Busted Headphones
by Quentin B. Huff
Mama Said Knock You Out: Hip-Hop & the Family Unit [16 May 2008]
There are four hip-hop rules for families. One: Fathers, take care of your children and their mothers. Two: Don't talk about other people's mamas. Three: Be good to your own mother. Four: Repeat as necessary.

Queer, Isn't It?
by Michael Abernethy
The People at the Airport Took it Well [15 May 2008]
Gay visibility on TV may have increased significantly in the last three decades, but consigned to secondary roles on network shows, the impact of that visibility is weakened.

Hapa Nation
by May-lee Chai
A ‘Loving’ Memorial [14 May 2008]
Mildred Dolores Loving was one of those quiet American heroes who changed the course of US history.

Dread Reckoning
by Marco Lanzagorta
The Demise of Horror Culture? [13 May 2008]
While the horror classics of 1968 may have indeed revitalized the genre, few today are aware of these movies' impact on the canon...if they acknowledge them at all.

Global Beat Fusion
by Derek Beres
Three Nights in France [12 May 2008]
Beres hits Paris and Bourges to take in the eclectic sounds of Transglobal Underground, Les Primitifs du Futur, Watcha Clan, and Fat Freddy's Drop, and gets pulled into the "sacred space" that solders the connection between sound and human.

Pop Past
by Mike Ward
Godzilla: The Biggest Blockbuster [9 May 2008]
This summer's blockbusters got nothin' over the biggest, beastiest blockbuster of all...

Rabble Without a Cause
by Bill Reagan
Vote for the Prettiest [8 May 2008]
US presidential elections are suspiciously like high school popularity contests, er, elections -- it's not who you know, it's who knows you.

Pop Goes Philosophy
by George Reisch
Cultural Meanings in America Make Benefit Glorious Bank Accounts of Creationists [7 May 2008]
Is Ben Stein taking a page from Michael Moore? No, from Borat is more like it.

Sub Rosa
by Mikita Brottman
E-mails from the Dead [6 May 2008]
Like a cyber séance, of sorts, these Internet services have become a means for the dead to speak to the living.

Mixtape Confessions
by Ben Rubenstein
When They’re 65… [5 May 2008]
What will some of today's most well-known hip-hop artists be doing in 2035? Maybe they won't be running the music world, but they'll probably be doing something beyond applying Fixodent to their grills.

Variations on a Theme
by Chadwick Jenkins
The Practicality of the Impossible: John Cage and the Freeman Etudes [2 May 2008]
John Cage replaces the comforting order of the cosmos with the recalcitrant, indecipherable organization of a part of the universe. Each sound, radically set off from the others, demands that we hear it in isolation.

Moving Pixels
by Mike Schiller
The Game World / Real World Interface [1 May 2008]
"Interfacing" is Moving Pixels' way of taking a look at the tenuous relationship between the gaming world and the real world, and the awkwardness and enlightenment that the intersections between the two can achieve.

The Tackle Box
by Chris Justice
The Real Creel [30 April 2008]
Creels contain volumes of wonderfully imaginative “catches” that, unlike the box’s contents in the myth, unleash a swarm of positive stories and memories that continue life’s flow.

Vox Pop
by Meta Wagner
Broads Don’t Blog, Especially in Haiku [29 April 2008]
Broads can only thrive under certain social conditions, and those conditions, alas, no longer exist. But a new species has emerged...

From the Cheap Seats
by Tobias Peterson
Baptized by Fire: The Persistent Politics of the Olympic Games [28 April 2008]
The Olympic torch should remain a beacon to those who can appreciate the true power that sports have in forcing us to consider the political reality of the world we all, athletes included, share.

The Lost Signal
by Bill Gibron
Rod Serling and His Evil Art [25 April 2008]
Serling began his career as one of the most celebrated writers of his generation. But it only took one trip to a particularly troubled 'gallery' to undermine his importance and influence within the entertainment industry.

Pop Osmosis
by Jennifer Byrne
No Reply Needed [24 April 2008]
Have 'REPLY ALL' emails become the latest outlet for the modern obsession with self-expression and fame?

Sticky Wickets
by Robert Collins
A Formula One Fairy Tale [23 April 2008]
Gather round children, and I’ll tell a tale tragic yet true of the demise of the sport old timers once called Formula One.

Lowbrow Literati
by Monte Williams
We Dream We’re the People in Songs [22 April 2008]
Is he strumming your face with his fingers? And singing your life with his words?

The Box Office Belletrist
by Jennifer Makowsky
Love in the Time of Record Shops [21 April 2008]
Technology may have changed the way we obtain music, but as Nick Hornby's High Fidelity reminds us, it can never alter our love affair with the medium.

Blood and Thunder
by Adrien Begrand
Into the Void: John Darnielle on Sabbath, Extreme Metal, and Indie Rock [18 April 2008]
Begrand dives into metal fandom with the Mountain Goats' John Darnielle, who discusses the Mighty Riff, the uneasy relationship between indie and metal camps, and the life experiences behind his new book on Black Sabbath's Master of Reality.

Jazz Today
by Will Layman
R.I.P. Smooth Jazz, 1985-2008? [17 April 2008]
With two of the US' major "smooth jazz" radio stations defunct to the fickleness of format change, the time to mourn the cheesy sub-genre is now. But what made Smooth Jazz not really jazz at all?

Out of Context
by Ryan Smith
The Banality of a Wanna Be Robin Hood [16 April 2008]
As I walked into the payday loan company's office I wondered, Did any of the union welders on the Death Star walk out once they realized what "Project DS" stood for?

Dread Reckoning
by Marco Lanzagorta
A Terrifying Ruby Jubilee [15 April 2008]
As a pivotal year of social change and as a cultural stepping stone, 1968 saw the radicalization of American society, and an accompanying revolution in the realm of horror genre filmmaking.

Global Beat Fusion
by Derek Beres
Women of the (Music) World [14 April 2008]
There is little in this world as beautiful as the female voice. Sometimes it’s necessary to stop and remind ourselves of this.

Busted Headphones
by Quentin B. Huff
Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: Hip-Hop’s Fight Against Time [11 April 2008]
Hip-hop fights haters, record labels, rival emcees, and even the law. Time, however, has proven to be a formidable opponent.

Channel Crossings
by Raphaël Costambeys-Kempczynski
1977: The Year Decency Died - Part II [10 April 2008]
If punk’s message was ‘destroy’, then inevitably wrapped up in its own scream of existence was its dying breath. No sooner was 1977 declared the year of punk than the death of punk was in the cards.

Channel Crossings
by Raphaël Costambeys-Kempczynski
1977: The Year Decency Died - Part I [9 April 2008]
"I loathe and detest everything they stand for and look like. They are obnoxious, obscene and disgusting."

Rabble Without a Cause
by Bill Reagan
Kill the One with the Ball, or How I learned to Love Capitalism [8 April 2008]
For many of us, preparation for real life happened not in the classroom, but on the playground at recess. There's a lot to be learned about Capitalism from the bottom of a schoolyard pig-pile.

Queer, Isn't It?
by Michael Abernethy
Nuke the Kiss [7 April 2008]
For some TV viewers, storylines of adultery, murder, war, rape, etc. are not reprehensible enough to prompt a channel change; two men kissing, however, is another matter.

Marginal Utility
by Rob Horning
Renters: Enemies of the Ownership Society [4 April 2008]
In light of the recently burst housing bubble and the resulting inflation, this renter is having a hard time maintaining sympathy for borrowers who went in over their heads, buying homes with far more space than needed.

The Outré Oeuvre
by Bill Gibron
Five from Beyond the Fringe [3 April 2008]
In the following five examples of fringe films, we have movies so amazing, originality so outstanding, that the entire cinematic situation offered defies comprehension.

Vox Pop
by Meta Wagner
Obama, Clinton, and Cantaloupes [2 April 2008]
The media will keep playing YouTube videos and speculating about politicians’ intentions rather than doing the hard investigative work -- simply because they can.

Call and Response
by Dan Nishimoto
It Ain’t No Joke [1 April 2008]
Hip-hop, like most other arts, intentionally pays humor less mind because, hey, it's not supposed to be taken seriously! But seriously.

Lowbrow Literati
by Monte Williams
Whitewash [31 March 2008]
A small town white boy looks back at pop culture's impact on his concept of race while growing up, and how racism and homophobia are expressed and addressed in today's pop climate.

Subversive Rock Humor
by Iain Ellis
Gene Vincent:  A Caricature Portrait of the Artist as Rebel Rocker [28 March 2008]
Nostalgic craving for the iconic Gene gene still burns bright, as look-alikes (young and old) exaggeratedly hiccup their way through “Be-Bop-a-Lula”.

The Tackle Box
by Chris Justice
Shad: An Undeniably American Icon [27 March 2008]
Emerson spoke of it in a eulogy for Thoreau, not long after, it fueled Doherty and his cavalry in their relentless pursuit of Booth -- no wonder McPhee calls it America's "founding fish".

Sub Rosa
by Mikita Brottman
Customer Feedback [26 March 2008]
Some Amazon buyers serve as "culture jammers", expressing their contempt for advertisers through simple acts of creative customer feedback.

Mixtape Confessions
by Ben Rubenstein
TV Commercials: the New, Nonstop Playlist [25 March 2008]
TV commercials have become a legitimate source for discovering new music -- from Wilco on the Volkswagen ads, to Cat Power hawking DeBeers diamonds, to any number of artists pimping Apple.

The Box Office Belletrist
by Jennifer Makowsky
The Escape Artist [24 March 2008]
The desire to escape that lives in each of us, and the consequences of acting on that desire, is what makes us care for Chris McCandless (Into the Wild), and what makes his short life such a compelling story.

Field Studies
by Andrew Gilstrap
Anger With Stoic Dignity [21 March 2008]
Protest music can go one of three ways: angry, storytelling, or communal. Sowing the Seeds is communal, meant to shore up the spirits of people who are locked together, arm-in-arm, to fight for a common cause.

Blood and Thunder
by Adrien Begrand
Shining in its Evil Splendor [20 March 2008]
PopMatters' Adrien Begrand talks with Tomas Haake about Meshuggah's State of obZen.

PopShots
by Glenn McDonald
Websurfing, Digital Shorts and Lateral Drift [19 March 2008]
Premium beer + long winter months + national health care = fertile breeding ground for resourceful science.

Global Beat Fusion
by Derek Beres
Classical Egypt in America [18 March 2008]
By shining the light on the vast, rich cultures of the Middle East, these musicians are bringing misconceptions and misunderstandings out of the darkness of the past, not to mention the dark corners of our present.

Sticky Wickets
by Robert Collins
Surviving Le Crunch [17 March 2008]
On rugby rivalry, Anglo-French relations, and places in Paris that Englishmen should avoid.

Busted Headphones
by Quentin B. Huff
The Ballot or the Beef [14 March 2008]
It's possible that hip-hop and the US government have been engaged in the longest running beef of all, from the infamous FBI letter sent to NWA in 1998 to the Congressional Hearings in 2007 seeking to investigate hip-hop lyrics.

Queer, Isn't It?
by Michael Abernethy
If It’s Gay, It’s Gotta Be Good, Right? [13 March 2008]
Dante's Cove isn't the only piece of gay schlock to be embraced by the gay and lesbian community – we're quick to latch on to almost anything gay-related and rally around it, no matter how bad it may be.

Vox Pop
by Meta Wagner
A Return to Rhetoric [12 March 2008]
Long past the days of the eloquent Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., or John F. Kennedy, Americans have rediscovered the desire to be absorbed by words, stirred by words, even awed by words, again.

Jazz Today
by Will Layman
The Gap: Charles Lloyd [11 March 2008]
Saxophonist Charles Lloyd enjoyed periods of critical acclaim, popular celebration, eccentric withdrawal, and general trivialization. He was easy to ignore if you came of jazz fan age after 1970, and that's a shame.

Rabble Without a Cause
by Bill Reagan
Get on the Bus: A Tutorial for the US Presidential Candidates [10 March 2008]
While it may be noisy, cramped, and crowded with voices that sound nothing like the candidates', every bus is a microcosm America -- and a perfect place to really meet "the people".

Negritude 2.0
by Mark Reynolds
Retelling the History of Black Music: Part I: Adventures in Retro-ism [7 March 2008]
Rightly or wrongly, black audiences have always tended to chase musical innovation, not musical reverence.

From the Cheap Seats
by Tobias Peterson
The Play’s the Thing: Public Shaming of Pro Athletes [6 March 2008]
What no one in Congress will admit: morality in sports is pure theater.

The Box Office Belletrist
by Jennifer Makowsky
Standing by Stephen King [5 March 2008]
Childhood and the end of innocence are vividly portrayed in Stephen King's novella The Body, and Rob Reiner's excellent interpretation, Stand by Me.

The Lost Signal
by Bill Gibron
Sex, Conservative Style [4 March 2008]
Love, American Style's debut was at the very instance when everything censors and prudes had worried over seemed to bubble and blister just beneath the social surface.

Pop Goes Philosophy
by George Reisch and Brandon Forbes
Rock Hits Wall [3 March 2008]
Does a conservative obsession with its past threaten the originality and imagination of today's rock music? Pink Floyd's The Wall casts a long shadow on the genre.

The Bengal Gaze
by Kathryn Hummel
The Rickshaw as an Endangered Species [29 February 2008]
Bangladesh's endangered rickshaws and wallahs serve as brightly coloured, moving works of art, and as constant, mobile displays of human nature – often at its best.

Sticky Wickets
by Robert Collins
A Little Personality Goes a Long Way [28 February 2008]
If sport is the new entertainment, its stars need to astound, amuse and bemuse us. I’m not asking for the full Bobby Fischer, but an occasional bit of craziness would definitely be welcome.

PopShots
by Glenn McDonald
Dear Lost: Lose the Guns [27 February 2008]
The gunplay in Lost shot past the ken of lessons-not-learned in Screenwriting 101 and blasted into an over-the-top Marx Brothers routine.

Mixtape Confessions
by Ben Rubenstein
The Best of the Basket Cases [26 February 2008]
Deep down, in spite of all the bad music I have to plow through, I'm still that 17-year-old kid that can't believe he's getting sent free CDs. I know, I know; it's a rough gig.

Lowbrow Literati
by Monte Williams
Missing Places I’ve Never Been: A Love Letter to Alex Ross [25 February 2008]
The appeal, the madness of Ross' painting is that it makes a scene involving a fight between spandex-clad do-gooders seem almost as important as Rockwell's depiction of the first step to end racial segregation.

The Tackle Box
by Chris Justice
Trout Fishing in America [22 February 2008]
Richard Brautigan’s minimalist prose wove hallucinations into social commentary, pastoral meditations into cultural satire, and journalistic reports about mundane existence into nihilistic, punkish sirens.

Variations on a Theme
by Chadwick Jenkins
Every Good Boy Does Fine [21 February 2008]
Required to take a music class in high school I signed up for chorus, but the teacher offered me $50 to drop the class – and other ruminations about learning to play the piano.

Global Beat Fusion
by Derek Beres
Devotion Through Music [20 February 2008]
Global spiritual traditions are being evolved by artists fusing the best of many worlds, electronic and traditional, into forms of devotion applicable to us all.

Dread Reckoning
by Marco Lanzagorta
American Gothic [19 February 2008]
Grant Wood's 'American Gothic' is an elegant representation of the American nightmare: the horrors and monsters that constantly lurk behind the face of normality.

Sub Rosa
by Mikita Brottman
Plastic Fantastic [19 February 2008]
If you’re not shocked by the idea of mounting a dead animal’s head on the wall, why should you be shocked by Body Worlds 2?

Busted Headphones
by Quentin B. Huff
El Che & the Thriller [15 February 2008]
Rhymefest's mixtape tribute continues hip-hop's longstanding affection for the Jacksons.

The Box Office Belletrist
by Jennifer Makowsky
The Sins of the Sister [14 February 2008]
A director can translate a writer’s words to the screen beautifully, but he can never alter their power on the page. The book and film versions of Atonement prove this all too well.

Channel Crossings
by Raphaël Costambeys-Kempczynski
Songs, Swoosh-ified [13 February 2008]
The quintessential element of the digital audio revolution is the creation of the ‘random’ button, that default 'shuffle function', which renders us no longer creators of mix-tapes, but consumers of playlists.

Blood and Thunder
by Adrien Begrand
Just Let Go: An Interview with Jarboe [12 February 2008]
J2 is what happens when artists like Jarboe and Justin Broadrick meet halfway, then feed off each other.

Rabble Without a Cause
by Bill Reagan
Say It Ain’t So, Senator [11 February 2008]
Concerned that steroids will ruin baseball? Perhaps there's a greater threat to the game: Congress.

Queer, Isn't It?
by Michael Abernethy
Jesus Loves Me, This I Know [8 February 2008]
A Christian nation wouldn't accept homosexuality. The big question, then, is whether America is a Christian nation.

From the Cheap Seats
by Tobias Peterson
Discipline and Punish: The Official Functions [7 February 2008]
Like characters in some morality play, referees are greeted with boos, taunts, profanity, and, on occasion, worse.

Sub Rosa
by Mikita Brottman
When Pets are Past Their Prime [6 February 2008]
Retirement homes for elderly herbivores and posthumous plans for your pet should you kick the proverbial bucket of water, first.

Call and Response
by Dan Nishimoto
Burning Down the House [5 February 2008]
A pack and purge process got Nishimoto to thinking about Jay Electronica, who may be the M.I.A. that hip-hop has been waiting for.

Vox Pop
by Meta Wagner
A How-to for Hillary [4 February 2008]
How we want Hillary to appear before us says a whole lot more about us than it does about her.

ReDotPop
by tjmHolden
Creating Japan: The Truth About the Myth [1 February 2008]
Separated lovers, a hero, a villain, creepy surrogates, immortal power, the wrath of the gods, a perilous journey to hell and back, a breakneck chase, daring escapes, fortune, and an ending that will make you cry yourself to sleep.

Jazz Today
by Will Layman
The Gap: Bix Beiderbecke [31 January 2008]
It's never too late to get hip to a good thing. I've finally opened my ears to '20s-era Bix Biederbecke.

The Outré Oeuvre
by Bill Gibron
Film’s Last Taboo [30 January 2008]
Social hype has given your basic brats a media Teflon coating. Has the time finally come to make them pay?

Marginal Utility
by Rob Horning
The Design Imperative [29 January 2008]
No longer a prole with a dirty toilet, thanks to that fancy toiletbrush in hand, one becomes a fledgling design critic and a curator of the tastefully appointed museum that used to be a one-bedroom apartment.

Mixtape Confessions
by Ben Rubenstein
Love from the ‘90s, Mix-Tape Style [28 January 2008]
Rob Sheffield's Love is a Mix Tape interprets a recent decade in the ever-shifting sound of the universal language.

Out of Context
by Ryan Smith
The Real Surreal World [28 January 2008]
Why are the most visceral, defining moments in our life often perceived as unreal or dream-like?

Subversive Rock Humor
by Iain Ellis
The ‘Dewussification’ of Texas [25 January 2008]
The Texas Jewboys' fan base mutated into a hodge-podge collection of unconventional mavericks, spanning Hells Angels bikers, hardened hippies, and down-to-earth country folk.

Global Beat Fusion
by Derek Beres
Bass Makes the World Go ‘Round [24 January 2008]
As Hamsa Lila knows, the heart and soul of trance lies in the passionate intensity performed by its players.

Sticky Wickets
by Robert Collins
The Flying Dartsmen [23 January 2008]
“Steve Beaton -- The Adonis of darts, what poise, what elegance -- a true roman gladiator with plenty of hair wax.”

PopShots
by Glenn McDonald
In Defense of the Popcorn Movie [22 January 2008]
Wanna get me off my DVD-lovin' couch and into a movie theater? Then gimme the movies that make me feel like a 14-year-old.

Field Studies
by Andrew Gilstrap
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back (A Eulogy for the E Street Sound) [21 January 2008]
When it comes to his work with the E Street Band, Springsteen seems to have tempered or even jettisoned other songwriting trademarks, such as the sense of place that informed so many of his songs.

Marginal Utility
by Rob Horning
The Attention of Last Resort [18 January 2008]
Instead of promoting the sharing of ideas and opinions among friends, social networking sites promote posturing and marketing, friendship as spectatorship, surveillance, and imitation, and give us the attention we crave.

Variations on a Theme
by Chadwick Jenkins
Restoring Intellectual Day [17 January 2008]
It rankles my sensibilities that great music is considered "timeless" and therefore Handel's music still "means" today whatever it was it meant in his own time.

Busted Headphones
by Quentin B. Huff
101 Hip-Hop Albums of 2007 [16 January 2008]
A hundred and one reasons why hip-hop is not dead, say these three opinionators.

Pop Goes Philosophy
by George Reisch and Nick Bostrom
Lead Us Not Into Speculation, Nor Excessive Computation [15 January 2008]
A prominent philosopher argues that you, me, and everyone you know may be an artificial computer-simulation of a person.

Rabble Without a Cause
by Bill Reagan
The Mean Streets of Public Television [14 January 2008]
Oscar the Grouch and Miss Piggy roll up their sleeves for this latest battle in the culture wars: the controversial lyrics of "Elmo's Song".

Queer, Isn't It?
by Michael Abernethy
Getting to Know You [14 January 2008]
In the blogging stage of the information age, there's no reason to not know what the GLBT community is all about.

Negritude 2.0
by Mark Reynolds
Ask an African [11 January 2008]
Africa will play an increasingly pivotal role in world affairs this year, and not just because a guy whose dad was Kenyan is running for President of the United States.

From the Cheap Seats
by Tobias Peterson
Seven Silver Linings for 2007 [10 January 2008]
For the true sports fan, amidst all the drugs, malfeasance, infidelity, greed and inhumanity -- hope is a most important thing.

Garde Manger
by Chika Jenkins
Don’t Let It Spoil Your Appetite [9 January 2008]
Ever try adding a pound of sugar to that roasting chicken? Modern trends in cooking are blurring the boundaries between dessert and dinner.

Mixtape Confessions
by Ben Rubenstein
DJing the Weather Report [8 January 2008]
What is the sound of flowers blooming? How does one match an oncoming storm with sonic accuracy?

Sub Rosa
by Mikita Brottman
Dyke-Alikes [7 January 2008]
Welcome to an alternate universe populated entirely by middle-aged lesbians the likes of Robert Redford, Barry Manilow, Al Franken, and Kim Jong-il.

Out of Context
by Ryan Smith
Just One of the “Schlubs” [7 January 2008]
A walk on the down and out side, sans music soundtrack and poetic interpretation.

Busted Headphones
by Quentin B. Huff
For the Love of the Art [4 January 2008]
How cool is it to go to the "Self Help" section of a bookstore and get a book with life lessons from N.W.A., Little Brother, and Ghostface Killah?