Features Archives

When faced with the daunting task of sifting and winnowing through 10 years and tens of thousands of albums, it's important to lay down some ground rules in determining the very least essential material. For starters, this is an unscientific...

A year ago, The Onion A.V. Club pored over thousands of CDs in an effort to determine the least essential albums of the '90s. This required sticking to some ground rules, which were again followed for a similar roundup this year. For...

For many cultures, the end of the year is rich with tradition, from trimming the Christmas tree or lighting the menorah to popping champagne corks as the year's final seconds tick away. In the offices of The Onion A.V. Club, the most...

In past years, "Least Essential Reality-TV Offshoots" would have been a simple category with a single winner: say, 2002's American Idol: Greatest Moments, which etched Jim Verraros' name permanently into the pop canon. In 2003, the...

Giant plastic nativity scenes in the neighbors' front yard. Airings of Jingle All The Way on bottom-feeding basic-cable stations. The return of Lexus commercials in which unspeakably rich families playfully surprise their loved ones with...

In 1999, as part of an attempt to establish a holiday perennial along the lines of Charlie Brown specials and advent calendars, The Onion A.V. Club launched an exhaustive and exhausting campaign to determine each year's least essential...

Some albums sound like instant classics. Others sound like instant dreck. Then there are those that have no apparent reason to exist.

The A.V. Club's Weekly List.

The arrival of widespread musical movements—like Elvis Presley in the '50s, the British Invasion in the '60s, punk in the '70s, or hip hop in the '80s—tend to reflect key changes in society. All of the above eras are...

Checking in with the latest, newly stationary incarnation of Perry Farrell's all-day music festival.