in Books on by Jodi Chromey

More Addiction Memoir Than Music Memoir

My rosy feelings for Belinda Carlisle’s memoir Lips Unsealed come from equal parts twenty-five-year-old nostalgia and love for Christa’s review of the book. Her review is one of my favorite pieces ever published on MN Reads. It’s everything I love in a review: book description, clear opinion, personal connection, and good writing. Belinda’s book is not everything I love in a music memoir. Probably because it’s more addiction & recovery memoir with a touch of music, which now that I’ve…

Continue

in Music Writing on with 2 Comments by Jodi Chromey

My 2nd Favorite Album of 2013 Probably Didn’t Come Out in 2013

I decided right now that I’m going to write about my favorite albums and/or songs of 2013. I already started last week with Jason Isbell’s “Southeastern”, which is, I repeat, the best album to be released in 2013. If you don’t agree you are wrong and I feel sorry for you. My second favorite album of 2013 didn’t even come out in 2013. I think. It might have been released in the US in 2013. I’m not entirely sure and…

Continue

in Sunday+Boring on by Jodi Chromey

It’s Sunday & I’m Boring: Maya Angelou & Cartoon Bear Underwear

10:07 a.m. Well, it has come to this. I have developed a QuizUp addiction that is threatening to take over my life. Frankly, I’m a little surprised that I’m taking the time to type at all. Trivia games are the worst kind of temptation for smartypants know-it-alls. So yeah, I spent the morning playing trivia games, listening to the United States of Americana, and drinking coffee. It was kind of nice. Eventually, I managed to put down Ziggy and pick…

Continue

in Music on with 3 Comments by Jodi Chromey

Lorde Might Smell Like Teen Spirit, but that Doesn’t Make Her Nirvana of Now

Lorde, for those of you who live under rocks different than the ones I live under, is a teen pop music sensation from New Zealand. Her song “Royals” topped the Alternative Music charts awhile back, a thing that a solo female artist hadn’t done since months before Lorde was actually born. The last song by a woman to hit #1 on that chart? “Mother, Mother” by Tracy Bonham. I am going to put aside the ridiculously sexist bullshit fact that…

Continue

in Politics on by Jodi Chromey

Nelson Mandela’s Death Makes Me Think of That One Time I Got an A+

I was sitting right here cracking my knuckles, rolling my shoulders, licking my chops, and generally getting ready to write what was no doubt going to be a witty and incisive response to Lorde Sounds Like Teen Spirit when the news that Nelson Mandela had died blipped across my Twitter feed. Wow, I thought. Damn. And just like that the thought of writing about Lorde and pop music seemed silly and petty. It will probably not be silly and petty…

Continue

in Music on with 1 Comment by Jodi Chromey

Arbitrary Number of Reasons Jason Isbell’s ‘Southeastern’ is My Favorite Record of 2013

For the first time in very many years, I could probably make a Top 10 list of Favorite Albums of 2013 and not only would it actually have ten albums on it, they’d all be released in 2013. Perhaps 2013 (aside from fuckin’ HAIM and Alt-J and The Lumineers and everything Bon Iver is involved with) is the year rock & roll got unboring. Or maybe I found more of the unboring stuff. One could probably postulate that it was…

Continue