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  • Enough With the War on ‘Happy Holidays’

    War was raging in 1942, and I’m not talking Axis and Allies. No, in August that year Irving Berlin and Bing Crosby  unleashed their song “Happy Holiday” on the unsuspecting masses. The deadliest war in American history had begun.

  • Cover Stories: Smashing Pumpkins, ‘Siamese Dream’

    Look at those two little cuties on the cover of Smashing Pumpkin’s Siamese Dream. Don’t you just want to pinch their cheeks?

  • So long, Scott Weiland

    What follows is a bit of a Why It Matters spoiler, so if that’s something that matters to you this is a good time to bail out.

  • Threw Beck Thursday: My Own Private Mrs. Robinson

    Only at thirteen is it acceptable to own both a hamster and a Bo Derek wet tee-shirt poster, one of which serves as a compulsive masturbation aid (don’t judge). My bedroom was in a transitional state. I still had slot cars and Evel Knievel stunt cycles, airplane curtains and a Stretch Armstrong doll; but I…

  • April’s Picks: December 2015

    So the other day April and I were sitting around world Why It Matters headquarters, lighting expensive cigars with hundred dollar bills we pulled from our giant Scrooge McDuck pile of WIM money, and I said to April:

  • 238. Surprise Surprise (So You Rubbed Your Eyes)

    I woke up this morning thinking about Urban Dance Squad. There aren’t many mornings where I’m awakened by thoughts of Dutch funk rock bands that haven’t been mentioned in American popular culture over the last quarter century, but these things happen. Let’s blame an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of…

  • From the Stacks: Rap Reiplinger, ‘Poi Dog’

    I bought this album for one reason: that horrible album cover.

  • On Diffuser: Cover Stories — Muse, ‘Absolution’

    Muse’s Absolution sports a great album cover. There’s a good reason for that.

  • Choose and Defend: Best Holiday Special

    Christmas specials were huge news when I was a kid. Around the third grade they became “kid stuff,” which basically meant that we all still watched them but we just didn’t admit it. Who’s going to pass up Frosty? Nobody.

  • Throw Beck Thursday: My First Concert

    The Seventies laid claim to some great live albums, never mind that many of them were created in a studio. The Woodstock soundtrack kicked off the decade, which to me was roughly the equivalent of stone tablets directly from Mount Sinai. By the time I clued into the whole thing Woodstock was celebrating its tenth…