The Road to Redemption: Music and the “Me Too” Movement

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Anna Acosta, writing at Auxcord:

You cannot begin to be redeemed if you do not honestly feel the weight of what you’ve done to others. This is the missing piece of the puzzle. This is why so many react negatively to the delicately-crafted, publicist-approved apologies put out by the “me too’d” who bother even to acknowledge they might have something to apologize for. These statements make it clear that the person in question has no idea what they’re apologizing for. I believe they’re sorry – we all do. But sorry for what? It indeed isn’t for the pain they’ve caused. It’s for the pain they’re experiencing.

Why Pabst Blue Ribbon Could Go Extinct

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Clint Rainey, writing at Grubstreet:

For years, Pabst has outsourced its beer-making to MillerCoors, a relationship that has suddenly gone sour. The two companies are locked in a half-billion-dollar court battle that, some say, could spell the end of PBR, as well as many other beer brands that Pabst owns. Pabst currently pays MillerCoors nearly $80 million a year to brew its beer; MillerCoors says that, after 2020, it may no longer have the necessary resources available, and is threatening to let the contract expire unless Pabst agrees to a fee that’s closer to $200 million per year, an amount that Pabst contends would “bankrupt us three times over.”

‘I Found the Best Burger Place in America. And Then I Killed It.’

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Kevin Alexander, writing at Thrillist:

In my office, I have a coffee mug from Stanich’s in Portland, Oregon. Under the restaurant name, it says “Great hamburgers since 1949.” The mug was given to me by Steve Stanich on the day I told him that, after eating 330 burgers during a 30-city search, I was naming Stanich’s cheeseburger the best burger in America. That same day, we filmed a short video to announce my pick. On camera, Stanich cried as he talked about how proud his parents would be. After the shoot, he handed me the mug, visibly moved. “My parents are thanking you from the grave,” he said, shaking my hand vigorously. When I left, I felt light and happy. I’d done a good thing.

Five months later, in a story in The Oregonian, restaurant critic Michael Russell detailed how Stanich’s had been forced to shut down. In the article, Steve Stanich called my burger award a curse, “the worst thing that’s ever happened to us.” He told a story about the country music singer Tim McGraw showing up one day, and not being able to serve him because there was a five hour wait for a burger. On January 2, 2018, Stanich shut down the restaurant for what he called a “two week deep cleaning.” Ten months later, Stanich’s is still closed.

‘David Bowie Is’ Coming to VR

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The David Bowie Is exhibit will be launching a new virtual reality app in January.

On the 72nd anniversary of Bowie’s birth, the David Bowie is AR application launches on iOS and Android platforms.

Over five hundred high resolution captures of Bowie’s costumes, sketches, notes, hand written lyrics, music videos and original works of art are presented in striking arrangements and immersive settings, with 60 new items added to the original touring exhibition.

Review: The Killers – Day & Age

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I believe “What the hell happened?” was my first reaction upon hearing Day & Age, the third album from The Killers, for the first time. This record didn’t compute for me. It was bizarre and misshapen, a mess of ideas that never coalesced into anything that made sense as a unified work of art. It sounded to me, on first listen, like a B-sides record. If The Killers hadn’t released an actual B-sides collection just a year before, I might have wondered if the band just gotten lazy and pulled out some ideas they’d shelved for earlier records. But apparently Day & Age was the statement the band really wanted to make at that time, and what an odd statement it was.

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Kane Brown Tops the Charts

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Kane Brown has the number one album in the country this week.

Country singer-songwriter Kane Brown earns his first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart, as his second full-length studio effort, Experiment, bows in the top slot. The set, which was released on Nov. 9 via Zone 4/RCA Nashville, starts with 124,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Nov. 15, according to Nielsen Music. Of that sum, 105,000 were in album sales.

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