Posts by Sam Hockley-Smith

August 5, 2015
Mac DeMarco Doesn’t Want to Grow Up

With the release of his new mini-EP, ‘Another One,’ idiosyncratic songwriter Mac DeMarco is working hard at sounding lazy.
June 9, 2015
The Short Life, Weird Death, and Mild Rebirth of the Witch House Genre

The music was largely electronic, drawing from shoegaze and ambient and the slow and low remixes of DJ Screw. At its best, it was blown out and textured; at its worst, it was just a decent enough concept to work off of — all surface, with one idea dragged across multiple songs.
May 13, 2015
Last Laughs: The ‘Seinfeld’ Finale and How to Successfully End a Sitcom (or Not)

The safest part of any sitcom is its last episode. It’s a victory lap for the cast and crew, but that doesn’t mean everyone sticks the landing.
April 22, 2015
The One Where ‘Friends’ Fell Off the Rails

When you can burn through a season of a show in a day, those seasons take on different tones. Suddenly ‘Friends’ is no longer a 30-minute sitcom about small moments. It’s a monolithic viewing experience, during which you watch the same characters doing basically the same things for 88 real-life hours.