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1980s Pop Music and the Atomic Pleasure Dome
Saturated in apocalyptic fears of the atomic bomb, 1980s music was also danceable and transporting. How can something that was so horrible also be so much fun?
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Richard and Linda Thompson’s ‘Shoot Out the Lights’ 40 Years Later
Forty years later, Richard and Linda Thompson's Shoot Out the Lights retains its mystery and power no matter how much you read into it, or how often.
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41 Essential Pop/Rock Songs with Accordion
No popular musical instrument has been more frequently maligned than the accordion. Despite gaining hipster cred in the 1990s, its role in pop remains underappreciated.
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Andrew Bird’s ‘Inside Problems’ Burrows into Pop History
Andrew Bird's Inside Problems burrows into Beethoven, the Velvet Underground, '60s pop, and his own back catalog.
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Back to Earth on Elf Power’s ‘Artificial Countrysides’
On Artificial Countrysides, Elf Power ground cosmic apocalypse and global destruction into fever dreams from their own backyard.
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Why Is There Still So Much Nostalgia for Nuclear Apocalypse?
The popularity of nuclear apocalypse is nostalgia for a time when our worries were wrapped in a single nuclear package, and all we needed was a bunker and a dream.
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Slow Burn: Bob Marley’s ‘Catch a Fire’ 50 Years Later
Bob Marley's Catch a Fire is when the Wailers transformed into the vehicle of his ascent to superstardom and reggae's assimilation into the global pop music melting pot.
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Just Growing Old? Steely Dan’s ‘Countdown to Ecstasy’ at 50
Steely Dan's Countdown to Ecstasy reveals a progression toward ever more sheen and polish on a smooth shell, the source of the “yacht rock” label that defined them.
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‘Going For Broke’: Life on the Edge By Those Who Live It
Going for Broke: Living on the Edge in the World's Richest Country turns to the real experts on economic hardship in America: those who live it.
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NYC’s Underground Scene: ‘This Must Be the Place’
Music may be the glue of every NYC underground scene This Must Be the Place covers, but Jesse Rifkin’s primary interest is in the community held together by that glue.
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In the Wake of the Grateful Dead in 1973
Looking back after 50 years at the Grateful Dead's pivotal year of 1973, including Wake of the Flood and three November nights at Winterland.
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Teju Cole’s ‘Tremor’ Records a Post-COVID Landscape of Art and Rage
If there is any consolation to be had in Teju Cole's slippery and sinuous Tremor, it's not found in art or literature but in the music that permeates its pages.
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C. D. Rose’s ‘Walter Benjamin Stares at the Sea’ Plays Familiar Games with Time
Walter Benjamin Stares at the Sea plays with postmodernism, autofiction, philosophy, and a short story canon peopled by writers from Augustine to Raymond Carver.
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For the Love of the Crappy Cassette Tape
The peculiar technology of the lo-fi, crappy cassette tape exemplifies the inherent contradictions of popular music better than any other medium.
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Brian Eno’s ‘Here Come the Warm Jets’ After 50 Years
Brian Eno's approach captured the best of what we wanted from punk, new wave, prog, glam, and classic '60s pop and channeled their excesses by relying on chance.
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The Enduring Mystery of the Jaynetts’“Sally Go ‘Round the Roses”
The Jaynett's '60s pop single "Sally Go 'Round the Roses" is equal parts all surface and inscrutable depth, which is why a range of artists cover it to this day.
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Cymande Are Possibly the Most Sampled British Musical Artists of All Time
Cymande were foundational in the creation of hip-hop, disco, house, drum and bass, and rare groove, passed through generations like so much underground music.
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Disillusion and the Glimmer of Hope for American Suburbs
The familiar image of the American suburbs has not changed much since the 1950s. Benjamin Herold's Disillusioned both updates and counters that image.
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Yard Act’s ‘Where’s My Utopia?’ Suits Our Post-Pandemic Moment
Yard Act's Where's My Utopia? is a mother lode of cool sounds, critiques of late capitalism, meditation on fame's futility, and a forecast of apocalyptic change.
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Rosali’s ‘Bite Down’ Sounds Classic
Rosali's Bite Down is a deceptively smooth ride that threatens to pull you under at any moment. Its classic sound draws from Fleetwood Mac and 1970s music.
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