Hello. It is possible you have arrived here from the corp-blog of Sasha Frere-Jones, who has very kindly linked to this venue. If so, we should mention at least three things.
Regular readers can go back to tapping fingers, waiting for Michael Clayton review or thoughts on new Nickelback single. "I'll have the quesadilla. "
1) Sasha is a real inspiration; his own non-corporate site is the blog I've had bookmarked longer than any other, because he is a smooth operator and clever and insightful and cares, and is at least sometimes not a punch-puller, which puts him ahead of really most people who make a living from writing about culture for the publics.
2) We're not sure we fit much of that description ourselves, except for "cares." We are not sure what we do here. We think all the time about movies and poetry and pop music, because we like to; and all the time about politics and history, because there's no thinking that could happen outside those paul walls anyway.
3) Maroon 5 do not actually sound "a bit like Hall and Oates with a heavy Stevie Wonder fixation" nor are they "sneakily good at what they do." That might be a more plausible series of thoughts if it described Jamiroquai, except that the Jamiroquais are looking far (far, far!) up at Hall'n'Oates, and at their best were maybe "surprisingly half-decent." Maroon 5, conversely, is a sneakily awful Jamiroquai tribute band.