Monday, March 5 2012
I Heard You Missed Us (Says Van Halen and Many, Many Others)—We’re Back!
The David Lee Roth-fronted Van Halen returns after a 28-year absence. Who else has made fans wait that long? Quite a few, it turns out.
Monday, November 7 2011
‘The Walking Dead: Complete First Season’ When Featurettes Are More Plentiful Than Brains
Come for the brains, stay for the special features ...
Thursday, November 3 2011
‘Maxwell Street Blues’ Is a Toe-Tapping Time Capsule
Viewing Maxwell Street Blues paradoxically stirs simultaneous emotions of melancholy and elation. Much like what happens when singing the blues.
Friday, October 7 2011
New Jack Swing Forever: How a Movement Redefined an Era
New Jack Swing was the soundtrack to young America of the late 1980s and early 1990s in the same vein that Motown was the soundtrack to young America of the 1960s.
Wednesday, September 28 2011
Michael Jackson, Dangerous, and the Reinvention of Pop
Nirvana and company may have killed off '80s rock. But if pop was dead, its "king" had successfully created alternatives.
Tuesday, September 27 2011
Smells Like MTV: Music Video and the Rise of Grunge
MTV’s central role in delivering grunge to a national audience in the early 1990s demonstrated the network’s power as a creator and definer of culture, and the reaction of many of grunge’s iconic figures against the video medium revealed the gulf between principle and reality.
Friday, September 9 2011
Counterbalance: Year One
In this special one-year anniversary edition of Counterbalance, Eric Klinger and Jason Mendelsohn discuss their first year combing through the pop music canon (as determined by Acclaimed Music's calculations of every best-of list available), share a few favorites, and justify a couple items on their expense account.
Thursday, September 1 2011
20 Unsung Music Videos from the 1980s
PopMatters begins a new series examining at the widespread emergence of music video in the 1980s. From major artists like the Clash, David Bowie, and U2 to less famous brethren such as Haysi Fantayzee and Grandmaster Caz, these are the unsung videos from that decade that might have missed your attention the first time around.
