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Song of the Day #2: ‘Oh My Sweet Carolina’ – Ryan Adams

Ryan Adams is an artist who could be one of the all-time greats if he’d just stop making so much damn music. This guy writes a new song every hour of every day… which is fine, except he puts them all out on CDs. If you go to the store and pick up a new Ryan Adams release, the odds are pretty good that another Ryan Adams album will be released before you get back home.

So I have mostly given up on following his career closely — it would involve way too much time and money. But he has released two albums that I consider true classics. The first is Gold, which features the hits ‘New York, New York’ and ‘When the Stars Go Blue’ and brought him to national attention. The other, and better of the two, is Heartbreaker, his solo debut.

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Song of the Day #1: ‘I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish’ – The Smiths

Inspired by this blog by the lovely and talented Malagueta, I’ve decided to write about a new song every day. I’m not sure how long I can keep this up… I currently have 7,798 songs in my iTunes library, so theoretically I can do this until I’m 56 using only my current collection. Throw in all the new music I’m sure to pick up over the next 21 years and it’s safe to say I can carry on for the rest of my life.

For now, I’ll concentrate on making it through next week.

To kick it off, I’ve chosen a song the title of which reflects my doubts that I’ll be able to carry out this daunting task. In the future I’ll choose songs pretty much at random.

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The Bank Job

Date: July 21, 2008
Location: Clifton Living Room

After the sleek perfection of the heists in Ocean’s 11 through 13, it’s refreshing to see a good old-fashioned “bank job” as sloppy as the one in this Roger Donaldson crime caper. There is nothing elegant about this group of men (and one woman) tunnelling from an abandoned leather shop under a Chicken Inn and into the vault of a corner bank in London. And they are woefully unprepared to deal with the repercussions of stealing what’s contained there.

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My Morning Jacket – Evil Urges

I had heard a lot about My Morning Jacket but I’d never actually heard them. Then I saw songwriter/lead singer Jim James’ haunting performance of ‘Goin’ to Acupulco’ in I’m Not There and I realized it was time to jump in.

My Morning Jacket is one of those bands (like Radiohead and Wilco) that did a certain thing very well for awhile, then suddenly started doing something strange and different equally well. Evil Urges is their OK Computer or Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Now, coming to the band fresh with this release doesn’t allow me to talk about their evolution, so all I can talk about is the music. And the music is nothing short of superb.
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The Dark Knight

“Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

Those words are spoken by Bruce Wayne’s butler, Alfred (Michael Caine), one of the few people in Gotham who know that the billionaire playboy is actually the vigilante hero Batman. He is explaining, by saying there essentially is no explanation, why the villainous Joker continues to defy their expectations. The Joker has plenty of dastardly schemes, but no grand plan. He is a master of chaos, but nothing holds mastery over him.

The Dark Knight, director/co-writer Christopher Nolan’s follow-up to Batman Begins is, without question, the best superhero film I’ve ever seen. But I feel like that is faint praise. This is the first “summer blockbuster” since Jaws, maybe, that is truly a film first and foremost. Yes, it is breaking box office records, and it will sell tons of popcorn and action figures, but as an artistic achievement it belongs on the same playing field as the best films this year has to offer.

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