Video Of The Week: Bizarre

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There was a time around the turn of the millennium when Eminem was on top on the world - not just in rap, but he led the entire music industry. His albums were consistently at #1 despite boy band / girl group pop dominance, and he took it upon himself the use his tide to rise everyone in his orbit who deserved it, notably via D12 (a.k.a. The Dirty Dozen), a collective of talented artists that also included Proof (deceased in 2006), Bizarre, Denaun "Mr." Porter (a.k.a. Kon Artis) , Kuniva and Swifty McVay (the latter two keeping the mantle alive to this day); Obie Trice was a fequent collaborator.

Many of these rappers, like Eminem himself, mixed wit, sarcasm, and humour with astute observations of difficult upbringings to create a brand of hip hop that was relatively unique in the mainstream, with Bizarre being the one who would usually push the boundaries of good taste with off-kilter references and associations, such as:

I'm not bisexual I'm an intellectual, transsexual, with one testicle
And I ain't saying shit just 'cause it rhymes, I got colon cancer - I'm dying

or

There’s no way I could be the gay rapper: I only fuck animals

Shock value was his calling card.

Cut to today, where he doesn't seem as alert as he used to be (his speed has slowed to a Notorious B.I.G. level), is still prone to mixing the funny with the braggadocio and reality-based texts, but with more cultural references and a lot less in-your-face shock. His new song Mercy is the second single off of Don't Cross The Street and is much better than the previous one, Amityville 2: This was directed by ad agency Mic Drop Media.

This Week's Top 10s

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Top 10 Songs:

10. MISTAKEN IDENTITY, Everlast (2026)
9. SCOTCH & POCHES, Bleu Jeans Bleu (2026)
8. MERCY, Bizarre (2026)
7. ALL THE THINGS SHE SAID, t.A.T.u. (2002)
6. GONE AWAY, The Offspring (1997)
5. DAI DAI, Shakira featuring Burna Boy (2026)
4. THE FATE OF OPHELIA, Taylor Swift (2026)
3. WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME, Olivia Rodrigo & Robert Smith (2026)
2. FABIEN K, Angine De Poitrine (2026)
1. FAUT QUE TU DISES WOW, Bleu Jeans Bleu (2026)

Avalanche Preview: Martin Nečas & Nathan MacKinnon Jersey Card

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This will likely be the preface to all of this year's Season Preview posts: Unlike in the distant past where I would post different texts on my personal blog (here) and my collectibles blog, I've been using a new format for the past couple of years, where I'll copy the same text on each one. As a father of two young kids, I just do not have enough time to write two separate posts per day on each blog. This year again, the entire scope of the analysis will take place first and the featured player will have a direct or perhaps indirect connection to what's written, below.

Caveats: At this point, despite training camp being set to start in a couple of days, several players haven't found a team yet, (at least) three star players have active trade requests, and a few clubs are currently above the salary cap, which means there is much left to do.

Key exits: Ross Colton (C), Jack Drury (C), Valeri Nichushkin (RW), Alex Barré-Boulet (C), Jack Ahcan (D), Ivan Ivan (C), Isak Posch (G), Chase Bradley (RW), Joel Kiviranta (LW), Nick Blankenburg (D), Jason Polin (RW)

Key Arrivals: Jaden Schwartz (LW), Zachary L'Heureux (LW), Fedor Svechkov (C), Magnus Chrona (G), Fabian Lysell (RW), Vincent Hinostroza (C), Noah Juulsen (D)

Top prospects: Egor Shilov (C, 18), Ilya Nabokov (G, 23), T.J. Hughes (C/RW, 24), Gavin Brindley (RW, 21), Mikhail Gulyayev (D, 21), Lysell (RW, 23), Sean Behrens (D, 23), Francesco Dell'Elce (D, 21)

Cale Makar and Nathan MacKinnon once again lead this veteran team as the cream of the NHL in what is now a changed salary landscape. This is the last year of Makar's low cap hit, which likely means the Colorado Avalanche's Stanley Cup contention window will fade for a couple of seasons before opening up again in 2030. This franchise is led by elite talent, both on the ice and in management, as was cemented by Joe Sakic confirming he will stay on as Avs GM for the foreseeable future.

What makes their odds look good:
They dominated the NHL so much in their first 50 games last year - 35 wins, 6 regular-time losses, 9 overtime losses - that they could afford to coast to the Presidents' Trophy despite tons of injuries to key players in the second half (and the three playoff rounds). There has been a churning of the depth, but the star players remain, and they still have the best goaltending tandem in the league. It might not be as easy as last year, because head coach Jared Bednar will want his team to pace itself, but another finish at the top is a very strong possibility.

Question marks: Injuries can happen, as can fatigue with the head coach; but apart from that (and perhaps even despite it), this team should finish in the top-3 in both the regular season and the playoffs.

Outlook:
With secondary scoring like Brock Nelson (coming off his fourth 30-goal season), Martin Nečas (38 goals and 100 points last season, effectively replacing Mikko Rantanen, whom he was traded for), Nazem Kadri (still producing at 2 points per 3 games pace), Schwartz, tough third-linner Nicolas Roy, clutch playoff performer Artturi Lehkonen and captain Gabriel Landeskog, the Avs are the deepest team in the West with far less competition than the Florida Panthers have in the East. And that's without mentioning Olympian Devon Toews on the back end, helped by Brent Burns, Sam Malinski, Josh Manson and Brett Kulak.

Prediction:
1st in the NHL.

Today being my birthday, my kids and wife each gifted me a special hockey card - and this was the one my son chose for me:

That's card #T2-MR from Upper Deck's 2025-26 Artifacts collection and Tundra Teammates sub-set, featuring Nečas and MacKinnon, two 100-point superstars each with a piece of game-worn jersey, numbered 50/99. I likely never would have pulled it out of a box myself, and MacKinnon is one of my favourite players, so you can imagine how stoked I was to receive it.

Top 10s Of The Week

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Top 10 Songs:

10. MIDNIGHT SUN, Zara Larsson (2026)
9. YOU IN '95, Beth Bombara (2026)
8. THE FATE OF OPHELIA, Taylor Swift (2026)
7. MISTAKEN IDENTITY, Everlast (2026)
6. PAPA WAS A ROLLIN' STONE, The Temptations (1972)
5. JOLENE, Dolly Parton (1974)
4. OPALITE, Taylor Swift (2026)
3. THE CURE, Olivia Rodrigo (2026)
2. WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME, Olivia Rodrigo & Robert Smith (2026)
1. DAI DAI, Shakira featuring Burna Boy (2026)

Kraken Preview: Matty Beniers Jersey Card

(team and product links go to sponsored Amazon products, player links go to related pages on my blog, news links go to source pages)

This will likely be the preface to all of this year's Season Preview posts: Unlike in the distant past where I would post different texts on my personal blog (here) and my collectibles blog, I've been using a new format for the past couple of years, where I'll copy the same text on each one. As a father of two young kids, I just do not have enough time to write two separate posts per day on each blog. This year again, the entire scope of the analysis will take place first and the featured player will have a direct or perhaps indirect connection to what's written, below.

Caveats: At this point, despite training camp being set to start in a couple of weeks, several players haven't found a team yet, (at least) three star players have active trade requests, and a few clubs are currently above the salary cap, which means there is much left to do.

Key Exits: Jaden Schwartz (LW), Jamie Oleksiak (D), Eeli Tolvanen (RW), Matt Murray (G)

Key Arrivals: Mackie Samoskevich (RW), Curtis Douglas (C)

Top prospects: Chase Reid (D, 18), Jake O'Brien (C, 19), Jani Nyman (RW, 22), Blake Fiddler (D, 19), Jagger Firkus (RW, 22), Oscar Fisker Molgaard (C, 21)

xxx

What makes their odds look good:
Some of their best prospects are young enough to build sustainable success around... if they break through. Samoskevich coming via trade with the Florida Panthers this summer and Bobby McMann from the Toronto Maple Leafs last year show that new GM Jason Botterill may indeed be the right person to build this team up (and/or he has excellent assistants in Ricky Olczyk, Alexandra Mandrycky, and Ryan Jankowski, to which former Vancouver Canucks GM Patrik Allvin was added this summer, along with all the analytics staff).

Question marks: Will Matty Beniers fulfill the promise of his Calder Trophy-winning season and join the ranks of the All-Stars ot elite? Will Shane Wright get traded, or improve? Will Lane Lambert provide stability (i.e. a four- or five-year run) behind the Seattle Kraken bench for the first time in franchise history?

Outlook:
Like the Detroit Red Wings in yesterday's post, the Kraken seem mired in mediocrity and non-playoff futility. Unlike the Wings, however, their prospect pool includes a lot of players aged 20 or younger, especially among the highest-rated players. There is a light at the end of the tunnel even if the currect crop of players does not get to find success themselves.

Prediction:
6th in the Pacific Division.

Key among players hoping to take another step and either make the jump to the next wave instead of just bridging the gap to it is Beniers, the second-overall pick of the 2021 draft; to be fair, only Jesper Wallstedt (20th, Minnesota Wild) and Wyatt Johnston (23rd, Dallas Stars) have established themselves as top players in the first round from that draft class, with Josh Doan (37th, Arizona Coyotes), Logan Stankoven (47th, Stars), Matthew Knies (57th, Leafs), J.J. Moser (60th, Coyotes), and Jackson Blake (109th, Carolina Hurricanes) looking like steals in the later rounds.

With three 20-goal seasons under his belt, Beniers hasn't been a flop by any means, but the 24 goals, 33 assists and 57 points he registered in his rookie season remain career highs to this day:

Internationally, he has been successful in depth roles on Team USA, winning gold at the 2021 World Juniors and 2025 World Championships, as well as bronze at the 2019 World U-18s and 2025 Worlds.

Here he is on card #60 from Upper Deck's 2024-25 SP Game-Used set and Red Jersey sub-set:

It features a dark blue game-used jersey swatch.

Red Wings Preview: Lucas Raymond Banner Card

(team and product links go to sponsored Amazon products, player links go to related pages on my blog, news links go to source pages)

This will likely be the preface to all of this year's Season Preview posts: Unlike in the distant past where I would post different texts on my personal blog (here) and my collectibles blog, I've been using a new format for the past couple of years, where I'll copy the same text on each one. As a father of two young kids, I just do not have enough time to write two separate posts per day on each blog. This year again, the entire scope of the analysis will take place first and the featured player will have a direct or perhaps indirect connection to what's written, below.

Caveats: At this point, despite training camp being set to start in a couple of weeks, several players haven't found a team yet, (at least) three star players have active trade requests, and a few clubs are currently above the salary cap, which means there is much left to do.

Key exits: Patrick Kane (RW), Cam Talbot (G), Travis Hamonic (D), James van Riemsdyk (LW), David Perron (RW), Erik Gustafsson (D), Sebastian Cossa (G)

Key Arrivals: Viktor Arvidsson (LW), Daniil Tarasov (G), Keegan Kolesar (RW), Jacob Bryson (D), Wilmer Skoog (LW/RW)

Top prospects: Michael Brandsegg-Nygard (RW, 20), Trey Augustine (G, 21), J.P. Hurlbert (LW, 19), Carter Bear (LW, 19), Nate Danielson (C, 21), Carter Mazur (LW, 24), Max Plante (LW, 20)

GM Steve Yzerman's failed rebuild stepped down was fired moved on beyond hockey operations just too late to salvage the season at hand, leaving the team without a contract boss two weeks into free agency season, with captain Dylan Larkin requesting a trade out from his hometown team and future #2-3 defender Simon Edvinsson without a contract as a Restricted Free Agent. It is chaos. And it's not like the team was a contender to begin with.

What makes their odds look good:
Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider are legitimate top-flight players. Alex DeBrincat is not an accidental 40-goal scorer. I still believe in John Gibson as a 45-to-50-game starting goalie.

Question marks: What if Larkin is better suited as an elite second-line centre? Is Todd McLellan the coach that can bring an underachieving team to the playoffs, instead of underachieving in the playoffs with well-built teams (as he has in the past with the San Jose Sharks, Edmonton Oilers and Los Angeles Kings)?

Outlook:
This is a mediocre team - in the true sense of the word, not as a metaphor for "bad"; these players are all probably among the 1,000 best in the world which, factoring in the fact that there are elite players in the Juniors circuit and that the KHL, AHL and European leagues are legitimate pro leagues where players deserve to make a living from the sport, means they are legitimate NHLers. That is not where the problem lies; most of their top prospects are in their 20s and have not broken into the league yet. Drafting, which used to be the team's bread and butter (with their owner's deep pockets), no longer finds Hall Of Famers in the late rounds - heck, they often seem to get outdrafted in the first round by later picks from other teams (which could signal to a development issue as well). While an argument can be made every year that they are on the cusp of breaking out and could finally contend for a playoff wild card spot - and they do usually hang around for nearly half the season - the recipe just isn't working, and instead of fighting to be around 15th overall, they fall closer to 30th. These players chosen by this management to be led by this coaching staff (and the last three...) do not produce a good enough result for where the team was 20-30 years ago; they look a whole lot more like the team from the 1980s, and that's what's scary about it.

Prediction:
8th in the Atlantic Division.

For the third straight season, Raymond has produced around a point per game, but he has also improved defensively, with a Fenwick For above 52% and a plus/minus line that has consistently improved as well, going from -32 to -17 to -12 to -15 to +1 in his five NHL seasons. He also took on a larger role with Team Sweden internationally, going from 4 points in 7 games (bronze medal) and 5 points in 5 games (5th place) at the 2020 and 2021 World Juniors respectively, to 8 points in 8 games (6th place) and 9 points in 10 games (bronze medal) at the 2023 and 2024 World Championships, to 3 points in 3 games (3rd place) and 11 points in 10 games (bronze medal) at the 2025 4 Nations tournament and World Championships respectively, to 9 points in 5 games at the 2026 Olympics and 11 points in 8 games at the 20215 Worlds. He's one of the Detroit Red Wings' best players, in his prime, but at 24 years of age, he might not still be when the team's next solid nucleus reach their peaks.

Here he is on card #BYGS-LR from Upper Deck's 2024-25 SP Game-Used set and Banner Year sub-set:

It shows him wearing the Wings' red (home) uniform from the 2023 Global Series (as attested by the patch on his right pectoral muscle), along with a piece of decorative banner from the event:

Video Of The Week: Everlast

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Former House of Pain lead rapper Everlast successfully reinvented himself as a rugged blues/rap/acoustic rock songwriter after suffering a heart attack at the tail end of the 1990s that required him to no longer Jump Around. While the quality of his recording outpus has been steadily declining since Whitey Ford Sings The Blues (his second-overall solo record but first post-House of Pain), he does have good songs on each subsequent release, and his second and third "Whitey era" records (Eat At Whitey's and White Trash Beautiful) still spin regularly in my home, as does his cover of Johnny Cash's Folson Prison Blues.

He released Embers to Ashes yesterday, and the leadoff video is Mistaken Identity: Let's not kid ourselves: if it wasn't Everlast, I probably wouldn't want to hear that song more than once, but with my favourable sentiment towards Erik Schrody, I don't mind it and might even enter it in a "Songs of 2026" playlist of sorts - though probably not a "Best of the 2020s" nor my "Eternal Playlist", where dozens of his songs still play daily.

It's a typical ballad with themes of loss, yearning, learning and self-affirmation, with a little bit of hip-hop boasting thrown in for good measure, which is possibly where director Ryen McPherson found the inspiration to portray it as a Reservoir Dogs-esque bit of torture porn where Everlast first faces himself at his current age and the victim personae eventually turns into his younger self, played here by Yelawolf, the former Eminem protégé who produced the new record.

Video Of The Week: Dolly Parton (featuring Linda Perry)

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The world got a little bit bleaker today when the news came out that Dolly Parton had passed away at 80 years old, after a short battle with cancer. She was a legendary songwriter, a talented singer, a renowned philanthropist, as well as an accomplished actress and businesswoman.

Although I had heard her duet with Kenny Rogers, Islands In The Stream, when I was a kid, from it playing on the radio once in a while, I only really got acquanited with the Queen Of Country Music's art via the 1993 album Honky Tonk Angels with Loretta Lynn and Tammy Winette, which came a year after Whitney Houston's cover of I Will Always Love You for the soundtrack to The Bodyguard. From then I fell into such classics as Jolene and Coat Of Many Colors, and the poppier 9 To 5.

She was inducted in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2022, a nomination she initially wanted to pass on, but was convinced to accept after fan pressure and the Hall explaining that her influence surpassed the realm of country music and that "Rock And Roll" had a meaning that extended beyond the straight line from Elvis Presley to The Beatles to Led Zeppelin to Soundgarden. But she insisted on making a "rock" album to justify her inclusion, with such luminaries as Sting, John Fogerty, Steve Perry, Ann Wilson, Steven Tyler, Warren Haynes, Joan Jett, Rob Halford, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Pat Benatar, Peter Frampton and Stevie Nicks, among others, offering to lend a hand in what was ultimately a gloriously tacky record that warrants an A for effort and C+ for execution. From the second disc of that album is a cover of 4 Non Blondes' What's Up, featuring frontwoman Linda Perry:
I'm not sure how happy Mrs. Perry was that Mrs. Parton changed so many of the lyrics to the song, but this version reflects the way Dolly Parton saw life - with hope and positivity. I'll give it a try myself in her honour.

Video Of The Week: Queens Of The Stone Age

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Just days after leader Josh Homme confirmed having recorded a song with Shania Twain, Queens Of The Stone Age themselves released a video for a country-ish duet with none other than Nikki Lane, this generation's ultimate outlaw country singer: Directed by the duo of Christopher Gruse and Tony Wolski from Hungry Man Productions, with cameos from veteran actors Diedrich Bader (Drew Carey Show, Veep) and wife Dulcy Rogers (Father of the Bride Part II), the video for Easy Street follows a battered and bruised Homme seemingly running from a motley crew of disguised degenerate characters and then hosting a party for them at a huge cottage.

It's definitely a slower jam than most QOTSA songs, but not completely out of place considering past tracks like Make It Wit Chu and the sublimely subdued cover of Billy Idol's White Wedding.

I'll probably require time for it to grow on me a bit more - and will likely hope I don't see it too often live - but it will probably make its way onto my Eternal Playlist eventually.

Video of The Week: Shakira featuring Burna Boy

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I will not be watcing the World Cup, as I am really not a futbol fan, but there is no denying that Shakira's new song for the occasion, Dai Dai (with Burna Boy), is extremely catchy:
The video was directed by Hannah Lux Davis, who has worked with dozens of pop stars (Ariana Grande, Shakira, Katy Perry, Demi Lovato, Nicki Minaj, Miley Cyrus, Avril Lavigne, Christina Aguilera, and Hilary Duff) and rappers (Snoop Dogg, Nicki Minaj, Lil' Wayne, 2 Chainz, Doja Cat) in the past decade and a half. The colours are vibrant, there are plenty of kids dancing to show the playfulness and unity that the World Cup claims to stand for, and Shakira is as bubbly as can be.