MacGuffin Pop

[23 February 2007]

by Zeth Lundy

PopMatters Music Columns/Features Editor

Randy Newman's latest Academy Award nomination makes it easy to forget how truly deceptive his songwriting really is. His music, which rarely wanders far from New Orleans R&B, ragtime, or Brill Building pop, is the stuff of familiarity and comfort, an unassuming foundation of Americana into which subversive (confrontational, even) ideas can be planted.
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