Culture Brats

Hello and welcome to Culture Consumption, my sometimes-weekly-but-mostly-monthly look at the best of pop culture!

Albums Of The Moment

Fall Out Boy, Save Rock And Roll
"Are you ready for another bad poem, one more off-key anthem?" Patrick Stump asks the listener after Courtney Love finishes Jim Carrolling the beginning of "Rat A Tat." He's being too hard on himself: his voice is as awesome and ever and the lyrics are bombastic, a little cheesy, but a lot of fun. This is the album for the summer, something to blast through your speakers as you sing along. Fall Out Boy is not saving rock and roll with this album, but they're making you remember why you love it.

Consume Now: Everything. Get the whole album.

Allison Weiss, Say What You Mean
This is my favorite album of 2013. Say What You Mean is ten songs about heartache and pain, but you don't realize it at first because you're digging the catchy rock-infused pop songs. Then you start listening to the lyrics more intently and they're so incredible, it's like discovering a whole other album! These are emotionally deep, heart-on-your-sleeve lyrics that everyone can relate to. Heartache never sounded so good.

Consume Now: Everything. Get the whole album.

App Of The Moment

The Simpsons: Tapped Out
This game is addictive as hell. Basically, you're building your own Springfield. You start out with just Homer, standing on a track of land and you gradually earn money through tasks to use for buildings and to gain other characters. But it doesn't happen overnight. This is a game you'll play everyday, a little at a time. This is a freemium game, meaning there are things to be bought. The game itself is free, but you can purchase donuts with your real-life cash and use them to speed up tasks or to purchase items you can't earn through normal gameplay. That part kind of sucks, but the free items in this game are so awesome, it more than makes up for it. And it's not one-and-done either: they come out with new content and buildings for it every few weeks. There's a reason EA claims it's "life-ruiningly fun."