Psychonauts 2 is a game five years in the making. Announced back in 2015 as a crowdfunding campaign, the development path of Psychonauts 2 is one that traditionally would be concerning. The developer, Double Fine, was purchased by Xbox and the most information everyone got about the game is that it was still in production.
Video games don’t typically take five years to make and usually, it’s a bad sign when a purchase of the development studio occurs mid-production. But none of these traditional problems stood in the way of Psychonauts 2. This is a game that was lovingly crafted from beginning to end, tells a heartfelt story, and leaves the player watching the credits feeling like they just went through a really good therapy session.
Psychonauts 2 begins only three days after the events of Psychonauts. The player is once again playing as Razputin Aquato living out his dream of being a member of the Psychonauts. All is not well within the gang, though. There is a mole among the organization and finding this mole is going to be a top priority, because if not the mole is going to reawaken a legendary force that has the potential to destroy the entire world. The journey that follows is one the developers describe as a story about empathy and healing. Raz is going to meet a lot of familiar faces, some new ones too, and it’s up to him to help a lot of people overcome their internal struggles.
The idea of a game being about mental health isn’t all that new. If anything it’s kinda trendy now, but few handle it with the care and understanding that Psychonauts 2 does. Pretty much every character Raz meets in this game is going through some kind of internal struggle whether it’s a failure to protect someone they cared about, the inability to handle stress, or grief from sins committed in their past. What’s nice about how Psychonauts 2 handles that though is that it goes beyond the surface level. It would have been very easy for the game to say “Well mental health exists, anyway here’s a cool platforming sequence.”
Instead, they go all-in on tackling the issues these characters are facing in very healthy ways. Characters are never forced to change or become someone they previously weren’t, and instead reach healthy solutions on their own with the assistance of Raz. The true mission of a Psychonaut is to help someone and that is one of many lessons Raz (and the player) learns on the journey.
Psychonauts 2
The way Raz assists, of course, is by entering everyone’s mind. The ability to go explore the human mind is what makes Psychonauts unique, and it allows the developers at Double Fine to create unique worlds that can’t be found in other 3D platformers. Every world is themed after what that character is suffering from and the directions they take Raz in creates some really fun and cool environments.
Unfortunately, while the theming is incredibly unique, the gameplay itself is pretty standard. The actual 3D platforming in Psychonauts 2 doesn’t do anything particularly groundbreaking or unique, but it’s hard to recreate the wheel in a genre that has been perfected so many times already. There are collectibles, bottomless pits, and an objective to get from Point A to Point B or C. It’s exactly what someone would expect out of a 3D platformer, but that isn’t a bad thing.
The fun in Psychonauts 2 is in seeing what the world is going to throw at you next. It isn’t too difficult to reach the credits, but like any good platformer, the real challenge comes in 100 percenting the game. There’s momentum pushing you forward as a player, and very few worlds feel boring or lack polish, although a couple had themes that were kind of frustrating. Thankfully, they can all be reaccessed at a later point so there’s never pressure to stay too long in one level.
The biggest dividing point in this game is likely going to be in the combat. Like the rest of the gameplay, it’s nothing groundbreaking but personally, it was a lot of fun trying out the different powers. Some might feel they overstay their welcome though and get too far away from the meat of the game. Thankfully there’s plenty of ways to make combat easier and Raz more powerful so it only has to be as challenging as you want it to be. The game is plenty of fun outside the combat and will keep anyone pushing through even if they don’t care for it.
Psychonauts 2
That’s really the key in everything about Psychonauts 2. This is a game that constantly creates a desire to see what’s next. Whether it’s a new world, the next hysterically funny line, or the next power to play with in combat. Psychonauts 2 had big shoes to fill — the original was a cult classic and crowdfunding often brings an even higher expectation to make something special. It will be up to the fans biggest die hards to say whether it met those lofty expectations, but it’s hard to say anything truly bad about it. The love and thought put into every scene can be felt throughout and it is an experience everyone should at least give a try.
Psychonauts 2 was provided to us by Xbox/Microsoft for review purposes. The game was played on a PC through the Xbox App.
“But always, always, there is a very, very strong grab — a deep, instant grab — which lasts… forever. It’s not like a fad. People who get into The Who when they’re 13, 14, 15, 16, never stop being fans,” The Who’s Pete Townshend once rhapsodized to the critic Greil Marcus in 1980. “The Who don’t necessarily captivate the whole teenage generation — as each batch comes up every year — but we certainly hit a percentage of them, and we hold them.”
Even now, 41 years later, these words ring true. I fell in love with The Who when I was 13, and I still love them now. They have held me. Maybe they have also held you. But why? Together, we are going to try to figure this out.
This month is the 50th anniversary of Who’s Next, the band’s most successful studio LP, responsible for spawning radio classics like “Baba O’Riley,” “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” and “Behind Blue Eyes.” In recognition of this landmark, I am ranking my 50 favorite Who songs. Along the way, I’ll try to answer the question about why this band has such strong hold on the people who love them.
Don’t cry. Don’t raise your eye. It’s only a list of songs by one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll bands of all time!
50. “The Ox” (1965)
Let’s start with the contradiction at the heart of this band. On one hand, The Who is very much a vehicle for an auteur, Pete Townshend, to flex his ambitions, express his deepest neuroses, and embody everything he loves and despises about rock ‘n’ roll. This auteur aspect is what separates The Who from all of their arena-filling ’60s and ’70s rock peers — Jimmy Page was the auteur in Led Zeppelin, but he built that band to be a wall between himself and the outside world. But even at its most bombastic, The Who’s music always feels personal and even confessional. You are never not aware of Townshend’s point of view, except when John Entwistle is singing about spiders or furious spouses or futuristic clones.
On the other hand, The Who is very much a four-headed monster, in which each member acts as a crucial component of the group identity while always remaining a steadfast individual. You can hear this in the very racket that they make as musicians — Townshend’s revved-up guitar, Roger Daltrey’s macho vocals, John Entwistle’s titanically busy bass, and Keith Moon’s “a thousand drunks in a bar fight to the death”-style drums. Listen to any Who song and initially it doesn’t seem like they’re playing with each other as much as against each other, four alphas waged in a brutal Battle Royale for sonic supremacy. But over many listens the unique alchemy on display is revealed. Townshend’s guitar swerves with Moon’s drums, and Entwistle fills the space between them. If Daltrey comes off as hectoring, it’s because he has to scream in order to be heard over this unholy din. The members of The Who were cursed to be musical soul mates without actually being friends. They might not have liked each other but they needed each other.
Listen to “The Ox,” an instrumental from their debut album The Who Sings My Generation, and you can hear that this energy was there from the beginning. It’s the same dynamic that existed between Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. A pack of killers who are stuck with each together until they reach the promised land. After that, all bets are off.
49. “Shakin’ All Over” (1970)
I became a Who fan in the midst of my middle-school shoplifting phase. I first heard them on the local classic rock station — the same half-dozen or so songs over and over but they were good songs. So, I schemed to steal cassette copies of Who’s Next and Live At Leeds from a local record store. I am not proud of this, but I also don’t regret it. (Actually, I do regret that it was an independent establishment that probably could have used the $6 or $7 I cheated them out of. But it was too difficult to shoplift at a Best Buy or Sam Goody.) A full 30 years later, these are two of my favorite albums of all time. In fact, I once wrote that Live At Leeds is “not only the best live rock ‘n’ roll album ever, but the best rock album period.” (I don’t remember this, exactly, but the quote is immortalized on Wikipedia so it must be true.)
I remain ride or die for the 1995 reissue version of Leeds, which expands to 14 tracks. Though the original six-song edition makes a more succinct but no less convincing case for greatness. This song is one of the original six, and it was popularized originally by The Guess Who, the Canadian band best known for the AOR standard “American Woman,” which kind of sounds like The Who circa Live At Leeds. If you’re already confused, remember this: I never stole any cassettes by The Guess Who. But I was willing to risk criminal prosecution for The (no need to Guess) Who. Live At Leeds is simply one of those albums that demands to be procured at any cost.
48. Wire & Glass: A Mini Opera (from Endless Wire, 2006)
Here’s another contradiction about The Who: They’re regarded as one of the definitive rock bands, but they haven’t really been a true band for most of their existence. The death of Keith Moon in 1978 forever changed that love-hate alchemy at the heart of The Who. The death of John Entwistle in 2002 irrevocably altered their bedrock sound. For nearly 20 years now, they’ve been a duo, Townshend & Daltrey, the Simon & Garfunkel of rock opera-obsessed frenemies. A 2019 Rolling Stone profile paints a funny-sad portrait of two grumpy old men locked into a marriage of convenience. At one point, Daltrey checks out of a hotel during a tour stop in Dallas into another hotel 100 yards away, just to get away from Townshend. Meanwhile, Townshend continues his decades-long habit of lamenting how he’s stuck playing in a band he doesn’t really like. “We’re not a band anymore. There’s a lot of people who don’t like it when I say it, but we’re just not a fucking band,” he grouses to the magazine. “Even when we were, I used to sit there thinking, ‘This is a fucking waste of time. Take 26 because Keith Moon has had one glass of brandy too many.’”
For a Who fan, this might be dispiriting … if you actually took it seriously. Like any old married couple, Townshend and Daltrey remain devoted partners in spite of all the bitching. So Townshend will still produce a suite of songs as ambitious as the Wire & Glass mini-opera, about an over-the-hill rock star in crisis mode, and Daltrey will still commit himself to embodying those songs with passionate physicality. It’s certainly not the band as it was. And maybe it shouldn’t be called The Who. But that undiminished hater energy can’t be denied. These guys are bonded forever.
47. “I Don’t Even Know Myself” (Isle of Wight version, 1970)
When I was growing up, Pete Townshend was extremely important to me, for reasons that will be enumerated as we progress on this list. But for now, let’s discuss the identity crisis that he never got over. For Pete, The Who wasn’t just a groovy band name — it signifies the central question of all his songs: Who am I? Who loves me? Who can make me feel like less of a freak? Who is the spiritual entity in charge of all this? Whereas I didn’t connect with Daltrey at all, because the ruggedly handsome singer with the amazing muscular chest never appeared troubled by these questions. But over time I’ve come around on Roger, because he was the one who had to interpret those songs. He’s the actor in the band, and he clearly did a good job, because while I don’t believe Roger Daltrey ever has doubted that he knows himself, he makes you think he has when you hear this song.
46. “Odorono” (1967)
Lest I make The Who sound like a humorless bastion of passive-aggressive dudes who feel alienated all the time, the record should also show that The Who was among the funniest of the classic rock bands. And The Who Sell Out is their funniest album, a rare example of a straight-forward rock band attempting actual musical jokes (in the form of the fake radio ads placed throughout the record) and landing them most of the time. The most successful gag is this tune goofing on deodorant commercials, which beat “Smells Like Teen Spirit” to the punch by 24 years.
45. “I’m A Boy” (1966)
When the New York Times pointedly asked Townshend in 2019 about the legacy of womanizing classic rockers, he retreated to a familiar party line: “I was performing for the gang. I was performing for the men. You have to talk to the guys who got the girls and ask them how they perceive their past behavior.” Setting aside the fact that most of The Who were in fact huge womanizers, the supposedly male dominant make-up of their fanbase — Townshend has estimated that 80 percent of their audience is men, which is impossible to confirm but seems mostly correct — is especially fascinating in light of early hits like “I’m A Boy.” One of Townshend’s many “misunderstood loner” anthems, “I’m A Boy” tells a Hemingway-esque tale about a young man who is made to dress up like a girl by his mother. Tonally, it’s a little hard to read — is it a gag, a psychological study, an accidentally prescient observation about evolving gender roles, or all of the above? Whatever it is, “I’m A Boy” seems to cater to sniggering dudes and send them up simultaneously, a distinctively Who-like maneuver.
44. “I’m Free” (1969)
The most famous of Townshend’s “misunderstood loner” pieces is of course the entirely of Tommy, the old warhorse that has been adapted into a film, a musical, an opera, a symphony orchestra, and most successfully into a live concert vehicle many times over for The Who. One of my favorite incarnations is the shockingly good live album Tommy Live At The Royal Albert Hall, released in 2017. While previous live versions by The Who have played up the bombast, melodrama, and theatricality, Tommy Live At The Royal Albert Hall makes you feel the trauma at the heart of an album about a sexually abused child written by a man who was himself sexually abused as a child. I don’t know that I noticed how painful songs like “The Acid Queen” are until I heard them here. (In that 2019 Rolling Stone article, Townshend said he “blew the whole show” after spotting a friend and abuse survivor in the audience while performing the song.) It actually adds to the power of a relatively fun and rousing track like “I’m Free,” which truly sounds like liberation after so much darkness.
43. “How Many Friends” (1975)
As a young man obsessed with the rock culture of the past, hearing The Who By Numbers was a revelation. With the possible exception of The Wall, I don’t think there is a more despairing portrait of ’70s arena rock as described by a person at the very top of the food chain. Townshend wrote unsparingly about alcoholism, paranoia, loveless hookups, intraband backbiting, and already feeling like an old man at the age of 30 … and then he handed those lyrics over to Daltrey to sing. “How Many Friends” is the album’s bitterest number, a self-pity party about only having enough friends to count on one hand — that’s still a decent number of friend, Pete! — that’s redeemed by how candid it is. “When I first signed a contract / It was more than a handshake then / I know it still is / But there’s a plain fact / We talk so much shit behind each other’s backs / I get the willies.”
42. “Eminence Front” (1982)
The final album of the post-Keith Moon Kenney Jones era, It’s Hard, ranks among the least loved Who albums. But I legitimately love it. They brought back Who’s Next co-conspirator Glyn Johns to make a “we still got it!” big-time rock record, and while most people — including Townshend, who I’ve heard trash It’s Hard on various bootlegs — will say they in fact did not have it I’m here to say in fact they did. What hurt It’s Hard in the moment is that Pete Townshend put out a solo album in 1980 called Empty Glass that’s better than anything The Who did in this period. It created a (largely accurate!) perception that he was keeping his best songs — particularly the incandescent hit “Let My Love Open The Door” — for himself. But I would argue that the most memorable tracks on It’s Hard have the same nervy New Wave crunch that Empty Glass has, particularly this tune.
41. “Love Reign O’er Me” (1973)
One of my favorite observations about Pete Townshend was made by the rock journalist Charles M. Young in an infamous 1989 Musician magazine profile in which Townshend famously challenged Young to join him in machine-gunning down all of the capitalists who have inserted Who songs into hundreds of commercials. “My take on Pete Townshend is that he’s extremely sensitive and chronically overwhelmed by his own emotions,” Young writes, “so overwhelmed that anyone who is not overwhelmed by the same emotion at the same time does not make sense to him.” Fortunately for Townshend, millions of Who fans are also extremely sensitive people overwhelmed by the same emotions as him, which explains how a song like “Love Reign O’er Me” — Pete’s designated personal “theme” from Quadrophenia — doesn’t register as comically overwrought, as I’m sure it does to anyone who doesn’t like The Who. (An unsympathetic friend used to relish imitating Roger Daltrey’s adenoidal shouts of “loooooooooove” at the song’s climax.) For true believers, this power ballad about fighting off inner demons in the rain by the side of a roiling ocean is the height of emotional realism.
40. “Magic Bus” (Live At Leeds version, 1970)
Pete Townshend loved playing this song, and John Entwistle hated playing it. And they loved/hated the same aspect of “Magic Bus,” which is that Bo Diddley, chugga-chugga-chugga rhythm. Entwistle claimed they are live versions in which he might have actually fallen asleep while playing that chugga-chugga, though I’m guessing he was awake during the definitive take from Live At Leeds.
39. “Pictures Of Lily” (1967)
In the hierarchy of British classic rock bands, The Who is forever positioned behind The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. This can be attributed to the relative commercial success and critical esteem of each act. But I prefer to believe that it really comes down to each band’s relationship with romance. The Beatles wrote the best songs about love. The Rolling Stones were specialists in sex. What did that leave for The Who? Self-love, as typified by this single. Herein lies another puzzle piece that explains the devotion of Who fans — masturbation clearly is less preferable to love or sex. But those who do not have access to love or sex are even more apt to put those unrequited feelings and desires on a rock band.
38. “I’ve Known No War” (1982)
One thing I love about It’s Hard is the video game-themed artwork, which references an extremely 1982 music business story about the collapse of record sales being blamed on the rise of gaming consoles like Atari. On the album cover, a kid plays in an arcade while the members of The Who glower disapprovingly at the camera. It’s an unintentionally hilarious image of pampered boomer rock stars fretting over the spending habits of teenagers. It would be like if U2 put out a record in 2021 in which Bono lectures a tween about going on TikTok too much.
Another thing I like about It’s Hard is that The Who kept on making music like it was 1971 instead of 1982, including this stab at producing another “Baba O’Riley.” And, sure, they failed at this, as this song is neither as good nor as popular as “Baba O’Riley.” But it’s still an excellent attempt at writing an all-time classic anthem that deserved more shine from Pac-Man-obsessed kids than it received.
37. “The Punk And The Godfather” (1973)
The first song on this list from Quadrophenia, an album that I will spill many more melodramatic words praising as we proceed. For now, I want to talk about the bridge of this song, in which Townshend indulges in one of his earliest “aging rock guy” confessionals, a style of writing that would come dominate his songs forever after. It’s the most haunting moment of the whole record for me, in part for how it points to the disasters that would cripple The Who in the back half of the ’70s:
I have to be careful not to preach I can’t pretend that I can teach And yet I’ve lived your future out By pounding stages like a clown And on the dance floor broken glass And bloody faces slowly pass The numbered seats in empty rows It all belongs to me, you know
36. “Happy Jack” (1966)
In his senior years, Pete Townshend has chronically trashed The Who’s most famous drummer as a malcontent who couldn’t keep proper time. Just because this happens to be true doesn’t make it any less cruel or misguided. The fact is that Keith Moon elevated many otherwise charming but slight Pete Townshend compositions, with “Happy Jack” being near the top of that list. On this song, Moon is both motor and muse — his artful pummeling supplies the chaos the lyrics only hint at, and his demeanor approximates that of the central character, an outcast who laughs off the world’s derision. Moon idolized Dennis Wilson, who played a similar role in The Beach Boys — both drummers personified the protagonists that populated the songs generated by the more sensitive and aloof auteurs in their respective groups. Townshend supplied the art, but Moon made it authentic.
35. “Sea And Sand” (1973)
Before we get to the part where I write about how Quadrophenia was a crucial companion to me during the worst of my teen years — the same spiel you’ve heard from other notable middle-aged men such as Eddie Vedder and Judd Apatow — I must point out the album’s central weakness. I refer to side two, which nearly drags down the entire operation. “I’m One” aside, this is by far the most bloated part of the record. (Apologies to any “Helpless Dancer” heads out there.) When The Who toured behind Quadrophenia in the ’70s, they eventually cut this part of the record, skipping from “I’m One” to “5:15” and then to “Sea And Sand,” the understated anchor of side three. And that’s how I listen to Quadrophenia forever after.
34. “Who Are You” (1978)
For a generation of CBS viewers, Pete Townshend is the most prolific composer of CSI theme songs. This song is the theme for CSI, and “Won’t Get Fooled Again” is the theme for CSI: Miami. There are similar sorts of associations for many of the songs on this list. Townshend for decades has had seemingly no qualms about commercializing his music. As he has stated time and again, this is his right as the creator and owner of his work, though it has inevitably cheapened and degraded The Who’s music to a degree. (That famous Daltrey scream from “Won’t Get Fooled Again” is certainly a lot more hilarious when juxtaposed against David Caruso putting on his sunglasses.) But even with the baggage, “Who Are You” is still a great song, whether you think it’s about Pete Townshend drunkenly tangling with the Sex Pistols or Gil Grissom solving crimes.
33. “Behind Blue Eyes” (1971)
In that 1989 Musician article, Townshend justifies selling his songs for commercials (and accepting tour sponsorship from beer companies) by arguing that AOR stations hurt his career by focusing on the same handful of Who songs “because the other 400 songs I’ve written don’t ever get heard.” If they get to cheapen his music, why can’t he? This is kind of a cop-out, but only kind of. The Who has suffered — even more than The Beatles, The Stones, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd — because the same tracks have been played to death: The bulk of Who’s Next, “Who Are You,” “5:15,” and “Pinball Wizard.” It has flattened a catalogue that is full of weird experiments and fascinating stylistic shifts into monochromatic radio gruel. Even the crown jewels get scuffed up in the process. The one Who song I probably never want to hear again is “Behind Blue Eyes,” though I know I really loved it the first 10,000 times I heard it.
32. “Getting In Tune” (1971)
Weirdly, this is one of the only songs on Who’s Next that hasn’t been played to death on classic rock radio. For that reason, it’s possible I’m overrating this, because it just seems fresher. But I also like the melody and Daltrey’s brawny vocal, and I really like Townshend’s “baby with you’s” on the backing vocal. (Pete’s backing vox is the most unsung wonderful thing about The Who.)
31. “Blue Red And Grey” (1975)
Another bleak highlight of The Who By Numbers, mostly because the lyrics make a show of not sounding bleak. Pete sings about loving every minute of the day, but his desperate ukulele strums tell a different story. The Who 1.0 basically fell apart after the tour in support of this album; when they reconvened for shows specially set up for their appropriately chaotic band documentary The Kids Are Alright, Moon’s ability to play had dramatically declined. This song is like an overture for that.
30. “Overture” (1969)
Tommy has the dual distinction of being both the most pivotal album in The Who’s career (in terms of it being the record that made them international stars) and the worst sounding. As overseen by their colorful manager Kit Lambert, the production on Tommy downplays all the things that make The Who exciting — Townshend’s guitar does not rage or slash, Entwistle’s bass has none of its metallic bite, Moon’s drums are buried in a mix of horns and strings, and Daltrey isn’t allowed to scream or swagger. The magic of Tommy didn’t achieve full blossom until The Who played it live. Almost every song sounds better on the stage, with the exception of “Overture,” which has a sense of dynamism — from those elegiac French horn licks to Townshend’s tasty acoustic picking — that much of the rest of the album lacks.
29. “Bargain” (1971)
Part of the greatness of Tommy’s followup Who’s Next is that it’s the first Who studio album to actually capture the power they had live. (Weirdly, they were never able to do this again on any of their other studio records.) Much of the credit for this goes to Glyn Johns, the venerable producer and engineer who worked with the cream of British rockers at the time (including The Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin, and The Faces) but was singularly impressed by The Who, writing in his memoir Sound Man that hearing them record “Won’t Get Fooled Again” sent “a massive amount of adrenaline coursing through my veins.” (This seems like an appropriate reaction to hearing The Who record Who’s Next.) “Bargain” is another of the album’s most powerful tracks, and also the purest love song in the band’s catalogue: “In life one and one don’t make two / One and one make one.”
28. “Summertime Blues” (1970)
When The Who transformed this Eddie Cochran oldie into a snarling proto-punk rocker — shout-out to Blue Cheer for acting as a mid-wife — the song was only 11 years old. This is the equivalent of White Reaper pulling a similar trick in 2021 with an “oldie” from The Suburbs. Just wanted to put that idea into the world.
27. “Tattoo” (1967)
Another affecting story song that subtly critiques the macho posturing of The Who’s deeply masculine audience. In the song, two brothers decide to prove their manliness by getting a tattoo, with disastrous results. As always, Townshend writes about these characters with a tender mix of sardonic humor and true empathy. (“My dad beat me because mine said ‘Mother’ / But my mother naturally liked it and beat my brother.”) What’s perhaps lost 55 years later, at a time when every coffee shop barista on the planet has multiple tattoos, is how this song conveys the confusion and vulnerability of young boys attempting to figure out how to live up to whatever it is an adult man is supposed to be.
26. “The Song Is Over” (1971)
An ongoing debate among Who fans is whether Pete should have just sung all of his songs himself, and gotten rid of Daltrey. (As they briefly did in the mid-’60s.) I have a few staunch anti-Daltrey Who fan friends and they swear by this argument. But as much as I like Townshend’s voice, “The Song Is Over” illustrates what each man brings to the table as a vocalist, and makes a case for their contrasting styles broadening the band’s musical and emotional palate. Townshend takes the verses, and it’s all regret and self-flagellation. That’s what Townshend’s voice is great at communicating. Daltrey takes the chorus, and it’s all chin-up resolve and regenerative strength. That’s what Daltrey’s voice is great at communicating. They’re opposing forces who somehow coalesce into a yin-yang balance.
25. “Drowned” (Live At The Royal Albert Hall version, 2000)
In 1980, Pete Townshend was pressed by Greil Marcus about whether The Who was still “pushing their music forward” in an artistic sense. It’s a classic rock-critic question: What are you doing [strokes chin thoughtfully] to reckon with the profound changes to music and the greater world [dramatic pause] and the space that rock ‘n’ roll takes up in that world.
This was his answer:
We’ve very much dropped our idealistic stance in terms of our weight of responsibility to rock’s evolution. We haven’t stopped caring about where it’s going to go; I think we’ve realized that we’re not capable of doing that much, in terms of actually pushing it forward. If we have got a chance of pushing it forward, I think we’ve got a better chance of doing it on the road than we do on record, to be quite honest.
At the time, Townshend would have been 34 or 35 — not very old for a rock star by modern standards, but in 1980 people had never seen 30something-year-old rock stars before. Greil was needling him because Pete was considered ancient in rock years.
I suppose it’s possible to view Townshend’s answer as cynical. Maybe the venerable Greil Marcus interpreted it as Townshend simply shrugging his shoulders and accepting his lot as an oldies act. But I think he’s just being honest with himself. 1980 was not 1971. A new Who album was not going to change the world. More important, making Who albums at this point didn’t seem especially pleasurable for him. But he still felt connected to his audience on stage. Playing Who songs for Who fans still had the potential to be transformational. And for Townshend in that moment, it’s where The Who still had the chance to be their best.
I think that’s why I like The Who’s many “old man” live albums so much. The setlists don’t change much, but they always find new ways into the material. I love the original version of “Drowned” from Quadrophenia — the way it rests uneasily between yearning for peace and fantasizing about a watery death — but Townshend’s solo acoustic version from Live At The Royal Albert Hall cuts deeper. I guess he might be just running down a familiar number for umpteenth time. But it sure sounds like pushing the song forward to me.
24. “Boris The Spider” (1966)
As the member of The Who locked into the thankless George Harrison role, John Entwistle was commonly misunderstood as the alleged calm in the eye of the storm, the bloke who stood by stoically while the rest of his band tore apart concert stages and ravaged hotel rooms. In reality, he drank Remy Martin like it was water and cheated on his second wife on his wedding night. Not that this behavior is admirable — I’m just illustrating that the man was a proverbial iceberg with miles and miles of perversity and decadence lurking beneath the quiet facade. He was just better at hiding it than the rest of The Who. Except in his songs, that is. With Townshend entrenched in the resident philosopher/basket case role, Entwistle was left to play the comic foil with a serrated edge. He was the “fun” one, but his brand of fun was complicated. A John Entwistle song always threatened to turn on you suddenly. He established the brand with this song, a foundational text of Alice Cooper/Marilyn Manson horror rock that is self-aware about its own ridiculousness.
23. “My Wife” (1971)
Another example of John Entwistle pioneering horror rock, only this time the monster is a philandering husband who happens to closely resemble John Entwistle.
22. “Heaven And Hell” (Live At Leeds version, 1970)
I don’t know if this is how Entwistle wrote the song, but let’s pretend for a moment that it is: After hearing Roger Daltrey sing Pete Townshend’s earnest plea to “see me, feel me, touch me” every night on the Tommy tour, he decides to write a song that mocks people like his big-nosed bandmate who are overly concerned with spiritual matters. “Why can’t we have eternal life / and never die?” is a lyric that Townshend could write with the utmost sincerity, whereas for Entwistle it’s a droll joke. Once again, we see two guys in this band who are diametrically opposed on a critical issue, and they somehow end up harmonizing rather than clashing. Of course, when you have Keith Moon playing “Wipe Out” while on 10 types of illegal substances in the background, any sort of disagreement really does seem moot.
21. “Naked Eye” (Isle of Wight version, 1970)
A showcase for some of the greatest guitar playing of Pete Townshend’s life. Also, I left off the 15-minute version of “My Generation” from Live At Leeds, which isn’t sitting great with me, because my favorite parts from that epic jam are essentially “Naked Eye.” What really set Townshend apart at this time as a guitarist was his ability to go from really quiet to extremely loud in two seconds flat. There are parts of this that are soothing and gorgeous, and then he whips around and punches you in the face.
20. “Pinball Wizard” (1969)
One for the “I probably don’t ever need to hear this again because I’ve heard it 10,000 times but damn what a song” pile.
19. “So Sad About Us” (1966)
This song on the other hand has never been played on the radio even though it should have been. One of the all-time great Who deep cuts, you can tell it’s the favorite of aficionados by all the cool people who have covered it, including The Jam, Primal Scream, and The Breeders, whose bouncy power-pop redux is my personal favorite.
18. “You Better You Bet” (1981)
My Who scholarship as a teenager began with Dave Marsh’s 1983 biography Before I Get Old. Not only did this book inform my early opinions about the band, it also influenced me a budding junior rock critic. It was clear that Marsh — a peer of Greil Marcus and Lester Bangs from the earliest days of rock criticism — loved The Who. (In the introduction, he writes about being “obsessed” with them from the time he was 14. Chalk up another person The Who locked in for life at that age.) But Before I Get Old is also extremely critical of the band — sometimes unfairly, (Marsh seems to blame The Who for not successfully changing the world for the better.) It had never occurred to me that you could love something while also finding fault in it; Before I Get Old was my first lesson in critical thinking. Now that I’m an adult critic myself, I am quicker to disagree with Marsh’s opinions. For instance, he calls their post-Keith Moon album, Face Dances, “lackluster,” “diffuse,” and reliant “too much on synthesizers.” But I actually prefer it to the final Keith Moon album, Who Are You, and I count “You Better You Bet” as one their more durable radio standards. And as a critic, I am definitely turned on by the meta nature of this tune, in which the guy in the song listens to Who’s Next for nostalgic pleasure. What Who fan can’t relate to that?
17. “Substitute” (1966)
One of John Entwistle’s finest performances. The bassline is twangy and funky, pointing to the cocaine country of the 1970s that people like Waylon Jennings and Jerry Reed took to the bank. And yet those guys didn’t cover this song in that era, the Sex Pistols did. I’m preoccupied with Entwistle when I hear “Substitute,” but Johnny Rotten clearly connected with the part about being a phony.
16. “The Seeker” (1970)
So many of his peers seemed to have the answers, but Pete Townshend was all about asking questions. Imagine Bob Dylan or Paul McCartney name-checking The Who in a song about seeking spiritual fulfillment, as Townshend did for Dylan and The Beatles in “The Seeker.” Sure, they don’t actually give him any answers, but it’s the belief that they might have them that matters. Even after he became a rock star himself, he never stopped being a fan in public.
15. “They Are All In Love” (1975)
Roger Daltrey was also a fan in public … of his arch-nemesis, Pete Townshend. This, I feel, is what most often gets overlooked by those who are inclined to view Daltrey purely as a meathead bully. The guy really, really likes Pete Townshend’s songs, which you can tell when he sings lyrics that he can’t possibly relate with. I think of this every time I hear my favorite track from The Who By Numbers, which features the album’s most quotable lyric: “Goodbye all you punks, stay young and stay high / hand me my checkbook and I’ll crawl off to die.” I don’t believe Daltrey has ever thought about crawling off to die. On the page, Townshend’s lyric is almost too pathetic, and I wonder if Daltrey’s initially rolled his eyes at it. But when he actually sang it, his stiff upper lip gave it some necessary dignity.
The other thing I must rave about is Nicky Hopkins, the legendary session pianist who played with all the great British rock bands of the era. His playing with the Stones is especially exemplary — that’s him on “Sympathy For The Devil,” “She’s A Rainbow,” “Loving Cup,” and “Angie.” But his piano solo on “They Are All In Love” is his finest moment on record. Like Daltrey, he elevates Townshend’s dark night of the soul to real beauty.
14. “Anyway Anyhow Anywhere” (1965)
You might have noticed that I have not yet uttered a word about the mods. I’m sure some Who fans will feel this is an oversight. But I can’t front like I know anything about the mods that I haven’t learned from Who songs. I’m an American from Wisconsin. I have no firsthand knowledge about the cult of stylish young men in London who gravitated to snappy clothes and soul music in the ’50s and ’60s. To me, “Anyway Anyhow Anywhere” is first and foremost an anthem about getting into your car as a teenager — not your car, but your parents’ car — and driving wherever the hell you want. (At least for the few extra minutes you can realistically go on a detour while ostensibly driving to and from the grocery store to pick up some odds and sods.)
13. “The Real Me” (1973)
The Who were more British than the Beatles and the Stones, but they weren’t as British as The Kinks, so that allowed them translate to Americans just enough to make them feel like a cult act who could also fill stadiums. The whole mods vs. rockers cultural kerfuffle — is it appropriate for me as an American to call it a kerfuffle, or should I classify it as a “row”? — is a major reference point on Quadrophenia, but at heart this is an album about feeling like you will never be accepted by the people you care the most about being accepted by. When I was a teenager, I assumed this was stock teenager stuff. Now I’m almost 44, and I realize it’s stock 44-year-old stuff, too. Some things simply don’t age, whether it’s insecurity or the impossible fluidity of Keith Moon’s drums smacking against John Entwistle’s virtuoso bassline and Pete Townshend’s relentlessly slashing guitar.
12. “I Can See For Miles” (1967)
Released the same year as Sgt. Pepper and “Good Vibrations,” it figures that The Who’s entry in the great “Druggy Psychedelic Anthem” sweepstakes is the opposite of a groovy trip. It’s actually their darkest depiction of male desire and envy, a song so full of rage and bitterness it verges on psychosis as Keith Moon has a slow-motion nervous breakdown on his snare drum.
11. “Won’t Get Fooled Again” (1971)
The Who just weren’t very good at groovy sentiments. There always had to be an acknowledgement that human beings and the systems they build tend to fail more often than not. Drugs won’t save you, political movements won’t save you, not even God will save you — but you can still make the most of the time that you do have. That’s what you get from The Who, time and again. I actually feel that this is a hopeful message, which is also why I feel like “Won’t Get Fooled Again” is pragmatic and even triumphant rather than cynical or defeatist. After all, a band like The Who is at least as fractious as any electorate. The gulf between Townshend and Daltrey, or Entwistle and Townshend, or Moon and Daltrey matches any divide that currently exists between left and right. And yet they make it work. Not despite of the tension, but because of it.
10. “My Generation” (1965)
When Pete Townshend dies, two phrases will appear in the first graf of his obituary: “smashing guitars” and “Hope I die before I get old.” He’s lived so long now that people no longer give him a hard time about the latter. By now it’s understood that what “My Generation” articulates isn’t so much a personal credo as it is an ultimate summation of youthful nihilism. With that line, he laid down the central message of punk, post-punk, hip-hop, grunge, and nu-metal. Even music fans who have never heard of The Who are somehow shaped by the sentiment. While it’s true that Townshend didn’t literally follow through on that lyric, he never stopped empathizing with each new generation who took up “Hope I did before I get old” as a mantle. It’s a middle finger aimed at older generations who inevitably judge the kids too harshly, and that makes “My Generation” immortal.
9. “The Kids Are Alright” (1965)
“My Generation” was the most overt anthem of Pete Townshend’s early songs, but it’s amazing how he seemed to write exclusively generation-defining tunes in the early days. Sometimes it just boiled down to coming up with a good title: “The Kids Are Alright” is such a grabby, statement-y, “youth”-sounding name that The Offspring changed it slightly for their own late-’90s temperature-taker, “The Kids Aren’t Alright.” But it’s telling that when you actually look at the lyrics, it’s revealed that this song is about not being with the kids. The protagonist rationalizes leaving his girl with “the kids” because he just wants to be left alone. So, “alright” in this context doesn’t really mean “this generation can take care of themselves,” it’s actually just “these thoroughly passable people probably won’t murder my girlfriend while I go chill by myself outside for a while.” This might be my favorite contradiction about this band — they played big, communal songs with an isolationist, misanthropic heart.
8. “I Can’t Explain” (1965)
Their first single as The Who, and the traditional first song at Who concerts. A rare example of a band setting down a thesis statement straightaway and following it through. They made better songs after this, but not many. (Only seven in fact.) And they never extended beyond the central theme of fighting to make yourself seen and heard and understood in spite of not knowing who you really are deep down.
7. “Cut My Hair” (1973)
I’ve typed out and deleted this blurb three times because I keep writing embarrassing things about this song. Let’s just say that “Cut My Hair” was one of my go-to teenage wallowing songs. I didn’t have long hair, but I did feel the bridge of this song deeply. I refer to the part where Townshend pleads that he’s working himself to death just to fit in. He was in his mid-20s when he wrote that, which is just about the last time in your life when you can still fully access the emotions you had at 16. At least that was true before Quadrophenia existed. Now anyone can just play this album and be put right back in that extraordinary, terrible place.
6. “I’m One” (1973)
This clip above from Freaks And Geeks is the most accurate depiction of my childhood presented in pop culture. Everything about this is me, right down to my inability to get an even-tanned look on my face. I was a loser, I had no chance to win, and loneliness had long since set in. But I had grilled cheese sandwiches and leftover cake and TV after school. Most of all, I had The Who. It was enough.
5. “Amazing Journey”/”Sparks” (Live At Woodstock, 1969)
The Who had nothing good to say about Woodstock after the fact. They went on more than 12 hours (!) later than scheduled, which was more than enough time to get wasted, sober up, feel a bad hangover, and then get wasted again. When they finally got on stage, they were exhausted and weary, and the hippie-dippy surroundings were definitely not their speed. (Pete Townshend’s on-stage assault on Abbie Hoffman is the stuff or rock legend.) In retrospect, they would refer to it as one of their worst gigs.
I only mention all of this because it is completely incongruous with the video above. If the members of The Who had hate in their heart for Woodstock as they performed, this must be chalked up as yet another example of hate making The Who extremely powerful.
4. “See Me, Feel Me” (Live At Woodstock, 1969)
The finest and most passionate performance of Tommy‘s emotional climax, and an excellent showcase for Roger Daltrey’s chest.
3. “Young Man Blues” (1970)
What can you say about The Who as a live band in 1969-70 that hasn’t already been said of a gunshot to the head? There just isn’t a band who has ever rocked harder than The Who playing this song.
2. “A Quick One While He’s Away” (Rock ‘n’ Roll Circus version, 1968)
The definitive Who live performance. The sections starting at 4:30 — aka “Cello Cello!” and “You Are Forgiven” — are as rousing as rock music gets. (This particular version just slightly edges out the similarly apocalyptic take on Live At Leeds.) But this has all the elements that make The Who great — formal pretension, narrative silliness, outsized ambition, brutal execution, insane drum rolls, even more insane windmills, twangy bass lines, suede tassels, submerged childhood trauma, a feeling that it should fall apart at any moment, a stunned realization that it’s not falling apart at any moment, extreme fury that blossoms unexpectedly into spiritual transcendence, and a trio of voices screaming over each other and yet co-existing in harmony.
1. “Baba O’Riley” (1971)
There are rock anthems, and then there’s “Baba O’Riley.” (You best believe I judge anyone who calls it “Teenage Wasteland” harshly.) I have no idea what God’s voice sounded like when he handed down the Ten Commandments, but in my imagination He delivered His word as a synthesizer riff inspired by the experimental musician Terry Riley played on repeat and majestic piano chords echoed throughout all nearby canyons and mountains. I don’t even know how you write a song like this, a titanic tune so incredibly large that it can only be properly played in a stadium in front of 100,000 people. (Having said that, I have seen indie-rock bands play “Baba O’Riley” for 200 people and it still killed.) And yet, like all Who songs, it also feels incredibly personal. “Baba O’Riley” is my own fight song, the one track I would demand to hear if I ever was sent into battle, the only music that would make me feel like I might come out unscathed. I loved it at 13 and I love it at 43. Because it still makes me feel strong, even in my weakest moments. All of this band’s best songs make me feel that way. That’s why The Who has held me, and why they always will.
Mike Lindell was certain Donald Trump would be reinstated as president on August 13 — until he wasn’t. “When I gave my prediction about August, and that was several months ago, that was an estimate at the time,” the MyPillow founder later explained (after suggesting that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris would resign over his ironclad evidence of election fraud). “But it took so long to get this symposium set up. However long it takes for the Supreme Court to take it up and decide on this, I can’t predict that.” But he can make another bogus Trump reinstatement prediction.
In an interview with the Right Side Broadcasting Network during a “Save America” rally in the COVID hotspot that is Cullman, Alabama over the weekend, Lindell claimed that Trump would be president again by the end of the year. “It has to happen now. It’s Trump 2021. 100 percent Trump 2021! And it’s — this election when it does get pulled down, there were so many down-tickets effected. Maybe the Supreme Court and that they just do a whole new election, which is fine,” he rambled (via Salon). “But remember everybody, we have to melt down the machines to make prison bars out of them!”
After missing his August 13th deadline for a Trump re-installment, Mike Lindell says that Trump will still be back in office by the end of 2021. pic.twitter.com/5HDA7xItfQ
Trump praised Lindell during his speech at the rally, calling him “a patriot, a wonderful man, a man who puts his guts into everything. A man that they don’t treat properly. He’s smart; he loves his country so much. He’s willing to die for this country.” At the very least, he’s willing to get “aggressively poked” for this country. And mocked:
Now Mike Lindell is saying New Year. Trump will be reinstated (not a thing) on New Year. If you are still buying this crap, you deserve every bit of disappointment and fleecing you get.
There ya go, you moron. Keep pushing the date out every few months, and you can keep soliciting donations. Just like the rapture! https://t.co/BrjcBfqwqV
In 2011, music culture went back to the future. The sounds of the 1980s were everywhere, whether it was the sultry sax licks that adorned critically acclaimed hits by M83 and Destroyer, the soft-focus synth-pop of chillwave acts like Toro Y Moi and Washed Out, or the fractured AOR heartland rock of Bon Iver, The War On Drugs, and Kurt Vile. Nostalgia for the Reagan era also seeped into cinema, with movies such as Super 8 and Cabin In The Woods self-consciously recalling bygone blockbusters by Steven Spielberg and John Carpenter.
And then there was Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, a crime drama starring Ryan Gosling set to a wall-to-wall soundtrack of ’80s Europop homages by hip contemporary indie musicians like Johnny Jewel and Kavinsky. Made on a modest budget of $15 million and released 10 years ago this fall, Drive was a hit, grossing $81 million worldwide. But it was also polarizing, confounding as many people with its deliberate pacing and mix of dewy romanticism and extreme violence as it thrilled those who loved the soundtrack and Refn’s command of cinematic cool. The film’s dire Cinemascore rating — a lowly C-minus — was blamed on an ad campaign that promoted Drive as a standard-issue action film featuring the sexy leading man from The Notebook; one disgruntled viewer even filed a lawsuit against the distributors on the grounds that she was “misled” into buying a ticket for an arty meditation on action films.
In retrospect, Drive‘s reputation has suffered even among those who initially liked the movie. It’s become one of those pictures associated with so-called “film bro” culture, just below the tier of the usual favorites from Tarantino, Fincher, and Nolan. But whether you like the movie or not, it’s undeniable that Drive is among the most influential films of the early 2010s. Not just in cinema, but in culture overall. In Drive, you can see the roots of films like Baby Driver and Wonder Woman 1984 as well as the smash-hit TV series Stranger Things, and even Taylor Swift’s pop breakthrough 1989. Three years after Drive, the BBC did a “rescore” of the film featuring many of the acts who have (deliberately or not) emulated the film’s vibe of retro melancholy, including key 2010s indie bands such as The 1975 and Chvrches. Drive might have looked back, but it also helped to define its decade.
Watching Drive again this week for the first time in years was an unusual experience. It’s not a film like Donnie Darko, which came out a decade before Drive and similarly inspired a wave of ’80s fetishism among the film’s cultists. Donnie Darko is a period piece set in 1988, whereas Drive intentionally mixes up different eras — it’s a ’70s-style noir with an ’80s-style soundtrack that takes place in “modern” Los Angeles — so it feels like it occurs out of time in a nowhere place. It doesn’t so much cater to the nostalgia of the audience as it centers on nostalgia itself as a subject; you’re always reminded that what you’re seeing was already lost and warmed-over even when the film was new. From the beginning, that familiar dull ache was baked in. Seeing Drive now was like revisiting a 2010s version of an idea of the 1980s.
Recently I’ve seen people online reminisce about the “old” internet as it existed in 2011, which was about the time when social media achieved critical mass and dramatically altered how people interfaced in the digital sphere. Drive exists at the nexus of this change; it points both forward and backward. On the former point, Drive has a Tumblr sensibility, piecing together a mood board of images, sounds, and vibes from other movies, most crucially Walter Hill’s The Driver and Michael Mann’s Thief. Both of those films came out within a few years of each other as the gritty ’70s evolved into the glossy ’80s, and they have a visually pretty/textually ugly aesthetic that Drive utilizes. (Refn’s film, by way of the James Sallis novel it is based on, also borrows some plot and character points from The Driver. Both movies, for instance, feature a blonde, handsome, and a taciturn protagonist who opens the story by pulling off a daring yet mathematically precise car chase from a heist.)
But Drive also presages an internet culture dominated by social media. Unlike the films it references, Drive is glib, melodramatic, obsessed with appearances, and adolescent, just like a typical Twitter feed. In Thief, the action stops for several minutes so that the film’s middle-aged stars, James Caan and Tuesday Weld, can have a conversation in a diner about their personal setbacks and disappointments. There is no such scene in Drive, a film that Refn has said is “about a man who drives around listening to pop songs at night because that’s his emotional relief.” We never learn anything about Gosling’s protagonist that’s deep, real or psychological; he’s signified by his favorite songs and that satin scorpion jacket. He isn’t a grown-up man, he’s an avatar.
One movie that hasn’t been cited by Refn or film critics as an influence on Drive is Taxi Driver. But I kept thinking of Martin Scorsese’s 1976 classic during my recent rewatch. Both films fixate on the same central metaphor — a car as a kind of “metal coffin” (to borrow Taxi Driver screenwriter Paul Schrader’s phrase) that allows a lonely man to be constantly surrounded by people while also being utterly alone. In both Taxi Driver and Drive, it’s the poisoned slow-release capsule that will eventually “drive” the main characters from lives of quiet desperation to shocking acts of graphic violence. You can also use this idea to describe the sensation of being depressed or mentally ill, or the daily experience of going on Facebook.
Of course, it’s possible that I had Taxi Driver on the brain because of Albert Brooks, who is also my favorite part of Drive. Refn was inspired to cast the venerable comedian based on Brooks’ 1985 satire of yuppie consumerism, Lost In America, a film that in the moment seemed designed to dissuade future generations from ever being nostalgic for this self-centered, materialistic decade. While Brooks doesn’t stab anyone in the neck in Lost In America, as he does in Drive, his rage during the famous “nest egg” speech does suggest that he always had the ability to play a villain. In Drive, Brooks’ sleazy film producer-turned-gangster turns to violence out of aggrieved annoyance over being put in a bad position by the incompetents that surround him. He doesn’t want to slice Bryan Cranston’s wrist; he only wanted to put some cash into a stock car, another nest egg that cracked through no fault of his own.
As for Gosling, he is suitably pretty and brooding. But even if Drive is one of his signature films, I can’t help feeling that he’s miscast; I tend to prefer him as an exceptional comic actor who specializes in playing dunces that embarrass themselves by talking too much, as he does in The Nice Guys and La La Land, rather than a guy who talks too little. On the other hand, I think his read on his nameless character in Drive is correct. “The only way to make sense of this is that this is a guy that’s seen too many movies, and he’s started to confuse his life for a film,” he said in 2011. “He’s lost in the mythology of Hollywood and he’s become an amalgamation of all the characters that he admires.”
At the risk of taking the Taxi Driver analogy too far, I think it’s fair to interpret Drive as the fantasy of a solitary loser whose extremely stylized and romantic vision of himself is “true” only in terms of how he presents to the world. If Drive is a first-person film, and I think it is, it puts us in the mind of a guy who makes sense of reality by reducing all interactions down to cool-guy posturing and sweeping synth riffs. For him and the viewer, the windshield is another screen. We see him and he sees us but we’re all alone.
John Oliver won’t miss Mike Richards following his surprise resignation amid the ongoing Jeopardy! hosting fiasco. This was actually the second time that the Last Week Tonight host took aim at Richards with Oliver revealing that he wasn’t really impressed with the executive producer who reportedly helped select himself when other guest-hosts like Ken Jennings and LeVar Burton (and even those who didn’t get a shot, like Laura Coates) would have been more welcome additions following the beloved Alex Trebek’s passing.
Fast forward a week, and Richards pulled off a surprise-Friday resignation move after The Ringer’s report (by Claire McNear) that surfaced Richards’ history of troubling remarks after what was already known about his controversial past as a game show producer. It was a development that left people hoping that LeVar Burton’s cheery and innocuous tweet meant more than it actually did, but John Oliver did not hold back. Here’s how he began Sunday night’s episode:
“It’s been a busy week. There was a bomb threat in Washington, this smirking golf bag was demoted from hosting Jeopardy to merely running it…“
Ouch, Last Week Tonight does not tread lightly with its nicknames that it bestows upon pop culture figures. Yet what’s most notable about Oliver’s disdain for Mike Richards is that — coupled with last week’s swift take (“It is genuinely hard to imagine a five word phrase less welcome than ‘we know who you are,’” the host declared. “Aside from obviously ‘new Jeopardy! host Mike Richards’”) — Oliver doesn’t even see the need to spend too much time on a clearly ridiculous situation. With that said, you can watch Oliver’s deep dive into a fiasco with more devastating effects (Afghanistan) here.
We take comedy very serious here at UPROXX which is why we made sure to craft a streaming recs list that has it all. From Will Ferrell-fronted action romps to stoner adventures, classic teen hijinks, and some more cerebral fare — there’s something here for everyone, as long as you’re looking to laugh.
Here are the best comedies streaming on Netflix right now.
Eric Andre borrows Sacha Baron Cohen’s schtick — combining scripted storytelling with secretly-filmed real-world pranks — to create this hybrid comedy masterpiece about two best friends on the road trip of their lives. Andre plays Chris while the always fantastic Lil Rel Howery plays his BFF Bud. The two head from Florida to New York (chased by Bud’s mentally unsound escaped convict of a sister played by Tiffany Haddish) while taking in America’s heartland by way of rodeo nights and unfortunately gorilla encounters at local zoos.
Will Ferrell entire filmography could fill this list and we wouldn’t complain but there is something about this fast-paced buddy comedy that feels special. Maybe it’s the instantly iconic, always quotable one-liners — “If you’re not first, you’re last” — or the friendship between Ferrell’s Bobby and John C. Reilly’s Cal. Maybe it’s Sacha Baron Cohen’s Euro-trash villain or Amy Adam’s surprising turn as Bobby’s love interest Susan. Or maybe it’s just the over-the-top accents and constant references to “baby Jesus.” Whatever kind of Tom Cruise witchcraft is happening here, we can’t stop laughing.
Melissa McCarthy is the queen of physical comedy and she throws all of her weight into this role, playing a woman who accidentally injects herself with a serum that grants her super-strength. She partners with Octavia Spencer, who plays a scientist, and her former friend, as the two take on a new crop of super villains — hopefully without making an even bigger mess of things.
Even if you’ve never seen any of the Monty Python films, you most certainly know of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It’s been quoted, memed, gif-ed, and idolized by comedy fans for generations. At its core, it’s a parody of the legends of King Arthur and his knights. It’s stocked with an impressive cast — John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam, etc — and its full of eccentric characters, bizarre adventures, and gut-bustingly funny jokes. Think failed Trojan Rabbits, modern-day murder investigations, animated monsters, and musical numbers. Intellectual midgets everywhere will love it.
Seth Rogen and James Franco star in this comedy about a process server and his drug dealer who go on the run from a couple of hitmen. Rogen plays Dale, a 25-year-old slacker who witnesses a murder and is hunted (along with his drug dealer Saul, played by Franco) by a drug lord intent on silencing him before he can go to the police. The two get into all kinds of hijinks involving Asian mobsters, barn explosions, and nursing homes.
Jonah Hill and Michael Cera play a couple of best friends in search of a good time in this raunchy high school comedy from pals Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. Seth (Hill) and Evan (Cera) hope to close out their senior year by getting wasted and getting laid with a blow-out to end all blow-outs. Their mission to get booze for the party, impress their crushes, and have a memorable night is derailed rather quickly thanks to fake IDs, a couple of incompetent cops, bar fights, and their own bickering. It’s a gross, over-the-top, and surprisingly poignant look at friendship and what happens when we outgrow people.
Zach Galifianakis brings back his beloved comedy talk show, this time in movie form. The viral internet series that saw the funny-man sit down for awkward interviews with celebs and presidents was picked up by Funny or Die, and it seems that Will Ferrell wants the final ten episodes he’s owed, so Zach and his crew go on the road to have some rather hostile chats with people like Bradley Cooper, Keanu Reeves, and David Letterman.
Wunderkind Paul Thomas Anderson synthesized all his greatest influences — Scorsese’s hyperkinetic camerawork, Altman’s profound empathy for human suffering, Tarantino’s flair for sleazy L.A. dialogue — into something completely original in his breakout film. He wasn’t even out of his twenties, and Anderson conducted a flawless ensemble cast including Burt Reynolds, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Don Cheadle, and a headstrong kid named Mark Wahlberg in a sweeping statement on Hollywood, America, and cinema in general. At turns side-splittingly funny and unspeakably dark, teeming with life in every meticulously constructed frame, traversing two decades in the life of an industry at a pivotal moment of flux, Boogie Nights remains one of the greatest American films to come out of the ’90s.
Eddie Murphy stages a bit of a comeback in this biopic about famed comedian, actor, showman Rudy Ray Moore, better known as Dolemite to fans of his raunchy comedy albums, stand-up tours, and blaxploitation films. Murphy plays Moore at the beginning of his career when he was just a record store clerk looking to break out in the business. He’s joined by a cast that includes Keegan-Michael Key, Ron Cephas Jones, Tituss Burgess, and others, but it’s Murphy who shines here, giving possibly the best performance of his career as a man who will stop at nothing to pursue his dream.
Matthew Broderick plays a depressed high school teacher, who tries to manage his imploding marriage while facing off against a determined and cunning student in this dark comedy that features Reese Witherspoon in one of the best performances of her career. Witherspoon plays Tracy Flick, an overachieving student with dreams (of becoming the student body president) that are quickly dashed by the school’s popular jock. Tracy’s willing to go to extreme lengths to win the race, but when Broderick’s Mr. McAllister thinks to intervene, his own failing personal life is put on display.
Edgar Wright’s 2010 action comedy about a hapless boy who must defeat evil ex-boyfriends in order to win the hand of the girl he loves is a fast-paced ride that bombards the senses. Michael Cera plays a loveable goof in the titular hero, a young man enamored with a woman named Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). In order to be with his lady love, Scott must fight her evil exes, six guys, one girl, who challenge him to truly strange contests. The film is a cinematic mash-up of Japanese anime and gamer culture, intended for the crowd who grew up on Nintendo and comic books, but it brings plenty of laughs all the same.
The ’90s gave us some iconic characters, but Jeff Bridges as “The Dude” has to rank high on everyone’s list of beloved stoner types. Bridge’s bowling fanatic and overall slob’s mellow is seriously harshed when he becomes the victim of a case of mistaken identity and must recruit his bowling buddies (Steve Buscemi and John Goodman) to help him navigate kidnappings and cover-ups and the hangovers caused by too many White Russians.
You’ve probably never heard of this rom-com starring Anna Kendrick and Sam Rockwell, which is a damn shame because the two have great chemistry on screen and the plot’s just quirky enough to feel refreshingly different from anything else on this list. Kendrick plays Martha, a woman reeling from a bad break-up and searching for direction in her life who meets Rockwell’s Francis, a hitman who targets his own employers and is on the run from a nasty government agent (and excellent Tim Roth). It’s weird, but in a fun way, ya know?
Reese Witherspoon is a certified icon, and she owes at least some of her popularity to this film about a privileged young woman who defies the odds in order to chase her unavailable ex-boyfriend. Witherspoon plays Elle Woods, a bubbly, air-headed blonde sorority girl who gets into Harvard (what, like it’s hard?) in order to impress a guy who dumped her. She ends up surprising herself, though, when she reaches the top of her class and is given the chance to serve on a high-profile case by her slimy professor and his well-meaning T.A. (Luke Wilson). Sure, this movie’s been quoted and meme-d twice over, but there’s no way you won’t have fun watching Witherspoon mine as much humor as she can from her dumb-blonde routine.
The Coen brothers are back with a slick new Western romp, one that serves as an ode to all of the tropes present in Hollywood’s best Wild West adaptations. Split into six parts, each story is loosely connected although thematically and tonally different. Tim Blake Nelson stars as the titular hero, a sharpshooting songster who takes part in the film’s opening musical portion. From there, we get stories of outlaws getting their due, prospectors mining for gold, ghostly hauntings, and wagon trails. Forget trying to follow the thread and simply enjoy the ride with this one.
Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams take on the planet’s most-watched singing competition with this campy comedy about an Icelandic duo named Fire Saga, who are set on achieving glory on the world’s biggest stage. Ferrell and McAdams play Lars Erickssong and Sigrit Ericksdottir, artists chosen to represent their nation in the Eurovision Song Contest, a real competition that features musicians from all over the world, who are often performing in wild get-ups. Dan Stevens almost steals the show while Pierce Brosnan and Demi Lovato make appearances. We’re calling it now: “Volcano Man” is going to be a bop for the ages.
Jonah Hill and Miles Teller feed off each other’s crazy in this action-comedy loosely based on a true story. The two play bros David (Teller) and Effraim (Hill), who hustle their way into a million-dollar contract with the Pentagon, selling ill-gotten arms to the military and paling it up with militants overseas. It’s a wild ride, one that’s heavy on violence and a bit dizzying with its fast-paced dialogue, but Hill and Teller have great comedic chemistry throughout.
You can’t think of classic ’80s teen comedies and not include Matthew Broderick’s rebellious school comedy in those musings. Broderick brought Ferris Bueller, a smart-mouthed kid with a flair for the dramatic, to life in this beloved movie that also stars Alan Ruck and Jennifer Grey. Bueller goes to extreme lengths to skip school with his best friend and girlfriend, leading them on an adventure that includes a musical parade in the city and a brush with the law. Being bad never looked so fun.
Stranger Things star Natalia Dyer stars in this hormonally-charged teenage comedy, playing a young, naive high-schooler at a co-ed Catholic institution who goes through a kind of sexual awakening on a spiritual retreat. Dyer’s Alice is curious about sex, too curious for the priests teaching her morality classes at school and her judgemental classmates. When they all go on a three day retreat, Alice fields nasty rumors about her nonexistent sexual experience while pursuing an older boy and learning the truth about everyone else’s kinks. It’s the kind of buttoned-up, raunchy hornfest that you’d expect from a movie exploring how religion represses sexuality, and Dyer is hilarious in it.
Mike Meyers returns as the international man of mystery in this ’90s comedy with Heather Graham. Dr. Evil is back too and he’s stolen Austin Powers’ all-important mojo with a handy time-travel device, so he and Agent Felicity Shagwell (Graham) must travel back to the ’60s to recover it and stop Evil from ending the world. Jerry Springer, Mini-Me, and Fat Bastard all make an appearance but the draw is watching Meyers add a different look to the character as he struggles to find his sexy again.
Greta Gerwig’s love letter to her hometown of Sacramento, California follows Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf as they navigate the often-frustrating relationship between mother and daughter. Ronan plays “Ladybird,” a young woman attending Catholic school who longs for the culture and change of scenery that New York City promises. Her mother, Metcalf, is overbearing and overprotective, and the family’s lack of money and social standing contributes to a rift between the two. Some hard truths are explored in this film, but watching Ronan manage teenage angst, first love, and everything in between will give you all kinds of nostalgia.
Andy Samberg and his Lonely Island crew have given us plenty of comedy gems over the years, but this may be one of their more inventive shorts. The group spoofs notorious baseball stars Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire in this visual rap album that imagines the brothers in their heyday. Think Beyonce’s Lemonade but, you know, sports.
A charming, unconventional story about what it means to be a family, Hunt for the Wilderpeople follows a juvenile delinquent named Ricky (Julian Dennison), who is adopted by a couple living on a farm in a remote region of New Zealand. After Ricky fakes his suicide and escapes into the bush, his (reluctantly) adopted father Hec (Sam Neill) goes looking for him, and after a series of mishaps, the two are forced to survive in the woods together for months.
Gina Rodriguez, Brittany Snow, and DeWanda Wise team up for this romantic comedy about a young woman’s final hurrah before leaving NYC. Rodriguez plays a journalist named Jenny who must pack up her life, leave her friends, and travel to the West Coast for an exciting job opportunity. Unfortunately for her, her boyfriend of nearly 10 years decides to call it quits, which leaves Jenny on the party warpath, determined to have one final night of fun before her big trip. Lakeith Stanfield also stars in this, and with Netflix’s pretty stellar rom-com track record lately, bet on this being a fun watch.
The Coen brothers give fans another ridiculous romp supported by a mind-blowing cast of A-listers — think George Clooney, Josh Brolin, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton… really, we could go on. The film follows Brolin’s Eddie Mannix, a Hollywood fixer in the 1950s trying to uncover what happened to a major star who disappeared while filming an upcoming studio blockbuster. Hijinks ensue when nosy reporters and paranoid movie execs get involved.
Anyone who caught Jessica Williams during her tenure on The Daily Show knows that she’s destined for greatness. Despite being so young, she had a confidence, a voice, and a commanding presence that you just can’t fake. The Incredible Jessica James is her first starring vehicle since her time as a correspondent, and it is a true testament to where she’s headed. In a clever look at the life of a struggling playwright who is getting over a breakup, The Incredible Jessica James allows Williams to unleash her fire in the most charming way possible, and she and Chris O’Dowd have an easy chemistry that makes you root for them to make it despite not having a thing in common. Having just come out last year, The Incredible Jessica James is still one of the best comedy movies Netflix has delivered.
Jason Mantzoukas plays the road trip buddy from hell in this adventure comedy from Hannah Fidell. Mantzoukas is an enraged car mechanic (and probably an alcoholic) who invites himself along when college-bound teenager Nat (Tony Revolori) offers him a ride into town. That small gesture of kindness backfires in a big way when Richard (Mantzoukas) hijacks the trip, struggling to manage his past mistakes and bleak outlook while Nat pursues his dream of photographing the original Americana.
Radha Blank writes, directs, and stars in this autobiographical comedy about her unconventional career. Once a promising young playwright, Blank’s trajectory to fame has stalled and in this film, she pokes fun at her failures, reinventing herself as a rapper and using the worlds of hip-hop and theater to find her true voice. It’s darkly funny at times but incredibly relatable and inspiring all the same.
Ali Wong and Randall Park star in the latest rom-com from Netflix. This time around, the plot follows two childhood sweethearts who’ve spent the last 15 years apart and try to reconnect when one moves back home. Wong plays a successful chef opening a new restaurant in San Francisco while Park plays her former best friend still living at home and working for his dad. Both have some growing up to do, but the film eschews classic romcom tropes for bits that are funnier and more poignant than your average lighthearted fare.
A lot of 90s comedies haven’t aged well and parts of this film fare better than others but you can thank Chris Farley and his willingness to leave it all out there for a laugh for the elements that still hit. Farley plays Haru, a white man adopted by an ancient sect of ninjas when he washes ashore as a baby. As a grown man, Haru is clumsy and a bit stupid, which prevents him from becoming a full-fledged warrior, but when a mysterious woman comes asking for his help, he’ll discover abilities he didn’t know he had.
Recent Changes Through August 2021
Removed: My Best Friend’s Wedding, Zombieland, Safety Not Guaranteed, John Mulaney & The Sack Lunch Bunch
Added: Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Talladega Nights, Pineapple Express
Typically, when you hear a pitmaster’s introduction to the world of barbecue, tales of growing up around cooking and a passion for food come into play. This isn’t that type of story. Lance Kirkpatrick — lead pitmaster of Austin’s hottest barbecue joint, Stiles Switch BBQ & Brew — was working as a bartender before he learned his ‘cue expertise at the feet of the late, great Bobby Mueller.
Mueller, the legendary owner of Louie Mueller Barbecue in Taylor, Texas, just outside of Austin, was Kirkpatrick’s barbecue mentor — teaching him the importance of running a clean fire, along with so many other bits of expertise and nuance. The eight years Kirkpatrick spent working alongside the ‘cue legend no doubt shaped the upstart chef’s trajectory. Fast forward to the current day and it’s evident that Kirkpatrick has taken those teachings and fused them with his own hard-won knowledge and skill.
Though I initially went to Stiles Switch for the legendary brisket — which is phenomenal — it was Kirkpatrick’s Flintstone-esque beef ribs that left me completely mesmerized. Just check these beauties out:
After eating, I got the chance to learn a little more of Kirkpatrick’s story, along with what keeps him motivated. More to the point, he also divulged (a few of!) his secrets for the perfect rack of beef ribs.
***
What initially attracted you to barbecue? Did you always set out to be a pitmaster?
No. Really, I just I was looking to get out of bartending and I had cooked in other kitchens. I didn’t know anything about barbecue. I literally answered an ad in the paper to Louie Mueller Barbecue out in Taylor, where I was living, and I knew nothing about barbecue.
I learned everything, all the basics from Mr. Mueller there, Louie Mueller.
Yeah, I’m familiar. My husband is from Taylor. He used to eat there. So, I’m guessing was it Bobby Mueller that was your mentor?
He was my mentor. I worked with Bobby for a little over eight years.
Wow. So what would you say was the biggest tip or takeaway you took from being mentored by Bobby?
He would always just tell you to watch your fire and watch your meat. I heard those words over and over. Just running a good constant [and] even fire and not letting it dip or spike was one of his big mantras.
What would you say is the key to keeping a clean fire?
Good wood selection and good management of it. I’ve changed different styles over the years, I like to kind of teach now like gentle is the way with the fire kind of let the fire cook to its full potential. Each log kind of has a potential when you put it on. And sometimes you want to go in and break it down and rebuild but letting each log cook to full potential is something I try to do. Timing of when that fuel source and potential is waning to time another one to go on, where you can keep a constant level of temperature without spiking.
And you cook with post oak, right?
Yes, that is right.
What do you think that adds to the flavor profile of the barbecue?
Oak has a really unique characteristic with a lot of vanillas and sweetness to it. There’s a caramel kind of you can really smell the sweetness and taste the vanillas in there. There’s a reason for that, you know. They store good whiskies in charred oak barrels, and it gives it that kind of vanilla sweetness. They’ll put nice wines in charred oak barrels for that reason as well.
That makes sense. I write about whiskey quite a bit and that’s such a relatable parallel there.
Whiskey and barbecue kind of goes together.
Lance Kirkpatrick
What would you say keeps you motivated, or who keeps you motivated, to be the best you can be as a pitmaster?
I’ll credit Shane [Stiles] with that. He’s always pushing us to get a little outside of our comfort zone and maybe do a special that we hadn’t done before. I’m inspired by all the good cooks that we’ve hired over the ten years. We’ve been really fortunate to build some really good relationships with these guys. And we’re kind of known right now to have an all-star team. It’s true, we do. Over the three restaurants that we have, we’ve got six or eight just outstanding pit cooks working for us.
That’s my inspiration is to just, be an example for these guys we’ve got coming on and learn from some of these experienced guys that we’re bringing on. The customer inspires me a lot. You form a relationship with customers. It’s different in barbecue than any other restaurant. I think that it kind of keeps me coming back to the impact it has with the customer and that relationships that exchange from cook to the diner is really important to me.
You mentioned impact. With being a pitmaster, how do you feel that role has impacted you on a personal level?
It’s helped me. I’ve started to study Daoism a little after the time I started cooking. It’s helped me kind of become a better student of Daoism. There’s a lot of similarities in the way that you can cook – just metaphors of nature and letting things kind of evolve on their own; because a lot of what has to happen in that barbecue pit is a process of evolution. From a raw state, you’re using these elemental resources, like wood and raw meat, fire, and that all kind of comes together.
It’s taught me patience. It’s taught me self-awareness. I’m kind of a philosophical type of fellow and the overnight cooks kind of lend to that. The early morning hours by yourself and a lot of time for meditation and self-reflection and thought. On a real personal level, I’m sober from alcohol for seven years now and it really helped me get in a better place mentally and it helped me overcome my addiction to alcohol.
Lance Kirkpatrick
That is awesome. I’m glad to hear that and congratulations. Getting into the barbecue itself, as I mentioned before the interview, I know you’re known for your brisket. It’s exceptional. However, the beef ribs look like dinosaur bones — they were amazing! What’s the key to making the perfect beef ribs?
I see a lot of times folks just not cooking them long enough. That big beef rib is really a fairly easy cut of meat to cook, to be really honest.
It’s just again, running a good, clean fire and maybe cooking them a little hotter than you might think you want to, they can take a little bit of heat. I like to cook pork ribs around 265 to 275 jumping up a little hotter when they finish, but the bulk of the cook on those is around that.
The beef ribs, they’ll cook a little bit hotter, you can put them a little closer to your fire. Don’t be afraid to get a little bark on there. If it looks like it’s starting to burn a little bit. It might just be doing something that turns out to be okay.
I would just say keep it simple. Don’t try to overcomplicate with a lot of sauce. I don’t like to put sauce on beef anyway, but I just go with a dry rub on them. A lot of folks like just salt and pepper. We add a little house blend seasoned salt to our salt and pepper.
Just a good even temp and I do it by feel. I can put my hand around it with my thumb pressing down on the top portion of it. On those beef ribs, there’s a linear side where that blade kind of comes back. That’s where I always check, and I want my thumb to almost go through that. I want it soft enough for my thumb to really make an indentation. When I train people on cooking [beef ribs], I tell them you’re feeling for that bounce back, you don’t want that. You want to keep cooking it when you put your thumb in there and it bounces back a little, you want to keep cooking. You want a good give when you go to check it.
My last question pertains to Texas barbecue in general. I know that certain parts of Texas use mesquite or use post oak, for example. What would you say sets Texas barbecue or even Austin barbecue apart from other places in the country?
Maybe just the dry rub and the lack of sauce on the meat at the time of cook is one. Another is that it’s more of a beef-driven menu in Texas. Brisket and beef ribs are going to be at the forefront of every Texas barbecue. Whereas in Carolina, Georgia, etcetera — it’s probably going to be pulled pork or whole hog pork. I think what makes Texas unique, like you just said, is the different regionality to it with the different woods. Austin barbecue changed over the last five or ten years. I would say that even if you wanted to compare Austin barbecue to the rest of the state, you might be finding more examples of a chef-driven — not afraid to do different specials going outside of the normal menu of brisket, ribs, and sausage.
Irish whiskey is the fastest-growing whiskey segment in the world. In fact, Americans are drinking so much of the stuff that Irish whiskey is poised to retake its crown as the best-selling imported whiskey in the U.S. by 2030, dethroning Scotch whisky in the process.
That means there’s an increasingly solid chance that you’ve reached for a bottle of the Irish tipple over the past year. (If you haven’t and you like describing your drams as “sweet,” “delicate,” and “smooth”, give this refined style a try.)
As Irish whiskey takes up more space in liquor stores, the number of high-quality “value bottles” also increases. We’re talking rich, nuanced whiskeys that still clock in under $50. Good stuff at a sweet spot price.
To find the best of the bunch, we figured we would once again turn to a handful of well-known bartenders and mixologists — asking them to share their favorite Irish whiskeys under $50. Check their answers below and click on the prices if you want to test out a bottle or two for yourself.
Writer’s Tears Copper Pot is a great one that everyone should try. It has a blend of single pot still and single malt and is not your typical Irish whiskey. This whiskey has an apple and nutty nose, spice, ginger, and orchard fruit on the palate along with a honey and dark chocolate finish.
It was a medal winner at the International Spirits Competition.
West Cork Distillers’ Bourbon Cask whiskey is great. There are a lot of pleasant grain and citrus notes from the whiskey itself, and the bourbon cask gives it a nice caramel dessert-flavored finish. It’s a high-quality spirit and you can get it at a price point that doesn’t empty your wallet.
Sexton
Sexton
Chandra Richter, vice president of beverage development and chief mixologist at Drinkworks
Personally, I’ve been enjoying Sexton Single Malt Irish Whiskey. It is aged in Oloroso sherry casks, which really gives it that added complexity and depth of flavor. I love the dried fruit and honey aroma balanced with notes of cinnamon. It’s a great value Irish Whiskey, definitely worth keeping a bottle on the shelf.
If there was one Irish whiskey people should know more about it’s The Busker Triple Cask Triple Smooth. Priced at around $25, The Busker portrays the depth and the rich layers of flavor you would expect to experience from higher-priced whiskeys. The Busker has beautiful honey and grain notes in the nose and bright flavors of green apple and orange rind linger in the mouth.
The whiskey carries a long finish of confection notes, chocolate, and light spice. It has the complexity of a whiskey I’d certainly be happy to spend more on but am happy that I don’t have to.
Kilbeggan Small Batch Irish Rye
Kilbeggan
Austin Zimmer, bartender at Le Privé in New York City
The Kilbeggan Small Batch Irish Rye has great warm flavors such as marmalade, melon, peppercorns, lilac, with spices. It’s a kind of high-rye mash whiskey, however, the rye and the sweetness compliment each other very well, in such a unique way.
For me, the best Irish whiskey under $50 everyone should try is Jameson. It has a light floral fragrance, smooth sweetness of marmalade, hops, green apple, and vanilla flavors. It’s definitely worth the experience for your money.
I don’t think you can beat Knappogue Castle 12 Year Single Malt for the money. Hints of marzipan and honey are two hallmarks for this everyday delicious whiskey.
The Dubliner Bourbon Cask
The Dubliner
Maren Nazera Erickson, bartender in San Antonio, Texas
The Dubliner Irish Whiskey Bourbon Cask is full of bright and fruity aromas with tasting notes of citrus peel, almonds, coconut, and brown sugar. This is my number one recommendation for people looking to branch out from Jameson into more Irish whiskey at a similar price point.
The owners of Dead Rabbit in New York City teamed up with a Dublin-based distillery to create this smooth, yet malty whiskey with notes of vanilla sweetness. It also finishes with dry spice. The best part? You can get it for under $45 bucks.
Powers
Powers
Joseph Fredrickson, bartender at Society Lounge in Cleveland
I am a Powers guy. It’s the best-selling whiskey in Ireland and pacts more of an ABV punch than the other go-to Irish whiskies. It is smooth with hints of honey and baking notes and goes great in an Irish coffee or a quick shot to get the night going.
If you’ve already enjoyed the likes of Jameson, it’s time to take a step up to Tullamore D.E.W. This bargain-priced whiskey is filled with hints of charred oak, caramel, and a subtle, spicy finish. It’s well-suited for slow sipping or mixing into your favorite cocktails.
As a Drizly affiliate, Uproxx may receive a commission pursuant to certain items on this list.
There’s just nothing quite like a summer road trip. The freedom of setting out with only a loose itinerary and nothing but the winding road and endless possibilities is, frankly, close to unbeatable. It offers a chance to live in the now while reminding us that this moment is at once fleeting and eternal.
With just two weeks left before Labor Day and the unofficial end of summer 2021, there’s just enough time to hit the road for one last hurrah. Here are three road trips I recommend this time of year:
ITINERARY 1: Glacier National Park –> Waterton Lakes National Park –> Banff National Park –> Jasper National Park
I always go north in the summer. While many of these destinations are partially open year-round, often the weather will close some of the most beautiful areas in the winter months. You also can’t do this for much longer:
Glacier National Park has been an incredibly popular destination for summer 2021, but those who didn’t visit earlier now have an advantage: you can now legally continue on into Canada as a US citizen. Canada just opened its borders to fully vaccinated US travelers earlier this month, which means these destinations will still be slightly less crowded than normal — a perfect time to see them for yourself.
Glacier National Park to Waterton Lakes: Drive Time: 2.5 hours (including a border crossing)
After exploring Waterton Lakes, head on to Banff. If you have more time, make some stops in Kootenay and/or Yoho National Parks along the way. You can’t go wrong in Banff, it’s one of the rare places that is actually more incredible in person than any photo you have ever seen. The dramatic mountains that surround you, to the blue lakes that don’t seem real — this is a bucket list destination.
The drive from Banff to Jasper National Park might be the most incredible drive in North America. You’ll be traveling on the 143 mile (232 km, ’cause we’re in Canada now) Icefields Parkway through landscapes that truly don’t seem real. You’ll want at least three and a half hours, but I’d give yourself an entire day. There are many stops to make and things to gawk at on the way.
I was hesitant to travel to the Southeast this August, but pleasantly surprised that the hospitality outweighed the humidity. The west is a road-trip dream, but it’s also vast and far away for most of the United States population. Fortunately, there’s plenty to see and explore in the Southeast — specifically the coast of Georgia.
I spent a week traveling from Jacksonville to Atlanta and was charmed every step of the way.
Jacksonville to Cumberland Island National Seashore: Drive Time: 45 minutes + 45 minute ferry ride
I flew into Jacksonville to begin my Georgia adventure. From there, I drove the short distance to St. Mary’s, Georgia — where the ferry to Cumberland Island National Seashore departs. Cumberland Island has been on my bucket list for years now. The history and people are intensely interesting on their own, not to mention the ample wildlife and true wilderness. You can camp, stay at the Greyfiled Inn, or visit for just a day.
Whatever you choose you will feel like you have somehow completely escaped the world.
Must-Sees:
Rent a bike, take a tour or hike the island. Be sure to spend time on the longest undisturbed coastline on the eastern seaboard.
Cumberland Island to St. Simons Island: Drive Time: 1 hour
From Cumberland Island, it’s a short drive to St. Simons Island, a small beach community with beautiful beaches and a laid-back vibe. I stayed in an adults-only hotel (strongly recommended) and walked to the beach to relax and watch the waves.
St. Simons Island is just an hour and a half from historic Savannah, Georgia. Savannah, of course, has something for everyone. Walk (and legally drink) around the historic downtown squares, eat your weight in Southern cuisine, or drive out to Tybee Island for a beach day.
Must-Sees:
Stop at Fort Pulaski National Monument on the way to Tybee Island (stay for sunset). Stay at Perry Lane Hotel in Savannah, a luxurious spot that greets you with champagne upon arrival, has a beautiful rooftop pool and bar with views that can’t be beaten.
Summer in the Northeast is magic. I spent the entire summer traveling and whenever anyone asks me what my favorite trip was I have to say — “Maine.” The vibe was exactly as I wanted it to be. Quiet, but full of energy. Unassuming, but jaw-droppingly gorgeous.
It all felt like a movie set come to life.
Portland Maine to Acadia National Park: Drive Time: 3 hours
I didn’t have time to visit Portland Maine this trip, but I would add it for next time. The drive from Portland to Acadia National Park in Bar Harbor is just three hours along the coast, with many stops to make.
Acadia National Park to Lubec: Drive Time: 2 hours
Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor are amazing and deserve at least 3-4 days of your time. You can read a lot more here. From there, continue north to Lubec Maine — the northeastern-most city in the United States and the access point to your next destination in Canada.
Must-Sees:
Watch sunrise or sunset at the summit of Cadillac Mountain (with a timed entry ticket), and eat popovers at Jordan Pond House after a hike around the lake at Acadia. Stop at Jasper Beach on your way to Lubec, and be sure to visit the lighthouse and gorgeous hiking in Quoddy Head State Park in Lubec.
Lubec to Campobello: Drive Time: 10 minutes + border crossing
Lubec is the only road access point to Campobello Island in Canada — home of Roosevelt Campobello International Park. Unfortunately, the border wasn’t open to US travelers when I visited, so I am itching to get back. The park is co-managed by the US National Park Service and Canada, preserving the summer home of Franklin Roosevelt through a museum, hiking trails, and gorgeous shorelines.
Chris Perugini started Single Malt Savvy back in 2014. Perugini writes whisk(e)y reviews, leads tastings, and educates the public about all things whisk(e)y — with a focus on single malts — all under the Single Malt Savvy shingle. He’s also built a social media following on Instagram, where he fills his feed with precise reviews of individual bottles to help all of us learn about whisk(e)y on a day-to-day basis.
We were lucky enough to pick Perugini’s brain about his five “must-have” bottles of single malt whisky. Perugini is someone who lives and breathes whisky every single day, so we couldn’t think of a better guide for your single malt whisky journey. Let’s dive in and see which bottles Perugini can’t live without.
If any of these bottles sound like something you’d dig, click on the prices to try them!
Also Read: The Top 5 UPROXX Scotch Whisky Posts of 2021
Aged in a combination of ex-bourbon casks and ex-sherry butts for at least 12 years, this whisky from Islay’s northernmost distillery is non-chill filtered and bottled at 46.3 percent ABV. In my opinion, Bunnahabhain 12 Year is also one of the best values in whisky today.
Tasting Notes:
The nose is a mashup of citrus, cherry, and ripe apples and pears. You can smell the sea air influence along with some leather and earthy notes. On the palate, the fruit jumps out as the clear winner as cherries and orange are out in full force atop baking spice and vanilla. The fruit is present but fades to the background as the sea salt and earthiness really take over on the finish.
Bottom Line:
Bunnahabhain 12 is an unpeated expression, though it shares maritime influence like most of the other distilleries on Islay. This makes for a well-rounded expression with a nice balance of sweetness, spice, and a bit of sea salt that works well for any taste preference.
A classic representation of ex-bourbon cask matured whisky, this ten-year-old expression is affordable and full of pleasant flavors. Aged in slow-growth oak from the Missouri Ozarks, Glenmorangie takes their aging vessels seriously and it shows in the end result.
Tasting Notes:
On the nose, there are notes of oranges, vanilla, fresh-cut flowers, and a hint of white chocolate. On the palate, you’ll find apples and pears, vanilla, and light baking spice. The finish is medium-short and leaves behind honey, fresh fruit, and hints of oak.
Bottom Line:
Long before Glenmorangie X was created, the 10 Year Original was the single malt that I always recommended as a mixer. Its light and pleasant flavor set can be taken in a variety of directions in a cocktail and it’s priced well enough that there won’t be any guilt when mixing it.
If you’re looking for something a bit different to round out your week, Glen Scotia Victoriana is definitely worth considering. The whisky is first matured in ex-bourbon casks before being split into two different finishing casks. 30 percent of the whisky moves to ex-Pedro Ximenez casks while the other 70 percent moves to heavy char American oak.
Victoriana is non-chill filtered and bottled at 51.5 percent ABV.
Tasting Notes:
The nose is coastal and fruity with notes of salted caramel, 2x4s, apples, peaches, and a hint of leather. On the palate, one finds more stone fruit, gumdrops, fennel, sea salt, and a hint of musty basement. The finish is dry, earthy, and spicy with notes of charcoal, clove, and some warehouse dunnage with a bit of candy sweetness underneath it all.
Bottom Line:
Glen Scotia Victoriana is a malt that I think can really appeal to a bourbon drinker. Despite the fact that there’s a bit of smoke and coastal influence, it’s aged in ex-bourbon casks and features a finish in heavy char barrels, which lends a lot of bourbon-y notes to the whisky.
There’s also just a touch of “Campbeltown Funk” influence to keep things interesting.
The Celebration Dram: Glendronach 18 Year Allardice
While it’s often overshadowed by its slightly younger sibling (15 Year Revival), I think Glendronach 18 Year Allardice is where the distillery’s character really shines. Aged in a combination of ex-Oloroso and ex-Pedro Ximenez casks for at least 18 years, Glendronach Allardice is a full-bodied whisky that really leaves its mark with each sip.
Tasting Notes:
On the nose, you’ll find dried red berries, dark chocolate, cinnamon, nutmeg, and almonds. The palate offers notes of plums, raisins, more nuttiness, cappuccino, creamy vanilla, and some nice oak. The finish is long and full of dried fruit, orange citrus, deep oak, toffee, and clove.
Bottom Line:
When in doubt, a heavily sherried whisky never disappoints. This release is the perfect after-dinner pour or the closing dram of the evening. Sherried sweetness, dried fruits, and baking spice offer a great combination of flavors and at 18 years old, there’s plenty of oak influence to ground the other flavors into a perfectly structured sensory experience.
Released twice a year in extremely small batches, The Balvenie 30 Year is a whisky worth splurging on for special occasion sipping. This whisky is aged in a combination of ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks for at least 30 years and is bottled at a respectable 47.3 percent ABV.
Tasting Notes:
On the nose, there’s sugar-covered red berries, rich oak, floral notes, and a hint of mint. On the palate, you’ll find notes of honey, vanilla, orange citrus, Pixie Stix, and a big honeyed sweetness. The finish is long and oily with notes of creme brulee topping, old oak, and baking spice.
Bottom Line:
I only drink the Balvenie 30 every once in a great while, but when I do I immediately remember why it’s one of my favorite whiskies of all time. It’s rich, complex, and beautifully balanced the whole way through. This bottling sets the standard for how old whisky should be produced — with a higher bottling strength and lack of chill filtration in addition to a tremendous flavor set.
This whisky leaves a lasting impression on all who try it.
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Meidas Mighty Jeremy
(@AUkeibro) 
