video review: 'zombies on broadway' by andrew mcmahon in the wilderness

Well, better late than never, I guess. Probably won't remember a damn thing from it either, but I guess that happens...

Next up, though, we're going metal with Mastodon - stay tuned!

album review: 'zombies on broadway' by andrew mcmahon in the wilderness

I'm wasn't the music critic who coined the term 'silent majority' acts, but I'm not sure I could think of a more subtle and yet cutting descriptor for certain bands. You know the type - the groups that are just trendy enough to snag commercials and TV montage music, but never artistically challenging enough to actually be interesting or compelling for critics. And thus it should be absolutely no surprise that I find these groups painfully frustrating to review. It's not even that they make bad music so much as it's just bland as all hell to me, especially when they put on airs they don't deserve - something that the average music consumer doesn't understand and thus gets annoyed when I call it out.

And I don't think there was an act that jumped to the top of the silent majority act pantheon faster than Andrew McMahon In The Wilderness. The titular guy hasn't always been in the wilderness, and has been around longer than many people know - he was part of the emo group Something Corporate around the turn of the millennium, later went solo with a bunch of session players under the moniker Jack's Mannequin - both acts which are apparently remembered fondly by people who heard them at the time - and then went towards a piano-driven indie pop direction under the new name Andrew McMahon In The Wilderness. And look, I heard a little from him when 'Cecilia And The Satellite' crossed landed on the Hot 100, and for research I checked out his debut album... and that was enough to tell me I had no need to hear anything more from him; it's generally tepid piano-driven adult alternative that I already got plenty of growing up in the mid-2000s, and he's not doing anything that Daniel Powter, James Blunt, or Five For Fighting didn't do, just with a little more blocky percussion. But, thanks to folks on Patreon there was enough interest in me covering his sophomore album that it wound up at the top of my schedule nearly two months late. So, might as well get through this quick, what did I find in Zombies On Broadway?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 24, 2015 (VIDEO)

Well, that was easier than usual! It's nice being able to complete an episode without completely losing your entire project.

But moving on from that, I've got another review coming tonight, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 24, 2015

Don't be deceived by this week. Those were the words that were running through my head across this week as the initial sense of relief flooded through me. Yes, no more Drake and Future songs to cover, yes, we actually got more returning songs than new tracks on a reasonably short week, and hell, a song from one of your favourite albums of 2015 came back to the charts. But the more I pored over the charts, the more I got the feeling that the current rising 'stars' aren't exactly on the good side, and we could be in for a world of problems across the rest of the fall.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 3, 2015 (VIDEO)

And this week happened. Whew, it took way too long to get this out, and considering how insane my schedule is this week, I'm lucky I got this out at all.

Next up... I really want to cover that Ought record, but waiting in the wings we've got Fetty Wap, Silversun Pickups, Kurt Vile, CHRVCHES, Julia Holter, The Underachievers, and that's not even counting Destroyer and Scarface (the former of whom I'm ready to cover and the latter I'm way behind in my backlog listen-through)... hold on tight, folks, this might be getting crazy.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 3, 2015

I can predict a lot of people will be celebrating parts of this week's Hot 100. Not all of it, obviously - there's too much Rae Sremmurd to really get away with anything jubilant - but I can see a lot of people seeing the new #1 and a few of the new arrivals and getting excited. And that only further defines the difference between music nerds who follow the charts and the mainstream population, because I look at this week and I can only wish I'm as excited as everyone else.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 12, 2015 (VIDEO)

And that's that episode. Another not particularly easy shoot, but eh, that happens.

Next up... okay, Miley, I'm prepared for the worst, BRING IT!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 12, 2015

So we're finally getting out of a lurching, generally incoherent summer and into the fall - in other words known as one of the most clustered and panicked times of the year when it comes to the Hot 100. The last hits of the year tend to debut in these weeks in the gamble they'll snag the year-end list, the album release schedule starts to pile up, and things get all the more busy on my end. And that's not counting any major shifts on the chart like we got this week, or the dropping of surprise albums that come right out of nowhere, which we'll be probably talking more about tomorrow.