The Lizard Review

Happy Valentine's Day! In honor of the magnificence of this holiday, I did a bit of a sister song lyrical analysis of TWO songs that I believe fully encapsulate the spirit of the day and that I also believe are intrinsically and inextricably linked together and have been since the dawn of time - one Paramore song, one Taylor Swift song! I also start the episode off by detailing a truly demented dream that I had and confess that I sincerely believe my dreams can tell prophecies. Typical Friday stuff.

Oh if only there were a man in my life who wasn't working on Super Bowl Sunday...catch up with me on some of the latest pop culture news including the Super Bowl and all its nonsense featuring Queen SZA gallantly allowing Kendrick on stage, what albums we have to look forward to in the next couple of months, an impending Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot, and all of the latest music from January. INCLUDING : Tate McRae, Lady Gaga, Jennie and that character from Euphoria everyone hated, and Sabrina Carpenter.

A lyrical analysis of one of the GREATEST songs that almost never was...a vault track deep from the archives of the original Golden Era of Taylor Swift : Foolish One from Speak Now (Taylor's Version.) It's one of the best vault tracks because it does everything a vault track should do - shed more light on songs from long ago, take us right back to the time period it would have originally existed in, and give us a strong case of nostalgia ULTIMATE. Foolish One, you son of a b***h....

This was an album about growing up, about moving away, about changing from a girl into a woman, about navigating the world while being unsure of how (or even if) you fit into it. It was also an album that shook the foundations of pop so much that it launched the careers of dozens of other girls after it, that pissed men off, that confused critics, and that changed the way I would look at music for the rest of my life. It's an album that will forever be an iconic piece of my history, whether it also happened to teach me internalized misogyny or not.

Essential Playlist on Spotify // On Apple Music

In one of the most STACKED Grammy's for the girls in recent memory, it's hard to pick favorites OR frontrunners....we have Miss Pretty Girl Sabrina Carpenter, Miss I'm Everywhere I'm So Julia Charli XCX, Miss I'm LITERALLY Everywhere Taylor Swift, Miss Congeniality Chappell Roan, and Miss Cowboy Carter herself Beyonce. And that's just the beginning... here's me doing my best to put my FINAL word in on who I think will win, should win, or WILL NOT be winning at this year's Grammy Awards.

Defining suicidal ideation for Elmo, getting caught up in one of the most obvious PR-created hate trains of the decade, Luigi, the end of an Eras, cowboys, and MORE are all what helped to define 2024 as a year of evanescent everything, from viral trends to culturally impactful music to everything in-between.

Drinking detox tea outside the AMC. Stealing gas money so she can ride the mechanical bull like she's a cowgirl. Calling the cops on your new girlfriend. Scoring 40's. Working at the trampoline park part time. Recording vocals in her mother's Kia. Doing Paper Magazine interviews in her minions pajama pants. Making one of the best albums of 2024 from her living room with a blanket up as a divider for privacy. Cece Natalie is part of the new wave of pop music that we don't even fully understand yet - an innovative, creative, self-made self-produced self-written 19 year old who's blowing up (kinda.)

Happy Holidays!!! Here's some of the Christmas music I've been adding to my ever expanding Christmas playlist this year, from Kelly Clarkson, to Ella Fitzgerald, to The Carpenters. Also, an evisceration of yet ANOTHER of Gwen Stefani's baffling tributes to Blake Shelton (yeah, it's a Christmas record, for some goddamn reason.)

On the walls of long forgotten about structures buried deep beneath the sands of time, there is an old fable etched in a language that no one speaks anymore. It is a tale of love lost, of infatuation, of meeting the wrong person at the wrong time, and of heartbreak. It is a tale that spans decades, that spans eras, that spans across timelines, that spans across lovers and outfits and rules....it is the story of CHLOE, SAM, SOPHIA, and MARCUS, and it's the greatest story ever told. I've already lyrically analyzed it before, but let's go deeper, girls....let's dig this son of a b***h up and dust it off.

Allow me to introduce you to your new favorite girl band...Flo just released their debut LP titled ACCESS ALL AREAS - a referential, nostalgic, y2k r&b bonanza inspired by the likes of Destiny's Child, but put together by three young gen z women who have been working to put this album together for nearly five entire years.

What do Taylor Swift and Halsey have in common...? Well, they're both writers, they're both creatives...and they both dated the exact same TORTURED POET and lived to write about it, and in doing so have given us an interesting codex of songs to compare and contrast. In this episode, I pull apart Halsey's Lonely Is The Muse from her latest record The Great Impersonator, and reflect on what it means to actually BE a muse, and how the experience can often intersect in surprising ways with sexism and gender.

Happy Halloween!!!!!!!!! Here's an early episode 🎃 One of the most iconic pieces of Halloween history is a little film starring three queens (Bette Midler, SJP, and Kathy Najimy) that captures the essence of what Halloween felt like when you were a kid - magical, ripe with possibility, and creepy. It was a massive commercial and critical FLOP when it was first released, but over time, this film has become one of the greatest cult classic success stories, and is watched by MILLIONS of people every single year. I couldn't think of anything better to celebrate one of the best holidays of all time than to take a deep dive into Hocus Pocus ✨

This is the story of a thousand wigs, a thousand tears, a thousand hours, a thousand years, a thousand shows, a thousand influences, a thousand hurts from the biggest to the smallest, and of a thousand different people, one of them being myself, somehow all of them being Halsey. They told her she has no sense of identity, and they asked her, "do you even know who you are?"

The Great Impersonator repeats this question. Do YOU even know who you are? What are we, if we are not just the sum of our own thousands of people?

The year : 2008. The book : a bestseller. The actors : thought they were making a cute little indie film only to discover their entire lives being upended. Rock band Muse : said sure go ahead give throw them a bone, no one will even remember we were on this soundtrack! Hayley Williams : was also there. The author : Mormon lady obsessed with making playlists. The director : looked like she collected "crystals" from the river on her time off. The girl obsessed with it all : A LIZARD!!!! This is the story of the greatest set of movie soundtracks ever made....The Twilight Saga soundtracks.

In observance of the Holy Rite of the Lizard's Birthday, please participate in a FAVORED Lizard Birthday Ritual by watching the greatest film ever made, Practical Magic, starring two of the greatest actresses of our times, Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock, and then come back and listen to this episode for a full dissection of the film's true depths....sadly not many critics have ever seen the greatness in this work of art....THANK GOD FOR THE LIZARD!!!!!!!!!!

A deep and personal look into my latest and greatest fixation, a brand new band called Sunday (1994) and their new EP that's perfect for the Fall season.

The third in a series where I go through the most IMPORTANT and influential albums in my life - this one is about the boundless joy that comes from realizing it does not matter what anybody thinks about you, and it reminds us that life and music and art are all things that can be fun, if you allow them to be.

A 2010's empire built upon notions of standing up for yourself, girl power, and unrelenting poptimism comes crumbling down right before our eyes in Katy Perry's final stab at relevancy in the 2020's, her new album 143.

Was it the best one ever? Well, no.... Was it the worst one ever!? WELL, NO!!! The 2024 VMA's was truly a moment of divas being up, and flops being down and down BAD. Not everyone can share pieces of the crown I fear!