Album A Day: Secondhand Serenade – Awake

Artist: Secondhand Serenade Album: Awake Release Date: January 10, 2007 I’m not going to try to suggest to you that Secondhand Serenade is anything other than a poor man’s Dashboard Confessional. In fact, Awake is overlong, hyper-melodramatic, and decidedly self-indulgent (it’s a glorified mixtape for singer-songwriter John Vesely’s wife). There’s very little socially redeeming value [...]

Album A Day (11/14): High Fidelity: Original Soundtrack

Artist: Various Album: High Fidelity: Original Soundtrack Release Date: May 28, 2000 In my play and screenwriting class last year, I wrote a short piece that took place in a record store, and a couple of my classmates called me out, saying that it was a little too obvious that I was a fan of [...]

Album A Day: A Knight’s Tale: Music From The Motion Picture

Artist: Various Album: A Knight’s Tale: Music From The Motion Picture Released: May 2001 Another old favorite of mine, and another movie that never really got the respect it deserved. Granted, A Knight’s Tale is also one of those films that has its flaws, and said flaws can interfere with the enjoyment of the movie. [...]

Taking Recommendations for The Essentials of 2009

So, astute readers will notice a new page on the left hand side of the site (as well as up top) entitled “Albums of 2009″. This page lists every album that came out in 2009 that I’ve listened to so far. It’s a pretty healthy list (70 some odd at last count), but I know [...]

Album A Day: Titan A.E.: Music From The Motion Picture

Artist: Various Album: Titan A.E.: Music From The Motion Picture Released: 2000 If you’ve never heard of Titan A.E., go read the wikipedia and IMDB articles and understand that this film is a sentimental favorite from my preteen years. If you know the film, in all likelihood you join me in having very fond memories [...]

Album A Day (11/11): Eddie Vedder – Into The Wild: Music For The Motion Picture

Again, apologies for the late post. The ship will be righted once more after this weekend. Artist: Eddie Vedder Album: Into The Wild: Music For The Motion Picture Release Date: September 18, 2007 Honestly, I’m probably the wrong person to talk about this album, since I never saw the movie, and thus I have little [...]

Album A Day: Saturday Night Fever: The Original Movie Soundtrack

Artist: Bee Gees, et al Album: Saturday Night Fever: The Original Movie Soundtrack Released: November 1977 I’m pretty sure that if my roommates fully realized what it was I was listening to at the moment, I think I’d get taken out back behind the woodshed and I’d lose all right to talk music with them. [...]

Album A Day: Walk The Line: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Artist: Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, et al Album: Walk The Line: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Release Date: November 15, 2005 Walk the Line is a rarity on two fronts; first, it is the rare musical biopic that makes it out of the rare “Hey, what if there was a movie about ____?” phase (films about [...]

Bidding Farewell To An Inspiration

I’ve said before that I started Viva La Mainstream as an escape from the hipster snobbery that permeated much of what constituted music blogs at the time. Among the sites that inspired me and suggested that I could, in fact, write about mainstream music from a genuine fan perspective was Idolator, which at the time [...]

Fuck Patience, Let’s Dance: Them Crooked Vultures Stream Full Album

Within the last hour or so, subscribers to Them Crooked Vultures’ email newsletters were met with the following image: And a link to a YouTube playlist featuring all 13 tracks from TCV’s self titled album, in stores November 17th. Aside from the fact that the tagline on that image (Also the title of this entry) [...]