Written by @annienocenti.bsky.social in Daredevil 283, 1990, "The American Nightmare."

Weeping over here. And to an Omnichord!

For your New Year's Day browse, in "Crritic!" today - a special last list of 2025: the best Toronto albums, from a year when I really reconnected with the local scene for the first time in a long while. carlwilson.substack.com/p/where-the-...

Pour one out. www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ihi...

Reminder that I made you a soundtrack for today. (Not a party-dance mix.)

It's from Odetta Sings Dylan, from March 1965, where she absolutely kills it on a dozen Dylan songs - and her version of "Tambourine Man" came out a month before Dylan's own.

Okay, this is a combination I never imagined. (And I like Oregon!)

In case you missed it!

A friend added this great one from the POV of Bardot's character from "Le Mépris": skwm.bandcamp.com/track/contempt

Cool list of name-checks in song of that hot fascist mess Bardot from Maria Sherman here - I think there are a couple dozen more out there. "We Love You" by the Psychedelic Furs, for instance. apnews.com/article/brig...

I've got 99 New Years songs, and "Auld Lang Syne" ain't one carlwilson.substack.com/p/what-are-y...

Slate Music Club was a written roundtable for many years and has now become an annual podcast - join me, Chris M, Lindsay Z from the NYT, and Julianne ES from Hearing Things to go beyond lists (tho we have those) and talk about 2025's music trends and ideas, and look ahead to 2026.

A certain small coterie of writers and academics spent decades from at least the 70s to the 2000s arguing to dismissive skeptics that fandom activity was significant at all. And then it became a really weird "be careful what you wish for" scenario.

Sick of Xmas songs? Smart cookies are switching over to New Year's songs! I've just made you a 99-track playlist. carlwilson.substack.com/p/what-are-y...

See my Best #Music #Journalism of 2025 round-up for Rock & Roll Globe, including articles from @carlzoilus.bsky.social @marysiroky.bsky.social @lizpelly.bsky.social @bobmehr.bsky.social @gabrielkahane.bsky.social @ericdharvey.com @chavighurst.bsky.social & more rockandrollglobe.com/music-journa...

This just-posted Canadian 1974 TV special w/ Steve Martin (his first!) is pretty entertaining if you remember Toronto or Montreal pre-1980s, or else if you're very into seeing a young Steve Martin. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Leb8...

Today we call this "the news."

Happy bday to both Brother Bragg and Brother Watt!

I seldom see it mentioned that Pluribus is partly about society's collective-action failure on climate change, probably because the show is so low key about it, but it's a notable part of the thought experiment.

A YT channel posted this Kirsty MacColl live Toronto clip yesterday, for the 25th anniversary of her tragic death. She's about 34 here, and was 41 when she was killed saving her son from a speedboat in Mexico. Listen to this song - "Free World" - she was so brilliant. (Thanks, Shawn.)

My semi-annual weirdo-holiday playlist - 99 songs, 5+ hours, links to multiple platforms today on "Crritic!" carlwilson.substack.com/p/the-most-w...

This is today, 5:30 pm ET - DM for the link if you're interested!

This will be a blast!

Today in "Crritic!", I share some of the faves bubbling under my 2025 lists last week, and pay brief tribute to the great Joe Ely, gone to the mystery honky-tonk beyond the blue horizon. Plus, completing the Destroyer-David Berman-Sr. Chinarro circle. carlwilson.substack.com/p/twenty-mor...

RIP Joe Ely, keep those fingernails clickin' in the great beyond.

jfc, I was scrolling through thinking, "Oh, that's sad, it seems that Rob Reiner has died," but no idea that it was this way (if true). holy crap.

Today in "Crritic!": my best-of-the-year lists, with an exclusive streaming playlist: carlwilson.substack.com/p/the-2025-h...

Damn, *just found out Ben Feldman from Superstore (+ voice on Long Story Short) was Ginsberg on Mad Men. His affect is so different on the two that it never occurred to me, even tho his looks weren't radically changed. It ridiculously makes me feel, "Oh, Ginsberg turned to be okay!" (Sob.)

Yes! Kanopy also has some stuff that you can only otherwise see on Criterion and other specialty services.

Extremely sad to hear Raul Malo has passed, though I was aware he was unwell. A great figure. www.npr.org/2025/12/09/n...

My Slate music-year-in-review is up! Tried to celebrate the humanity of music makers vs. AI slop, those who value autonomy in a time of corporate concentration, & those who speak up about the state of the world in a time of suppression, brutality, and enshittification. slate.com/culture/2025...

I hope someday to receive the Major League Baseball Prize for Non-Fiction, though I would also accept the International House of Pancakes Medal in Criticism.

My obvious answer would be the Slate Poptimism piece, but the real answer is this essay from my Substack on how the same gestures that scanned as irony in the 90s/00s come across as deeply heartfelt today: carlwilson.substack.com/p/telling-te...

Exactly. WTF

This.

Notes towards a theory of "liveness" via @thebeths.bsky.social, Off Book: the Improvised Musical, Fievel is Glauque, and more, today in "Crritic!" carlwilson.substack.com/p/degrees-of...

I once asked a bookseller at a large indie store how many people would have to buy a book for it to get the attention of the store buyer and cause an additional order and they said: Three.

Jimmy Cliff's writing & performance hit somewhere for me beyond even Marley - the Sam Cooke of reggae in his range and seductions. The Harder They Come ST is the motherlode, but incredible that he also wrote one of the greatest songs about Vietnam in the sixties. RIP www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9Q4...

This is an interesting argument. It’s 80s v 90s to me. Older Gen Xers’ parents were slightly too old to have been Beatlemaniacs so we were into them and so were the cool bands (see Paisley Underground etc). We were more wary of Elvis. Younger Gen X had a different slant.

It's hard to imagine they're not just doing this for pleasure.

TRUMP [after spending 5 minutes with Zohran]: surplus value, it’s a very wonderful thing, very wonderful, and they’re stealing it. Can you believe that? We’re going to be looking very strongly at the bourgeoisie, what they’re up to

Read this review of that book instead: www.artnews.com/art-in-ameri...

Let's say this again, for the ones in the back who weren't listening: slate.com/culture/2025...

"AI of the Tiger"

F me with a piano roll and a teardrop tattoo.

Later today!

Wed Nov 19, 5:30 pm ET, the Popular Music Books online series features Allison Bumstead on teen fan mags' role in early rock journalism & politics, plus Peter Richardson on how Bay Area activism fed into the advent of Rolling Stone. To join us, see here: iaspm-us.wildapricot.org/Popular-Musi...

Belated notice that if you were put off by the first episode of Pluribus because it seemed too much like familiar viral apocalypse stuff ... watch the second episode and ye shall be healed

Much too young, RIP.

Great short @newyorker.com doc on the UK "broadcast ban" on Republican voices from Northern Ireland in the 70s-80s. An often absurd parable about the perversity of censorship, w/ an apropos note that the UK govt still uses similar rationales for suppressing dissent today. youtu.be/4EG-4qhre8k?...