Our second annual celebration of Hip-Hop Day comes just as a building block of hip-hop culture is globally recognized in the 2024 Paris Olympics! Very cool to see breaking added as an Olympic sport this […]
Category: Music
MIXTAPE: GRUMPY ’94
“Peace, love, empathy”. Those words hit me like a truck when Courtney Love spoke them. Hearing her read from her late husband Kurt Cobain’s suicide note that April of 1994 on MTV News of all […]
MIXTAPE: HIP-HOP DAY
A playlist for Hip Hop Day, which of course could includeanything, made in an impressionist response to my choices for films totalk about in “Hip Hop Day the Grumpy Way“. Bodied (2017) andDreams Never Die […]
MIXTAPE: GRUMPY ’93
1993: the year hip-hop “conquered the world,” the year Britpop proved a fast grab, and the year female voices grew exponentially in a variety of genres from pop to alternative to indie. In 1993 grunge […]
A CHUCK PEE HALLOWEEN ESPECIAL
For this Halloween playlist, we turned south of the border to our friend and JNCO enthusiast, Chuck Pee (self-described as: Mexican radio show host / dj, overall nerd, father of Mingo). We know how much […]
GRUMPYR PRESENTS: MIXTAPE FROM HELL
When we asked the enigmatic Bradley J. Kornish of the cult film podcast and website Movies From Hell if he’d be interested in compiling a Halloween playlist for us, he came back with a mix […]
MIXTAPE: SHOEGAZE FOR SUMMER
Shoegaze might have a reputation for being gloomy, dejected, and wintry, but with this post, I’m here to argue that there’s no better style of music for a day at the beach than shoegaze. Just […]
MIXTAPE: FRIDAY THE 13TH 2022
Friday The 13th, of all the pseudo-holidays, continues to hold a strong grip on our cultural imagination. It doesn’t hurt that the beloved horror franchise by the same name has such an iconic killer to […]
AUDIO FANFICTION: ‘BENEDETTA’
I’m not sure if I think Benedetta is a great movie. But as a late-period Paul Verhoeven movie, I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt. Even though visually it remains barely interesting and the […]
AUDIO FANFICTION: ‘THE SCARY OF SIXTY-FIRST’
Popularity, I think, is irrelevant in film critique. Increasingly common in film writing is the practice of saying something favorable to please a crowd who already loves a thing; it’s no secret we started Grumpire […]
MIXTAPE: GRUMPY ’92
1992: the year it felt good to be a gangsta; the year one pop diva went unplugged and another charted with her bodyguard; the year Britpop really started roaring and grunge got cozy. It was […]
BHYH: INTRO TO DUNGEON SYNTH
This Halloween season we’re headed down a different path than the blanketed heavy metal, silly old novelty songs, psychobilly freakout, or block-of-Michael-Jackson-followed-by-Ray-Parker-Jr. for our party music. This is a path that leads deep into the […]
BHYH: WHAT OCTOBER BRINGS
BUT HAVE YOU HEARD is our occasional music recommendation column in which we dare to dive into the murky depths of Spotify, Bandcamp, Soundcloud, YouTube (and more) to bring you our most choice audio selections, […]
AUDIO FANFICTION: ‘MALIGNANT’
Earlier this week we published a thoughtful piece on James Wan’s latest horror offering, Malignant. Whether or not anyone had the same takeaway from the film as the author, I felt good publishing the essay […]
MIXTAPE: A THOUSAND MILES FROM NOWHERE
Summer is sizzlin’ all over the Americas, even in the most unexpected spots. Even our friends to the Great White North are struggling to keep their Labatt Blues chilled in this unprecedented international heatwave. But […]