Blog: Michael Patrick Brady

This year's list of my favorite albums is a lot less pessimistic than last years. 2008 saw a lot of happy returns from great artists that I've been following for a long time, and I have to be honest, I can't think of too many bands that irritated me enough to justify a section of [...]

I've been very lucky to be able to read a number of truly excellent books this year. Most of my reading, as this list of my favorite books of 2008 will show, has been historical non-fiction. I'm not averse to fiction-quite the opposite, in fact-it's just that I find myself catching up with classics and [...]

My review of Miles on Miles: Interviews and Encounters with Miles Davis ran today at PopMatters. Comprised of thirty interviews spanning Davis' career, Miles on Miles is a really entertaining read. Davis is insightful, brisk, and hilarious. He makes his interviewers jump through hoops and roll over before he deigns to provide them with any usable [...]

LAPTOP Magazine | Gadget Gift Guide 2008 I have work in LAPTOP Magazine's 2008 Gadget Gift Guide special issue, which is currently available on newsstands. I wrote for the camcorders section, composing the introduction as well as lists of the best mainstream and high-definition digital camcorders for the year. Again, it's not available online (yet, [...]

:: Buy at Amazon :: My review of Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln by John Stauffer was published today at PopMatters. I wasn't blown away by this book. It falls short of justifying itself as a dual biography, seeming unbalanced between the intriguing and engaging sections on Douglass and the surprisingly tedious [...]

ALARM Magazine | Issue #33 ALARM Magazine #33 is on newsstands now, and includes my reviews of Boston Spaceship's Brown Sumbarine and Death Vessel's Nothing Is Precious Enough For Us. They're not available online (though I did talk about them briefly on the blog a little while back) so go buy the magazine. There's lots [...]

My article on the current state of Blu-Ray ran today at Forbes.com. There's a lot of discussion about Blu-Ray's eventual demise, some of which is coming from within the companies who are supposed to be the format's biggest boosters. High-definition streaming video looks poised to make physical media obsolete in the relatively-near future, perhaps 5 years [...]

My review of Robert Pollard's most recent side-project, Boston Spaceships, and their album Brown Submarine can be found in ALARM Magazine #33. While I was a huge fan of Pollard's last solo disc, Boston Spaceships didn't grab me in the same way. It's a good album, just not as exciting. Opener "Winston's Atomic Bird" is [...]

In ALARM Magazine issue 33, you'll find my review of Death Vessel's Nothing Is Precious Enough For Us, which bears a passing similarity to the Jeff Hanson disc I reviewed a while back. Both Hanson and Death Vessel's Joel Thibodeau have startlingly feminine voices, and while that links them to some degree, I feel that [...]

My review of The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell ran today at PopMatters. This book was a lot lighter than some of the more recent reading I've been doing, an approachable, winsome look at perhaps my favorite subject, colonial Boston. Vowell uses her wry perspective to shed light on the true nature of the city's Puritan [...]

My article on HDTV holiday deals ran today at Forbes.com. In it, I cover the best buys in budget, mainstream, and cutting-edge high-definition televisions. The rough distinctions between these three classes are 720p, 1080p, and 120 Hertz, respectively. Size is not much of a limiter, as there are big-screen plasmas still available for bargain prices, [...]

My review of Benoit Pioulard's Temper ran today in the Boston Phoenix. If you enjoyed Precis, or are a fan of Kranky Records and their dreamy, folk-ambient stable of artists like Jessica Bailiff or Stars of the Lid, you'll probably enjoy Temper. I find it hard to refer to this artist by his stage name, probably [...]

My most recent Forbes.com article, "Ask This Before You Buy an HDTV" ran today. This article outlines some fundamental tips and tricks one must keep in mind when shopping for a new HDTV. It's an update on my very first Forbes.com article, which I wrote about a year ago. It's the same relevant advice on seeing [...]

My review of the new TV on the Radio album, Dear Science, ran today in the Boston Phoenix. I count myself lucky that in 2003 I was randomly assigned their first EP, Young Liars for review at Brainwashed. It's nice to be ahead of the curve on a phenomenon. Still, although I've enjoyed their work since, [...]

My review of the new TV on the Radio album, Dear Science, ran today in the Boston Phoenix. I count myself lucky that in 2003 I was randomly assigned their first EP, Young Liars for review at Brainwashed. It's nice to be ahead of the curve on a phenomenon. Still, although I've enjoyed their work since, I [...]

My review of Tanya Tagaq's Auk/Blood ran today in the Boston Phoenix. I really liked this album in spite of a few distracting flaws, most of which had to do with a guest appearance by the horribly boring Canadian rapper Buck 65. Tanya Tagaq is a luminous singer and her guttural throat-singing is a powerful [...]

My review of Tanya Tagaq's Auk/Blood ran today in the Boston Phoenix. I really liked this album in spite of a few distracting flaws, most of which had to do with a guest appearance by the horribly boring Canadian rapper Buck 65. Tanya Tagaq is a luminous singer and her guttural throat-singing is a powerful [...]

My article on energy-efficient, environmentally friendly, green HDTVs ran today at Forbes.com. The article is mostly about energy-efficiency, ensuring that your new HDTV doesn't suck to much power and thus contribute to greater consumption and a larger carbon footprint. I also talk about what new technologies are being introduced to reduce the environmental impact of HDTVs [...]

My article on energy-efficient, environmentally friendly, green HDTVs ran today at Forbes.com. The article is mostly about energy-efficiency, ensuring that your new HDTV doesn't suck to much power and this contribute to greater consumption and a larger carbon footprint. I also talk about what new technologies are being introduced to reduce the environmental impact of HDTVs [...]

I'm a little late on mentioning this one, but I had work in the August 2008 issue of LAPTOP Magazine, which is no longer available on newsstands but was not long ago. I contributed to the evaluation of camcorders for the "52 Great Mobile Bargains" cover story. I once again benefit from having a last [...]