The many flavors in your ear.
Born: 1969. The book: 1921. The movie: 1946. The music: 1984. The moment: 1871. The look: 1988. The food: 1929. The drink: 1825. The car: 1974. The drive: 1934. The show: 2002. The obsession: 1939. The game: 2000. The country: 1776. The dream: 1968. The art: 1884. The leader: 1932. …
IN WHICH I COMPARE WOMEN I’VE KNOWN TO POP SONGS BECAUSE THAT’S THE KIND OF HIGHLY ORIGINAL, NON-OBJECTIFYING HETERONORMATIVE HEPCAT I SWING TO BE #1: You were “Harden My Heart” by Quarterflash. You were by the first band I ever saw in concert of my own volition; and you were, …
Goodness knows, I am no metal purist. I’ve been listening to heavy music for thirty years, and I’ve always been an advocate of the big-tent metaphor; the very title of this feature should clue you in to my feelings about inclusiveness as regards the genre. And although I can understand, …
1. Highly controversial choice meant to enrage readers, thus drawing lots of links and hits 2. Conventional but ‘artsy’ choice to prove aesthetic credentials 3. Completely ordinary choice that is actually the thing you like best, but you put it third so as not to seem obvious 4. Another completely …
It would be a shame if the legacy of Future of the Left’s terrific new album, The Plot Against Common Sense, were reduced to the pissing contest that resulted when a Pitchfork critic gave it a facile and ignorant review, to which bandleader Andy Falkous responded on his own blog with …
FIVE SCENES FROM THE OLD SCHOOL 1. March, 1985. I am in my bedroom at my dad’s rented house in Irving, Texas. I have recently acquired Run-D.M.C.’s second album, King of Rock — the album that begins my lifelong obsession with hip-hop. I move the speakers from the living room and …
It continues to amaze me every day how completely and thoroughly we fail to understand our own culture. It’s especially baffling considering that this country, really, only has pop culture going for it; having given up on the Supermanly troika of truth, justice, and the American Way, and having shipped …
“What matters is not the enclosure of the work within a harmonious figure, but the centrifugal force produced by it — a plurality of language as a guarantee of a truth that is not merely partial.” (Italo Calvino) Hip-hop is dead. So say half the Internet heads who think the …
Regina Spektor’s reputation — around these parts, anyway — is that of a Tori Amos who avoided, by dint of growing up in Reagan-era Soviet Russia, a youthful overdose on self-impressed whimsy. The comparison’s not entirely fair; aside from being attractive quasi-redheads with an affection for piano and theatricality, the …
I was just checking my files, and amazingly, this little dandy has never appeared on my website, residing only in the archives of Von Flue Art Studios. And folks, even though it is a cartoon about a video game character from several years ago, it deserves better than that. I …
As much as I liked the music I was now doing, I think my name in the clubs was still shit, and a lot of critics probably still thought I was a junkie. I wasn’t real popular at this time, but that began to change after I played at the …
Nineteen Eighty-Four is not often thought of as a useful text for illumination of the art of criticism, but like all great writers, Orwell contained multitudes of meaning in his writing, leaving great lessons barely concealed for application to whatever subject needed them. At the book’s very beginning, Winston Smith opens …
Donald Dunn, whose old man named him “Duck” when the both of them were sitting around watching cartoons in their modest house in Memphis, was touring Japan with his old friend the Colonel, backing up Eddie Lee Floyd as they’d done so many times before in the past. After last …
Some time ago, a friend of mine was discussing the painful direction criticism has taken in the internet age. He suggested, in a bit of phrasing that has struck me as extremely perceptive ever since, that part of the problem is that people no longer approach art with any sense …
1. EVASIVE: Do you think you’re a nasty girl? 2. DEMOCRATIC: All right, everybody, let’s get a show of hands. If you think she’s a nasty girl, raise your hand and say ‘aye’. 3. PSYCHOLOGICAL: It’s not really important whether or not I think you’re a nasty girl. 4. SOCIOLOGICAL: Just …
