Josh Modell
The AV Club
Chicago, IL, United States
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Past articles by Josh:
Shoplifters Of The World is nothing but reference porn for fans of The Smiths
Shoplifters Of The World seems intended as a love letter to The Smiths, but in trying to convey the British band’s importance, it comes across more like fan fiction—too reference-heavy for a general audience, too shallow for those already in the know. → Read More
Morrissey review: I Am Not A Dog On A Chain is his best and worst
Morrissey shows the darker side of his age when he descends into pure cynicism. → Read More
Taylor Swift tiptoes toward something real in the Netflix documentary Miss Americana
Swift has always written her life story with an audience in mind. And if you’re going to tell your own story, naturally you’re going to tell the version you’d like to hear. → Read More
20 years later, what was your first impression of Foo Fighters?
Twenty years ago today saw the release of the debut album from Foo Fighters, a name that began as a cover for the fact that Nirvana’s drummer had created the entire album by himself (a single guitar contribution from Afghan Whigs’ Greg Dulli notwithstanding). Drums, bass, guitar, vocals—it was a one-man Dave Grohl show all the way. Not only that, it was the first release of new music by a former… → Read More
Crank Yankers crawls out of the past, wisely leaves one character behind
Rebooting the show in 2019, when both its comedic style and the very idea of a telephone call seem outdated, feels weirdly out of step. → Read More
5 new releases we love: Brittany Howard goes solo, Vivian Girls return to form, and more
There’s a lot of music out there. To help you cut through all the noise, every week The A.V. Club is rounding up A-Sides, five recent releases we think are worth your time. You can listen to these and more on Spotify. → Read More
Liam Gallagher isn’t nearly the arsehole we all hoped he’d be in As It Was
It’s a good story, but it feels a bit too warm and fuzzy. → Read More
Frightened Rabbit’s New Compilation Celebrates Scott Hutchison's Life
The Scottish band put together a covers album as a tribute to their most beloved record before the death of their singer last year. They didn't change a note. → Read More
Mike Wallace Is Here tells a fascinating cautionary tale, but tells it too late
There are so many things to focus on here that almost none of them can be explored with much depth. → Read More
Rick Rubin’s Shangri-La is a magical-yet-hokey monument to music—and to Rick Rubin
There’s a bit of cognitive dissonance in the not-exactly-a-Rick Rubin documentary Shangri-La, in that it deifies the music mogul while also deflecting credit for his genius onto some nonspecific higher power—the gods of creativity, if you will. Helping to discover, nurture, and create some of the most important music of the past 40 years was simply part of the path he traveled, the doc seems to… → Read More
5 new releases we love: A beautiful bummer, a fuck-you to creeps, and more
There’s a lot of music out there. To help you cut through all the noise, every week The A.V. Club is rounding up A-Sides, five recent releases we think are worth your time. You can listen to these and more on Spotify. → Read More
Deadwood lives again: A catch-up guide to its cast and characters
The Deadwood movie airs this Friday, picking up 10 years after the series left off. Here’s where every major (and many minor) character was at the close of business in 1877. → Read More
Relationship status with Morrissey’s new covers album: It’s complicated
There they are again: Morrissey’s politics interrupting the enjoyment of his music. → Read More
Relationship status with Morrissey’s new covers album: It’s complicated
There they are again: Morrissey’s politics interrupting the enjoyment of his music. → Read More
The documentary What’s My Name is the latest about the Greatest, and one of the best
Documentaries about Muhammad Ali aren’t exactly in short supply. The boxer’s life and career have been examined from dozen of angles since his rise to fame: A.K.A. Muhammad Ali came out way back in 1970, when he was still in the thick of it. Facing Ali, from 2009, tells Ali’s story from the perspective of the fighters who faced him. Best Documentary Oscar winner When We Were Kings zooms in on… → Read More
Vampire Weekend brilliantly stretches its own definition on Father Of The Bride
Vampire Weekend’s fourth album is adventurous, joyful, weird, and familiar in all the right ways. → Read More
Tim Robinson’s hilarious I Think You Should Leave should stay longer
The characters in this Netflix sketch series from SNL alum Tim Robinson almost always refuse to defuse tense situations. → Read More
Ask Dr. Ruth offers a deeply satisfying portrait of the sex therapist’s life
It can be hard to remember—or probably for younger people to even imagine—a time before the Pandora’s box of the internet opened, putting every conceivable bit of information, sexual and otherwise, at the world’s fingertips. But when Dr. Ruth Westheimer entered the public consciousness in the 1980s, she was something of a pioneer. Sure, there was sex advice available, but the diminutive German… → Read More
Kurt Cobain’s manager remembers him, fondly, 25 years later
The hero worship is present, but it’s tempered by insight into Cobain’s personality that few people were privy to. → Read More
An HBO documentary revisits the Serial murder with The Case Against Adnan Syed
Part of what made the first season of Serial so engrossing was the sense that listeners were investigating the murder of Hae Min Lee right along with host Sarah Koenig and her inquisitive cadre of podcasters. The granular detail with which it explored the killing—which took place in early 1999—helped to ignite worldwide podcast fever in 2014. It inspired heated online conversation, amateur… → Read More