I Am Come

Band: Part Chimp
Album: I Am Come
Best song: The title track is perfect.
Worst song: It's only five songs and all are great.

While working earlier this week, I found myself in a Wikipedia loop. You know, one of those things where you look something up on Wikipedia, end up clicking on of the site's many interesting internal links and just keep clicking. It never ends. Wikipedia is nearly endless in its amount of interesting articles. I am a firm believer in the genius of Wikipedia.

Stella

Band: Uzeda
Album: Stella
Best song: "What I Meant When I Called Your Name" is amazing. "Wail" has an unstoppable riff.
Worst song: "Camillo" is just OK.

By the time you read this, I will be in Sicily, the province in Italy that is the historical home of my family. My father's family hails from a town called Caccamo, about 40 km from Palermo, the capitol and largest city of the island (the city where I'll be staying during my weeklong visit).

A Moment of Stillness

Band: God is an Astronaut
Album: A Moment of Stillness
Best song: The title track is perfect.
Worst song: It's only five songs and all are great.

I'm not sure where to start or not to start here, other to acknowledge that I'm not much in the way of a writer, so whenever I actually deal with an editor on something I care about, I am reminded that I am not an editor. I sometimes fall in love with my own wording on stuff -- in my job, I don't do much writing, outside of some headlines and such -- but because I write the way I talk, I get annoyed when an editor wants to change a non-hard news thing to something other than my original idea. Which, really, is just pompous. We'll do it more straightforward, Ross. Your pith is not needed here.

Sex Change

Band: Trans Am
Album: Sex Change
Best song:  "Tesco v. Sainsbury's" is amazing and a snapshot of what Trans Am does best.
Worst song: "4,738 Regrets" isn't great.

I'm a passionate, passionate man and, recently, two of passions have collided to major press. Roger Ebert is one of my favorite writers in the world and Esquire is the best written magazine in the world. Will Leitch and Drew Magary -- both writers I enjoy and admire -- have weighed in and I've decided to do the same in my own little album-centric hole in the Internet. Ebert is appearing this week on ex-girlfriend-turned-close-friend (and, by the way, one of the most powerful women in the world) Oprah Winfrey's TV show and, of course, if you haven't read the Esquire piece, open this link now. NOW.