Author: J T. Ramsay

  • It’s time to make startling admissions.

    Vam­pire Week­end’s self-titled debut reeks of priv­i­lege, yet is so strange­ly self-assured, com­pelling and total­ly New York City that I need­ed to check my watch to remind myself how long ago Is This It? came out. But will it make my 2008 top ten? Added note: Lef­setz thinks that the role of the crit­ic is dimin­ish­ing. Who…

  • My good deed for the day.

    Infor­ma­tion snack­ing: some­times it actu­al­ly helps peo­ple out, illu­mi­nates a point or some­thing. Regard­less of how much I agree with Ian’s thoughts on Juno and its sound­track, I’m prob­a­bly going to end up see­ing this movie before too long. I’m bummed in advance.

  • The sanest thing I’ve read about politics lately.

    Matt Taib­bi at the Smirk­ing Chimp writes: In Barack Oba­ma ver­sus Hillary Clin­ton, we’ve basi­cal­ly got Kennedy-Nixon redux, and I mean that in the most neg­a­tive pos­si­ble sense for both of them — a pair of super­fi­cial, pos­tur­ing con­ser­v­a­tives sell­ing high­ly sim­i­lar polit­i­cal pack­ages using dif­fer­ent emo­tion­al strate­gies. Oba­ma is sell­ing free trade and employ­er-based…

  • A reductionist’s take on Heretic Pride.

    I’ve nev­er been a Moun­tain Goats fan, though I can sense that at one point in his­to­ry I might’ve been, were it not for the exis­tence of the Smiths, R.E.M., et. al. Or anoth­er time when lo-fi was all that mat­tered, but I felt some­how more con­nect­ed to Pave­ment, Son­ic Youth, et. al. So when…

  • Best Persepolis interview ever?

    This inter­view with Cul­ture Pulp is a new favorite. [HT: Book­slut]