(I’d love if you’d talk about video games, too.)

My first essay on the site was about Lana Del Rey as America’s John Milton, but there has also been poetry about female songwriters who it feels like society has overlooked, one about Ross Gay, The National, and Dr. J, and one about Sonic the Hedgehog as an antinihilist hero.

That is actually one of the major things I want to talk about! What kinds of media did you sneak, what was worth it, etc. If you can message me your email address, I could send you details & you could see if you’re interested?

BUT I’m looking to do an interview with someone whose first deep connection to secular art came later in life, and I want to explore what that art is (high, low, in between!) and why it moved you so much. Would you be interested in thinking about this? I can give detailed idea of what I’m thinking!

It’s such a theatrical album. A real departure from his super fun pop music in some places. I always love artists who play with levels and drama. Thanks for talking to me about it! I’m always excited to talk music :)

Also, for what it’s worth, anyone who sees the beauty in the Gin Blossoms and the tragedy of Doug Hopkins’s story is a friend of mine. Too many people spend this life jockeying to figure out what is cool and they miss some of the best art out there.

Lana Del Rey as a modern-day John Milton, but I’ve also featured things like “Sonic the Hedgehog as an anti-nihilist hero.” Maybe if nothing else, it’s the piece that gets you started on a longer book? (Maybe a 33 1/3?) Here’s my site— let me know if you’re interested! theapologistzine.substack.com

Any chance you’d have an interest in writing, at least a short form, apologetics essay about why they’re so important in the fabric of American rock in the ‘90s? I have a pop culture zine that focuses on one issue a month, just one essay, defending the love of art. (My first essay was about 1/2

I love the whole “Madman Across the Water” record, but “Holiday Inn” stands out to me like Pete Townsend’s “Sheraton Gibson,” Seger’s “Turn the Page,” or The Kinks’s “Sitting in my Hotel”: few songs about the loneliness of the road transcend the way that group does, and Elton John’s may be the best.

“Holiday Inn” or “And I Guess That’s Why They Call it The Blues.”

Also, few bands could write bangers, country songs, heavy rock, softer pop like “Allison Road,” put them all on the same record, and have it feel not only cohesive, but homey. They were amazing.

For me, “think” is a much stronger word here, and I also think Hopkins wrote THE BEST addiction song since The Stones’ “Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’?” in “Hold Me Down,” which I think is one of the best songs of the ‘90s. The Gin Blossoms take crap, but it’s unearned. That first record is a classic.

What’s wild is the original line was, “You can trust me not to drink,” but the band changed it out of respect for Doug Hopkins, who was dealing with acute alcoholism (and later, after a messy separation with the band, died from it, leading to the next album’s title, “Congratulations, I’m Sorry”)—