will not have experienced racism firsthand) feel the song’s righteous frustration. To put it in my dorky white terms: it feels fucking punk rock.
Continue reading East Coast vs. West Coast: On Straight Outta Compton and Fort Tilden →

Podcast, TV

The SportsAlcohol.com Mini-Podcast: True Detective Season 2

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Well, the long national nightmare that was True Detective Season 2 is now over. But some of your friends at SportsAlcohol.com didn’t really consider it a nightmare. Actually, we have some pretty positive things to say, as well as some constructive criticism. So investigate one of the internet’s hottest takes as we do an uncharacteristically quick post-mortem on the second season of the show people love to hate for some reason. Marisa, Jesse, and Nathaniel are on hand to discuss the high fashions, low morals, confusing storytelling, and Strong Female Characters of True Detective Season 2. Spoilers abound, for the finale and the rest of the season!

How To Listen

    We are now up to five different ways to listen to a SportsAlcohol podcast:

  • You can subscribe to our podcast using the rss feed.
  • I’m not sure why they allowed it, but we are on iTunes! If you enjoy what you hear, a positive comment and a rating would be great.
  • I don’t really know what Stitcher is, but we are also on Stitcher.
  • You can download the mp3 of this episode directly here.
  • You can listen in the player below.

Movies

Fantastic Four Achieves Peak Fox Marvel

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“Does it hurt?”

“Every time.”

That is an exchange from the first X-Men movie, which came out just over fifteen years ago. It’s a succinct example of why Bryan Singer’s film works so well, despite many superficial limitations. The question is posed by Rogue, a young mutant who has just met one of her own kind, the taciturn Wolverine. She’s asking about the metal claws that pop out through his skin, and Wolverine’s response, as played by Hugh Jackman, isn’t an emo lament. It’s plainspoken: sad but not whiny, and a little funny in its ruefulness. It conveys character through dialogue without exposition. Those handful of words (and the actors bringing them to life) say: Wolverine is a badass with metal claws, and every time he brandishes them, he feels a twinge of pain.
Continue reading Fantastic Four Achieves Peak Fox Marvel →

Movies, Podcast

The SportsAlcohol.com Podcast: Tom Cruise and Mission: Impossible

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Tom Cruise has managed to maintain a career for over three decades while appearing in just one set of sequels (so far): the Mission: Impossible series, which began in 1996 and have become, against odds including but not limited to Mission: Impossible II, his signature movie-star films. In the latest installment of the SportsAlcohol.com podcast, Marisa, Jesse, Nathaniel, and Sara (making her podcast debut!) got together after a viewing of the new Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nationn to discuss the film, as well as the overall career of Tom Cruise. We discuss:

  • How Rogue Nation stacks up to its predecessors and how it brings to mind series nadir Mission: Impossible II
  • How Sara, not an action movie fan, reacted to Rogue Nation
  • Favorite Tom Cruise movies
  • Cruise’s early “being the best at pointless skills” trilogy
  • Far and Away, The Color of Money, Knight and Day, and other moments in Cruise history!
  • Whether Cruise’s offscreen antics inform how we watch his films

AND MORE!

So listen carefully and with great intensity! Just know that this podcast is full of spoilers for every Tom Cruise movie possible! Or impossible!

How To Listen

    We are now up to five different ways to listen to a SportsAlcohol podcast:

  • You can subscribe to our podcast using the rss feed.
  • I’m not sure why they allowed it, but we are on iTunes! If you enjoy what you hear, a positive comment and a rating would be great.
  • I don’t really know what Stitcher is, but we are also on Stitcher.
  • You can download the mp3 of this episode directly here.
  • You can listen in the player below.

Fiction, Movies

16 Things You Didn’t Know About Jurassic Park

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16 Things You Didn’t Know About Jurassic Park

  1. Jurassic Park contains only 75 digital effects shots. The rest of the effects were achieved with animatronics, miniatures, and models.

  2. All of the film’s explicit sex scenes were cut. They were later repurposed for the Sylvester Stallone movie The Specialist.

  3. Actors considered for the role of Dr. Alan Grant included Harrison Ford, Tom Selleck, Don Johnson, Tom Cruise, Patrick Swayze, John Travolta, Anthony Hopkins, Sir John Gielgud, Meg Ryan, the ghost of Lucille Ball, Ronald Reagan, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Benji, Grape Ape, an old toaster, Theodore Rex, and Mary-Kate Olsen by herself.

  4. And also Bill Pullman.

  5. No one was considered for the role of Dr. Ian Malcolm, including Jeff Goldblum.

  6. Travis Barker, age thirteen, saw Jurassic Park twenty-seven times in the theater, setting a record that he was unable to verify but that no one could refute. In an interview with his local ABC affiliate, Travis breathlessly summarized the plot of the movie scene by scene, showing off an impeccable imitation of both the Dilophosaurus and Wayne Knight. All of this was cut from the broadcast, though footage of his wild gesticulations could be seen briefly in montage over the reporter’s misleading explanation of the film’s plot. Travis called the news to complain, both about his unused footage and the misleading plot synopsis, but they could only tell him this was ABC Carpet Cleaners, not the TV station.
    Continue reading 16 Things You Didn’t Know About Jurassic Park →

Movies, Podcast

The SportsAlcohol.com Podcast: Mad Max, Fury Road, and Part Fours

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One of the summer’s most anticipated movies has roared into town like a spike-car from hell, guzzling up all the gasoline and milk in sight. After watching all four Mad Max movies this year, Marisa, Jesse, and Nathaniel discussed the series at length. Our Mad Max review covers the first three movies, then has a thirty-year (or several-month) time-jump before getting into Fury Road. We discuss part fours (part of our weeks-long series on the summer of the fourquel), continuity or lack thereof, why Beyond Thunderdome is the weird one, what a badass Charlize Theron is, and also we touch upon the Alien sequels and Temple of Doom, why not. As usual, spoilers abound.

    We are now up to five different ways to listen to a SportsAlcohol podcast:

  • You can subscribe to our podcast using the rss feed.
  • I’m not sure why they allowed it, but we are on iTunes! If you enjoy what you hear, a positive comment and a rating would be great.
  • I don’t really know what Stitcher is, but we are also on Stitcher.
  • You can download the mp3 of this episode directly here.
  • You can listen in the player below.

TV

‘Mad Men’ Series Finale Discussion Thread: Shut the Door; Have a Seat and Let’s Talk.

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The pink slip. The gold watch. The forced retirement. Find any kind of cute office comparison you want, but Mad Men has just ended. After seven seasons, it proved itself to stand alone among its peers: An hourlong drama that was truly character-driven instead of story-driven, Mad Men often confounded its own fans, who looked for clues to its conclusion that were never there. Now that the real ending has revealed itself, of course we’ve got some opinions, and we’re sure you do, too. So let’s talk.

WARNING: Spoilers about the Mad Men series finale after the cut.

Continue reading ‘Mad Men’ Series Finale Discussion Thread: Shut the Door; Have a Seat and Let’s Talk. →