Reviews
TIFF Review: Listening to Kenny G Explores What Makes Him So Beloved (And Despised)
This review is part of our coverage of the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival. The Pitch: When some people think of Kenny G, they think of the platinum-selling recording artist who’s shaped their childhoods, soothed their workplaces, and even soundtracked the most intimate moments in their lives. But for others, the thought of Kenny G fills them with scorn. He’s a sellout, a fake, a mop-haired purveyor of anodyne saxophone schlock. He disrespects the improvisational, group-centered dynamics of jazz in favor of treacly solo showmanship, and — even worse — subjected the world to “smooth jazz.” The man’s a paradox wrapped in an enigma topped with a curly perm he’s maintained since the 1980s — the best-selling instrumentalist of all time who nonetheless remains a pop-culture punchli...
My Morning Jacket Return Rock to Forest Hills Stadium: Concert Review
In August of 2019, My Morning Jacket performed at Queen’s Forest Hills Stadium, part of a special four-show stretch after a nearly two-year hiatus. The gigs were also billed as their last for a potentially longer period (and that was even without the unexpected virus that shelved all live music for over a year). Thankfully, the threat of another break — or full-on retirement — was staved off by the shows themselves, inspiring the band to get back in the studio and continue on. Two years and one month later, MMJ returned to Forest Hills on Friday, September 10th for the first concert of a two-night stint. A new self-titled record — their first freshly recorded material in six years — is on the horizon; pandemic lockdowns are in the rearview (for now); and the Jacket’s brand of jammy, psyche...
Iron Maiden Craft Their Most Diverse Album in Years with Senjutsu: Review
The Lowdown: Metal legends Iron Maiden were riding high prior to the pandemic. The band were in the midst of their “Legacy of the Beast Tour” — a career-spanning celebration of the band’s discography. The comprehensive setlist pulled from every era of Maiden — even the Blaze Bayley albums — hitting major highlights as well as obscure deep cuts. Somewhere in the middle of the jaunt, in early 2019, the band found time to hit the Guillaume Tell Studio in France to track the material that would become Senjutsu. Perhaps running through 40 years of songs every night worked as the ultimate songwriting stimulant, because Senjutsu is easily Iron Maiden’s most diverse work in years — no easy task for a band that continues to chiefly operate in a long-since-established heavy metal style. The Goo...
Mary Elizabeth Winstead Kicks Ass in the Derivative but Brutal Actioner Kate: Review
The Pitch: Kate (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is your classic stone-cold movie assassin: She’s a crack shot, has nerves of steel, and (in the fashion of a dozen female hitmen before her) was trained from childhood to kill by a friendly, paternal handler (Woody Harrelson) who will almost certainly prove a thorn in her side by film’s end. But she’s looking to retire, and has to go on — you guessed it — one last job to do it. Things get complicated when unseen forces fatally poison her, giving her only 24 hours to find out who’s responsible and make them pay before she croaks. To do it, she’ll have to team up with a rambunctious young teenager (Miku Martineau) — whose father she killed on a prior mission — to tear through the dueling halves of the Japanese mafia. Netflix and Kill: One of Net...
SPIN Recap: Splash House 2021
ABOUT THE FESTIVAL The highly anticipated, multi-weekend festival in Palm Springs is fundamentally a giant pool party. Mix in sold-out hotels, after-hours parties, and world-class electronic headliners and you get Splash House. The colorful, sun-soaked weekend event spanned the Renaissance, Saguaro, and Margaritaville hotels and festival-goers took over the pool areas and booked out the rooms to decorate their hotel balconies with their slogans, flags and streamers. Desert heat baked the valley until about 5 PM daily, when the balmy breezes and shade of the palm trees brought the temperature down to a comfortable warmth. Splash House is an unforgettable bucket list event that appeals to those even on the outskirts of the electronic and house genre fandoms. SG Lewis CREDIT: SG Lewis by Gina...
Kanye West Channels His Vulnerability on Donda, Delivering His Best Album in Years
Two of the most confounding words in music are “Kanye” and “West.” For the past few years, Kanye West has been less of an artist and more of a Rorschach test for a worldwide audience. To some, he’s a genius on par with John Lennon, Beethoven, Steve Jobs, and Leonardo Da Vinci. To others, he’s a drama king attracted to the spotlight like a moth to a flame. To a third group, he’s a fallen prophet who traded in his goodwill for a red cap and a White House hall pass. However you rate his flaws, Kanye admittedly never hid them, even all those moons ago when the world said he was hip hop’s Messiah in 2004. Seventeen years later, after dealing with the ups and downs that come from living one’s life in a fishbowl for the world to see, Ye is back with Donda, his tenth album. Named after his mother,...
Big Red Machine’s How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? Brings Late Summer Melancholy
On their sophomore outing as Big Red Machine, Aaron Dessner (The National) and Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) take their time. The end of August is here — much like last year’s folklore, an album with writing and production contributions from both artists, this period has arrived with an album that revels in the dog days of summer. Bon Iver and The National are two acts that followed similar timelines during their respective ascents within the indie rock world. (Perhaps the best way to contextualize their initial connection is with the reminder that Dessner and Vernon first became friends over MySpace.) There’s a gentleness associated with their music, both from their individual endeavors and from work together, and How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? fits that same bill, bobbing steadily ove...
Big Red Machine Champions the Spirit of Collaboration on How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last?
The National and Bon Iver are two of the biggest names in indie music, and they rose to prominence around the same time. The National cemented themselves as mainstays with their 2007 breakthrough, Boxer, and Bon Iver released their storied debut, For Emma, Forever Ago, just a couple of months later. It only makes sense that their paths would eventually converge, and they did three years ago when The National’s Aaron Dessner and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon made a collaborative record together under the moniker Big Red Machine. Now, they’ve released their sophomore effort, How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last?, and it embraces the ethos of collectivism even more than its predecessor. Although Big Red Machine’s first record was by nature a joint endeavor, How Long… features an even wider g...
American Horror Story: Now With Macauley Culkin, Vampires and Even More Camp!
The Pitch: Paging Dr. King: It’s time for another round of “Let’s Basically Do The Shining!” For the latest installment of Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’s long-running horror anthology series, we settle in with the Gardners — father Harry (Finn Wittrock), wife Doris (Rabe), and daughter Alma (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) — driving to the sleepy seaside town of Providence, Massachusetts. Harry’s a writer looking to get out of the city and cure his writer’s block; Doris, who’s expecting their second child, plans to renovate their drab vacation house in exchange for free rent. But naturally, a few things are amiss about their new home: the neighboring houses turn on red lights as the sun goes down, creepy albinos with fangs loiter around the local graveyard, and “Tuberculosis Karen” (Sarah ...
In Candyman, Art, Violence and Real-Life Horrors Coalesce: Review
The Pitch: Set in modern day Chicago, Candyman, the “remake” of the iconic 1992 film of the same name, turns out not to be a remake at all. Directed by Nia DaCosta, it’s more of an addition to the series’ original story (which itself is based on a short story from Clive Barker entitled “The Forbidden”), than it is a retelling of Bernard Rose’s cult classic. 1992’s Candyman is widely regarded as a staple in the horror genre. It’s told from the scope of Helen Lyle, a graduate student who travels to Chicago’s storied Cabrini-Green projects in order to co-write a thesis focusing urban legends and folklore. When she goes further into her research, she eventually learns of the city’s most intriguing urban legend, Candyman. As her obsession with the story increases, it forces Lyle on a path of se...
Halsey’s If I Can’t Have Love I Want Power Turns the Pop Artist into a Rock Star
In 2019, Halsey released the fiery “Nightmare,” an urgent, industrial anthem that aptly captured the universal “female rage” amplified by the patriarchal doom of the Trump era. The song, a stark departure from her pop-centric releases in the past, was noticeably left off of their third album Manic. The track, however, was never written off by Halsey; instead, the defiant, standalone single laid the foundation for If I Can’t Have Love I Want Power, the singer’s new concept album that tackles “the joys and horrors of pregnancy and childbirth.” The unwavering hope of parenthood loomed large on Halsey’s last record Manic, as she marked their uphill battle conceiving with a love song to their future child. “When you decide it’s your time to arrive, I’ve loved you for all of my life,” they sang ...
With If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power, Halsey Crafts Her Own Mythology
When Halsey shared the artwork for her fourth studio album, If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power, the inspiration was clear: seated on a throne, confidently exposed with a child in her arms, she is the regal image of the Madonna. Halsey (who goes by the pronouns “she/they”) has always seemed fascinated by the stories that make up humanity, from the mythic to the biblical and fantastical. If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power is the next chapter in her own tale. This marks the fourth studio album for Halsey, who is on the cusp of turning 27 — her debut LP, Badlands, shot the singer into the spotlight when she was just 20 years old. Her bracing honesty and electronic production helped her cultivate a dedicated following of young adults, many of whom have grown with her in the years since that deb...
