Richard Combs

My Favorite Albums of 2025 Not exhaustive and in no particular order, just for you

For your reading and listening perusal this New Year’s Eve, my favorite albums of 2025.
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Write about the Southern-fried sauntering of Futurebirds’ 2013 masterpiece Baba Yaga. open.substack.com/pub/rmcombs/...

Last year I wrote about the day I learned the truth about Christopher Columbus after reading an historical essay called The American Genocide. Feels appropriate to share today. open.substack.com/pub/rmcombs/...

Fall Songs - Part Two On hearts, hands, pockets, and night-driving (featuring Mazzy Star, Iron & Wine, and The Salty Dogs)

Wrote about some of my favorite songs for fall. Includes Mazzy Star, Iron & Wine, and The Salty Dogs.

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What I wouldn’t give for John Steinbeck to still be writing novels during this current era of American lunacy. Or better yet, Travels With Charley part two.

Oh JD. You don’t have any friends on the left.

Taylor's Tortured Melody Swift goes for it lyrically on her new double album, to varying degrees of success, but it's the melodies that truly shine on The Tortured Poets Department

Allow me to be greedily opportunistic and use the news of Taylor Swift’s new album and subsequent engagement (congrats!) to once again share my thoughts on her almost year and a half old album, The Tortured Poets Department, wherein I use the literal phrase “the messy stank of man drama.”

Morgan Wallen thinkpieces are nauseating.

Last night I saw Sinners and was blown away. It’s refreshing to watch a movie and know you’re in the hands of a director who knows how to entertain but also actually has something to say. Hand Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan all the blank checks, please.

Reading Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon super slow because “Wonder Boy” by Tenacious D is stuck in my head the whole time.

I wrote about Pride & Prejudice and masculinity and why it’s a cinematic classic. And also my man crush on Matthew Macfadyen.
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Vince Vaughn 2005: Are we gonna get hopped up enough to make some bad decisions?

Vince Vaughn 2025: Yes

“But getting lost in ‘depressing’ music can be a balm for me when I am depressed… I think it’s mostly because a work of art so resplendent and abiding—so eternal, even—can come from such painful, uncertain, uncomfortable places.”

Sad Songs, Hard Times, and The Voices On depression, doubt, and dorm room altars (Bands mentioned: Trespassers William, Explosions in the Sky)

The older I get the more I think music has always been my most abiding spiritual discipline.

Woman's arrest after miscarriage in Georgia draws fear and anger Experts say the arrest is part of a pattern of criminalizing pregnancy that has accelerated since the fall of Roe v. Wade.

This is terrifying

My almost 4 year old and 10 month old’s favorite song is Ice Cream Piano” by Vampire Weekend. It’s awesome.

Kentucky Humanities puts on the most epic book festival every year, among many other wonderful events that spread the gospel of the arts and humanities across the state. I shouldn’t be surprised. Inhumane people hate the arts & humanities.

One of the things that pisses me off the most in everything that has happened with the current administration’s shit show is Trump/Elon taking away federal funding from state humanities councils.

Wendell Berry - The Peace of Wild Things

It’s National Poetry Month. Here’s a favorite poem of mine and many others, and one that is quite timely these days.

Currently reading, and almost finished with, The Evolution of the Gospelettes by Tammy Oberhausen. Fast-paced novel with keen insights about Christianity, doubt, and the prosperity gospel. Vivid characters, detestable villain, palpable Kentucky setting. A great read.

We don’t talk enough about how this is one of the greatest albums of all time.

The Making of a Music Lover How Cherry Coke and chicken nuggets broadened my music fandom

Have you ever wanted to read something extolling the virtues of both 90s pop radio stalwarts Savage Garden and indie-rock alterna-weirdos Cake in the same essay? Here you go.

I am not familiar with other states’ literary history, tradition, and output like I am own, but I cannot fathom another state having such a stellar track record of producing incredible writers as Kentucky has over the years.

The new My Morning Jacket seems like (and probably is) a fine album, but it just makes me want to listen to At Dawn, It Still Moves, and Z. I wish I wasn’t like this, but damn, that was a three album run for the ages.

“A DJ was spinning light worship beats.” Jesus Christ.

Otega Oweh: ice cold beast.

Do you need to bind yourself to a ship’s mast?

I do not understand people who say this season of The White Lotus is “slow.” It’s always been a character-driven slow build with stunning cinematography. I’ve never been more excited for shit to go down than I am for the second half of this season.

I hardly missed an episode of Pod Save America last year. These days, I hardly ever listen. I’m not sure why.

Truly not understanding the people saying “God said ‘hold my beer’/ He made a man so he could watch and laugh” is a bad line. It is, per usual for Jason Isbell, a great line.