Tuesday, February 21 2012
Man and Mega Man: Better Living Through Retro Game Demos on YouTube
Mega Man blipped back to his control center and I blipped too. I got pulled out of myself, out of my kitchen, and was thrust back into something wholly new yet remarkably the same. This is not the story of my decline. This is the story of how to make it through life without taking any damage.
Full Monty for the Fans: An Interview with the Fray
Despite the group's chart topping success, The Fray frontman Isaac Slade remains very grounded, finding inspiration in Norman Rockwell, wondering if love is keeping the universe together, and yes, what it means to go "Full Monty" for the fans ...
Monday, February 20 2012
Do Or Die: An Interview with Bill Laswell
The mutli-hyphenated recording legend is showing no signs of slowing down, and while Method of Defiance continues releasing albums (and dub-drenched remixed versions of their own albums), Laswell joins PopMatters for a gloriously career-spanning interview.
20 Questions: Gail Simmons
Eat. Write. Travel. Cook. Four little words, an amuse-bouche in the great feast that is food for thought, if you will, that would lead Gail Simmons to her prestigious roles with Food & Wine Magazine, Top Chef and Top Chef: Just Desserts.
Friday, February 17 2012
Love, Death and Bananas: The Early Woody Allen
Woody Allen's early career is a window into his development both as a filmmaker and as an artist. Rarely are an early filmmaker's works so rewarding, where even the most lighthearted farces can be poignant and brilliant, even for a moment.
The End of Money: Counterfeiters, Preachers, Techies Dreamers—and the Coming Cashless Society
The usefulness of physical money -- to say nothing of its value -- is coming under fire as never before. Told with verve and wit, this book explores an aspect of our daily lives so fundamental that we rarely stop to think about it. You’ll never look at a dollar bill the same again.
Thursday, February 16 2012
No Formula for Funny: An Interview with Nick Kroll
Given the sheer number of hit films and TV shows he's been in, Nick Kroll could be listed as one of the most successful comedians of his generation -- yet there are some who don't know who he is. In speaking to PopMatters, he reveals how he creates his celebrated characters.
Wednesday, February 15 2012
Buckets of Bloodlessness: How “Uncanny X-Men” Misses Its Grand Guignol
Uncanny X-Men isn't half the missed opportunity it first appears to be. It's art lies exactly in the tension of walking a highwire of commercial interests and unchecked creative impulses.
Animal Spirits: an Interview with Shearwater’s Jonathan Meiburg
For three albums and half a decade, Shearwater’s Jonathan Meiburg ventured ever further into abstract, imagistic baroque pop. Now in his seventh full-length, Meiburg turns towards a more personal, cathartic sound, written mostly in the first-person, grounded in rock and almost entirely free of bird references.
Tuesday, February 14 2012
My Indie Is Not a Centerfold, Nor Is It Indie
What has come to be known as indie music cannot be recorded and released in places where people are absolutely independent. We need to start thinking -- really, seriously thinking -- about how something that is supposed to be inherently independent can be so dependent on so much else.
20 Questions: Fionn Regan
The Mercury Music Prize-nominated folk artist Fionn Regan has lead a lot of living in a very short while, and while his new album has been getting raves, it's here that he reveals a strong affinity for Dylan Thomas, how his stabs at art are very much informed by his love of music, and why he might be "cruising for a bruising" in those oxblood Doc Martens ...
Monday, February 13 2012
Bored This Way: The 54th Annual Grammy Awards
In the wake of a tragic loss within the music industry, the Grammy Awards actually went on a surprisingly respectful, understated route... before turning into the vapid technicolor circus that has become hallmark for the very worst of Grammy broadcasts.
Five for the Power of Spice: Returning to the Golden Era of the Spice Girls
What the Spice Girls had, at the risk of sounding errantly uncool, was magical. It helped teenaged girls define themselves and their world; jump-started teenage boys’ libidos; provided common listening ground for parents and kids; and, best of all, encouraged exuberant positivity -- something sorely lacking from our hollow, joyless decade.
Friday, February 10 2012
Enjoy Your Life: An Interview with Yelle
They've conquered the world by singing in French, pretending to rap, and releasing remix albums that are almost as acclaimed as their regular ones. Welcome to the topsy-turvy world of Yelle, where fashion, touring, and a love of Mike Meyers all collide ...
Nick Cave’s The Death of Bunny Munro: A Rock Star’s Midlife Crisis or Valid Literature?
Regardless how history comes to look Nick Cave's The Death of Bunny Munro, in the context of Cave’s career, it stands alone as the purest distillation of his artistry -- a poetic novel with Cave’s inimitable brand of the grotesque, absurd and often comic nature of humanity.
Thursday, February 9 2012
“Don’t Let Me Fall”: Hip-Hop in the Age of Austerity
Rappers have always wrestled with the question of how to succeed in a society where the odds are stacked against them. The biggest difference now is that their middle class listeners have the same worries.
“Blue Estate”: A Sardonic Pulp Paradigm?
It's the turning of the final tide, the groundbreaking Blue Estate wraps issue #8, which closes the second volume of the collected editions, and launches issue #9, which opens the final volume. The stakes, and the value, couldn't be higher.
Wednesday, February 8 2012
A Look to the Past, An Insight Into the Present: The Use of Gender in ‘Mad Men’
Looking beyond the aesthetic surface of the series, what is the true motivation behind Mad Men’s frank depictions of these troubled social times? Is sexism being used as some sort of nostalgic trope, or does Mad Men actually delve deeper and explore these issues?
Does Silence Speak in the Loudest Voice?: Misconceptions about Silent Protagonists in Video Games
Granted, Link does “hiyah,” “eyah,” and “ahh” his way through all of his post-64-bit adventures, but no amount of elfish interjections can change his status as a silent protagonist. Is a failure to communicate much, a failure to communicate?
Tuesday, February 7 2012
Mitt Romney Can Reside at Today’s Proverbial ‘Downton Abbey’... Newt Gingrich Cannot
Downton Abbey reveals not only the play of chance that often confounds choice, but the power of social class to confine choice within established boundaries -- and we're comfortable with that.
