Jason Tate

Jason Tate is the founder and editor-in-chief of chorus.fm.

Liner Notes (February 21st, 2020)

Hello Friday. This week’s newsletter looks at the music and entertainment I enjoyed this week and includes a playlist of ten songs I think are worth your time. This week’s supporter Q&A post can be found here.

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Liner Notes (February 14th, 2020)

2 weeks ago•Jason Tate

Another week has come and gone. In this week’s newsletter, I do the same as every week: go through the music and entertainment I consumed over the last week and make bad jokes. You’ll find early thoughts on New Found Glory, Soccer Mommy, and my love for season three of Mr. Robot. Plus, a playlist of ten songs I enjoyed this week, and this week’s supporter Q&A post can be found here.

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Most Anticipated of 2020

2 weeks ago•Jason Tate

Last month we shared our favorite albums of 2019, and now that 2020 is upon us, it’s time to look at what we’re anticipating throughout the year. What records do we think we’re going to fall in love with over the next few months? What albums can we just not wait to hear? A bunch of contributors have written up blurbs about the albums and artists we’re most excited about, and we’d love to hear what’s on your most anticipated list as well.

Liner Notes (February 7th, 2020)

3 weeks ago•Jason Tate

This week has thoughts on new music from Hayley Williams, Green Day, and much more. There’s also my usual media diet rundown, which includes my high praise for Atypical, and a playlist of ten songs I enjoyed this week. This week’s supporter Q&A post can be found here.

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Liner Notes (January 31st, 2020)

4 weeks ago•Jason Tate

This week’s newsletter has my first impressions of the new album from Brian Fallon, the results of trying some new apps and rearranging my home screen, and my regular media diet rundown. Plus, there’s a playlist of ten songs I enjoyed this week, and this week’s supporter Q&A post can be found here.

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Liner Notes (January 24th, 2020)

1 month ago•Jason Tate

This week’s newsletter has my thoughts on new music from Hayley Williams, All Time Low, and a tremendous new pop-punk band not many have heard of. I also share my favorite app discovery in a while and my usual media diet rundown. Then, there’s a playlist of ten songs I enjoyed this week, and this week’s supporter Q&A post can be found here.

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Liner Notes (January 17th, 2020)

1 month ago•Jason Tate

This week’s newsletter looks at new music from The 1975, Green Day, and Fickle Friends. There’s also my usual media diet rundown and a playlist of ten songs that I enjoyed this week. This week’s supporter Q&A post can be found here.

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Liner Notes (January 10th, 2020)

2 months ago•Jason Tate

This week’s newsletter goes navel-gazing at our best of 2019 lists, looks at some new music I enjoyed this week and goes through my regular media diet rundown. There’s also a playlist of ten songs I liked, and this week’s supporter Q&A post can be found here.

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The Best of 2019 Playlist

2 months ago•Jason Tate

I put together a playlist from our “best of 2019” list that features one song from each album. It’s up on Apple Music and Spotify. Hopefully you’ll find something new to check out and love.

Jason Tate’s Top Albums of 2019

2 months ago•Jason Tate

I’ll always remember 2019 as the year I got married; however, it ended up being a pretty incredible year for music and entertainment as well. As we finish up this decade, I reflect back on just how many of these lists I’ve made. It’s a yearly tradition that I enjoy because it allows me to no only reflect on the past year and reevaluate everything I listened to and consumed, but it creates a little snapshot in time that I can re-visit in the future and remember what I was enjoying and listening to during that moment in time. I thought it was a good year personally, wrapped around a tough year globally. Thank you to everyone that reads this website on a daily basis; I hope you enjoy my list and maybe find something new to love.

The staff compiled best of 2019 list can be found here.

Liner Notes (January 3rd, 2020)

2 months ago•Jason Tate

Welcome to the first newsletter of 2020. In this week’s newsletter, I share my start of the year routines and resolutions, share some fun party games we played on New Year’s Eve, talk about what music I’m anticipating this year, and go through my usual music and media diet rundown. There’s also a playlist of ten songs I enjoyed this week, and this week’s supporter Q&A post can be found here.

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Film Freak Central’s ‘The Rise of Skywalker’ Review

2 months ago•Jason Tate

Walter Chaw:

Now consider how this possibility for kindness and sacrifice, nursed and carried through the bulk of The Rise of Skywalker (and introduced in The Last Jedi, which is, of course, this third trilogy’s second, moral act, just as The Empire Strikes Back is the first trilogy’s), is betrayed at the end with a murder/death/kill of the most graphic variety. It’s a riff, the third one I counted that references Raiders of the Lost Ark, on Nazi and Nazi sympathizer faces melting before the glory of Old Testament vengeance. There’s a lot of talk in these films about how the Jedi religion is ever only for defense–how it’s about taking the path of love, knowledge, and acceptance no matter how difficult (and it’s extremely difficult), rather than the dark path of retribution and fear. And here’s The Rise of Skywalker, at the end of it, reenacting the same cycle of retributive violence that presumably left the film’s bad guy the same bad guy as the bad guy for all the other films. He, this dark Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid), even boasts that it was always him behind every bad thing. He’s another serpent in another Jungian basement, his creature design modelled on, of all things, Leviathan from Hellraiser II. If he’s an archetype, he’s Legion. He is every bad thing. The solution the franchise’s own mythology suggests is to accept that there must be a balance between opposite energies; the temporary feel-good sop is that the good guys kill the bad guys.

One of the best articles I’ve read yet on The Rise of Skywalker.

The Best Reverse Image Search

2 months ago•Jason Tate

Aric Toler, writing at Bellingcat:

The first and most important piece of advice on this topic cannot be stressed enough: Google reverse image search isn’t very good.

As of this guide’s publication date, the undisputed leader of reverse image search is the Russian site Yandex. After Yandex, the runners-up are Microsoft’s Bing and Google. A fourth service that could also be used in investigations is TinEye, but this site specializes in intellectual property violations and looks for exact duplicates of images.

Liner Notes (December 27th, 2019)

2 months ago•Jason Tate

The last few weeks of the year are always a little strange in the music industry and online, everyone is basically in hibernation. This week’s newsletter is a recap of my holiday week so far and has some recommendations, a few brief music thoughts, and my weekly media diet rundown. This week’s supporter Q&A post can be found here.

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Christmas Eve

2 months ago•Jason Tate

Liner Notes (December 20th, 2019)

2 months ago•Jason Tate

In this week’s newsletter I share my first impressions on The Rise of Skywalker; I guess this is a Star Wars newsletter now. I also share a few things around the internet I found interesting this week and go through my usual weekly media diet rundown. This week’s supporter Q&A post can be found here.

Since we have the holidays coming up, I’m making this post free for all here on the website. If you’d like this newsletter delivered to your inbox each week (it’s free and available to everyone), you can sign up here.

Liner Notes (December 13th, 2019)

3 months ago•Jason Tate

In this week’s newsletter, I look at some of the holiday songs released this week, offer first thoughts on the new Brian Fallon song and Harry Styles album, and dive into my weekly media diet rundown. There’s also a playlist of ten songs I loved this week, and this week’s supporter Q&A post can be found here.

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2019 Holiday Gift Guide

3 months ago•Jason Tate

For the past few years, I’ve put together a little gift guide in December full of things that I think make great gifts and are a lot of fun to give or receive for the holidays. Everything on the list is something I’ve used and enjoyed and recommend. I have recommendations posts for movies, tv shows, books, software, podcasts, headphones, and miscellaneous stuff around the house, so the things on this list will be more focused on stuff not included in those posts and geared toward things I’ve come across in the past year or so and think would make good gifts.

I used my Amazon affiliate link when the product showed up there, which gives our website a slight percentage back if you make a purchase and therefore helps fund our continued existence.

If you’d like to get me a gift, becoming a supporting member or gifting another user a supporting membership for a year would mean the world to me. And, if you’re looking for something in just about any price range with a Chorus.fm or AbsolutePunk.net logo on it, check our merch shop.

Jason Tate’s Top Albums of the Decade

3 months ago•Jason Tate

Today we launched our best albums of the decade feature. Lists like these are really hard to make, and even after I finished my list I knew I was missing things. But, at some point hard cuts have to get made and you just have to accept that you’re not going to be able to put everything on and that you’re going to forget a few albums along the way.

Here’s what my final best of the decade, top 50, looked like: