On October 10, the Detroit Tigers were eliminated from the MLB Postseason. Is anyone surprised?

The trade deadline was July 31st, and in a display of confident mediocrity, the Detroit Tigers addressed just one aspect of a battered playoff-bound roster.

On May 2, 2025, the Tigers released Kenta Maeda. The Tigers are the best team in the American League, and they are beginning to act like it.

The Culture Gyre was on assignment last week in Lakeland FL, otherwise known as Tigertown. The life that MLB baseball brings to metro areas across Southern Florida this time of year is, aside from traffic, one of the most inherently positive sports phenomenon I’ve ever been a part of.

Alex Bregman’s 3-year 120-million-dollar contract became official Thursday, February 13th. In that moment he became the third highest annually paid position player, behind just Ohtani and Soto and tied with Judge, and in that same moment, a bullet was dodged in southeast Michigan.

When I started The Culture Gyre more than a year ago now, it was in hopes that I'd get to cover years like this.

On January 15, 2016, Anderson .Paak released Malibu.

On October 5, 2024 I saw him perform it live.

On March 24, 2023, Danny Brown and JPEGMAFIA released SCARING THE HOES, and out of my newfound obsession with Danny Brown’s collaborative potential, a series is born.

This morning I was listening to my very own oldies playlist, and as it finished and Spotify took over the track selection, I immediately recognized Jaheim’s “Put That Woman First”. One of the best songs by one of the best voices of 2000s r&b, I was initially happy to hear it play, but realized not too far in that this was a different song, likely the original.

On Sunday, February 4, 2023, the 66th annual Grammy Awards will take place at 8 pm.

I shouldn’t have done this one, it's too hard.

Smiles aren’t worth a thing anymore.

Last year, I began my Top 10 albums list by making light of the exercise itself. Of course, I wrote the article anyway. It was funny at the time, but a year of growth later I’d like to double down on the initial sentiment. Music is art. This year I am older, wiser, and making yet another list.

I am Scrooge (in the Groot voice). I don’t like Marvel movies, nor do I like Christmas music. One of the most hotly contested seasonal debates, I always take the side of grumpy opposition, and I have reasons. While I plan to lay them out in an organized fashion momentarily, I have one question for fans of this genre: Do you truly believe, in your merry little hearts, that ‘jingle bells’ are both a tolerable instrument and viable lyric? If so, you're wrong, but allow me to further provide reasons to shut off the radio.

Cover songs are one of my favorite music industry phenomena. One of my favorite exercises is digging through versions of a song that’s been covered over and over, and picking the best version. You can often find great performances by legendary artists that you didn’t even know existed. I always seem to find at least one.



Would you like to try one with me?

Schubas Tavern is exactly that, a tavern. The front of the house is a bar/restaurant, and as you squeeze between the bar and booths towards the back of the restaurant, past the bathrooms, you can see a show room open up. Gretel Hänlyn and company played in that show room last Saturday, and anyone who came got a good show.

Wow, this must be important for me to bypass the Gretel Hanlyn concert review, Rolling Stones review, and Grammy-talk. Correct.

Well, we’ve been wishing for new music, and our wishes appear to be coming true.. André 3000 is releasing his first album in 17 years this Friday, November 17. After all this time, naturally, there’s a twist. It’s all flute.

There’s this rapper named Drake, and he’s reached my last nerve. I woke up this morning to finish off my Teezo Touchdown review. Unfortunately I was sidetracked by the news regarding Drake’s upcoming album For All The Dogs.

In the grand scheme of music creation and consumption, genres are completely trivial. However, they are one of my favorite things to noodle around. The most noodley of the bunch is pop.

Walk with me for a moment. Or rather, jump, with me, into a world where music is nonverbal.

In order of monthly listeners on Spotify, here are my three. They are all active artists who have lots of potential and could use your help, so if my descriptions appeal to you please check them out.

HEADLINE: Rock is no longer the most popular genre. I could go on and on about the downward trend of the former super-genre. However, to be prompt I’ll simplify it to this: after being the dominant genre of the 70s and 80s and the 90s to an extent, mainstream rock sat too comfortably headed into the age of computers, autotune, and one-trick production brought on by the 2000s. The result is two decades of uninspired pop-rock (a real and pitiful genre in my opinion) and an experimental rock reaction, which often tries too hard to be different and not enough to be good. I could name a lackluster band like Imagine Dragons here, but I won’t because I’m a nice guy.

On February 5 the 65th annual Grammys will be held in Los Angeles. As usual it's no surprise that this year's Grammy nominations have been somewhat controversial. When evaluating an incredibly broad field such as an entire genre of music, narrowing candidates down can be difficult, however, they always manage to do worse than I expected.

Making top ten lists, especially when there are as many options in a given category as there are in this one, is plain stupid. So here is mine.