Author Archives: Daniel J. Willis
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REWIND: Explore our editor’s Spotify Wrapped playlist
Spotify Wrapped 2020, courtesy: Spotify. It’s Spotify Wrapped time again! Every year around this time Spotify users reap one of the few the benefits of the technodystopian digital panopticon we find ourselves living in when Spotify tells us what genres, artists, and songs we listened to most over the…
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REWIND: Remember what day it is during a long weekend with songs about Friday
Katy Perry, courtesy Capitol Records, will never give courtesy to editor Daniel J. Willis ever again. I had a whole column outlined with a somewhat generic theme. You see, I write the column over the course of the week, then Friday night I file it and make my final…
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REVIEW: Hatebreed channels the feelings of the forgotten on ‘Weight of the False Self’
Back in the late ’90s, Hatebreed was innovative and bordering on groundbreaking. By performing heavy metal within the boundaries of hardcore punk, the Connecticut band helped set the template of the dominant form of metal in the early ’00s. Others had done the same but it remains a pillar…
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REWIND: Five songs about not traveling during a plague, you jerks
Rudy Giuliani, pictured here excited to get the middle seat on Frontier Airlines. According to several polls, many of you are planning to travel for Thanksgiving. A whole lot of knowledgeable and prestigious people and groups, including the CDC, have advised against this using convincing rhetoric and an understanding…
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REWIND: Celebrate the writer’s birthday with some of his favorites
Daniel J Willis is actually two Skee-Los tall. We took a break from music last week, but now I’m back with our regularly scheduled nonsense. This past Thursday was my birthday, which means it’s time for my annual self-indulgent column of songs I like with no regard for theme…
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RIFF editors: Joe Biden has won, but there’s work left to do
President Donald Trump, pictured here attacking the very concept of democracy at the White House on Nov. 6, 2020. Courtesy: Evan Vucci/Associated Press/Twitter. It’s been some week. We have to talk about the presidential election. As of this writing, former Vice President Joe Biden has won but nobody in…
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REWIND: Halloween is time for Mercyful Fate and White Zombie
White Zombie, ‘Make Them Die Slowly.’ So first off, has anyone told you to vote yet? Yes? That’s literally all you’ve heard for over a month? Good. Well, do that, if only so turnout is so high we don’t have to deal with the nagging again in a couple…
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REWIND: “Dance Macabre” and 4 more songs for your advanced-level Halloween playlist
“Danse Macabre” (1493) by Michael Wolgemut. Not pictured: Ghost’s “Dance Macabre.” OK, enough dancing around it. I’ve done three editions of my Halloween Month and basically none of them has been a legit Halloween list. I’m writing this in advance so there’s no telling what unspeakable horrors have befallen…
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REWIND: The good, the bad and the ugly of spooky movie music
The Nightmare Before Christmas. Welcome to Week 3 of Halloween Month. As I’m writing this well in advance, something I desperately try to avoid given the breakneck 2020 news cycle, I don’t know what horrors I should probably be addressing. I’m assuming someone important is dead, for example, and…
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REWIND: Five non-Halloween songs, but make them spooky
John Cale, Courtesy: Paul Hudson/Wikicommons. Welcome to Week No. 2 of Halloween Month. As of the time of this writing the President has returned to the White House from the hospital despite still gasping for air like a blobfish in an ill-fitting suit out of water. What will happen…