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.
The P.O.V Lounge sits atop the W Washington, DC. A member of Starwood's W Hotel brand, this location has recently hosted performances by the Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Dom, the latter of which emerged from a burgeoning partnership between Stereogum and the W chain. The view from DC's P.O.V Lounge is unparalleled. It offers guests a near-panoramic gaze of the National Mall and Downtown DC. The rough edges of Rosslyn, VA's many…]]>Tim Hall possesses the uncanny gift to compress startling insight into short phrases with such care and concision that he could likely turn a Twitter feed into a system of philosophy.
The first line of Tim Hall’s novel, inspired by his experience writing and editing an underground New York City newspaper, Full of It, is “Some people have a city instead of a life.” In a short story from his collection, Triumph of the Won’t, the protagonist summarizes a romantic relationship from college that consisted solely of exchanging massages by saying, “Sometimes the best sex is the sex you never have.” In his novel about an…]]>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 ...
Fionn Regan has had a bit of a wild ride. Although now barely past the age of 30, this Bray-born folkster has already lead a full and complete musical career. His 2006 debut album, The End of History, was an underground knockout, critically adored for its beautiful melodies and quiet confidence, all while snagging a Mercury Music Prize in the process. What's fascinating about that initial effort, however, was that it was almost entirely composed…]]>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.
If the 54th Annual Grammy Awards broadcast taught us anything this year, it's that there's a profound difference between the deeply personal and the overproduced. Hours before the broadcast began, people were wondering just how the show was going to address the elephant in the room: no less than 24 hours prior to taping, Whitney Houston -- the definitive pop diva -- was found dead in her hotel room at age 48. The world was…]]>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.
“If the girls keep dancing, everybody's happy. If the girls don't dance, nobody's happy.” -- Rob Sheffield, Love Is a Mix Tape Ginger Spice: Check! Scary Spice: What do you mean "check"? Ginger Spice: I mean, check; my bishop's got your king. Scary Spice: Where? Ginger Spice: There! You've either got to move it in front, or move it out of the way. Scary Spice: Well I'll move that fairground horse to there. Sort that…]]>This travelogue takes us four locales: Havana, Chicago, Sydney and Caracas. Each locale translates into distinctive interactions with hip-hop and its pillars of deejaying, emceeing, b-boying, and graffiti.
Location, location, location. That's the mantra of the real estate industry indicating that property values are positively and negatively affected by the areas they inhabit. Hip-hop possesses a similar mantra, espoused by Rakim's "In the Ghetto": "It ain't where you're from, it's where you're at." In the United States, hip-hop has experienced spells of regionalism, wherein New York rap was hailed as hip-hop's birthplace while artists from other sections of the country sought legitimacy: bass-heavy…]]>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 ...
French pop band Yelle (an acronym for "Enjoy Your Life") burst into the music scene a few years ago with their infectious beats and a curious combination of street style and a very Gallic sense of humor. One of their first mainstream singles, "Je Veux Te Voir", contained the lyrics "Je veux te voir/Dans un film pornographique (I want to see you/In a pornographic film)". Catchy songs and vivid music videos helped the group achieve…]]>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.
With the publication of The Death of Bunny Munro in the spring of 2009, Australian songwriter, author, and modern-day renaissance man Nick Cave unleashed on his public perhaps one of the most deviant, despicable protagonists in the entirety of modern literature. Bunny Munro -- drug abusing, chain-smoking, sex-obsessed lothario whose spree of extramarital escapades pushes his unstable wife into the cold arms of suicide and who is so inept as a father that he drags…]]>Films about LGBT people that are aimed at mass audiences win awards; films about LGBT people that are aimed at LGBT audiences… not so much. So, here's the Queer, Isn't It? Best Pic nominees.
When this year's Academy Awards nominations were announced in January, LGBT film buffs scoured them in the annual ritual of counting the number of LGBT-oriented films that got nominations. Last year was the year of the lesbian, with both Black Swan and The Kids are All Right landing multiple nominations each. This year, the whole spectrum of the rainbow is represented. There's both transgenderism and lesbianism in Albert Knobbs, while The Girl with the Dragon…]]>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.
Last year, a few thousand protesters in New York’s Zucotti Park have captured the attention of the nation. Occupy Wall Street’s slogan, “We Are The 99%", has tapped into mass public discontent over the widening amount of income inequality in the United States. On their tumblr page, people have been posting stories of their struggles with student loan debt, inadequate medical coverage and a lack of job opportunities. Many of these young college graduates grew…]]>To create something or to create something that creates something; that is a question. But if you lead an electric horse to art, does it dream of the avant-garde?
The goal of metacreative artists is to endow computer programs with creative behaviors, to create computer algorithms that have the same ability to make artistic decisions within certain frameworks as human beings. To this end, metacreative artists employ the tools and techniques of artificial intelligence and machine learning, the same used in cognitive and life sciences. 1 Metacreative music composers create virtual performers who can generate new and unique compositions, often in real time, with…]]>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.
Image’s crazy pulp series Blue Estate has come full circle in the middle of its back-half of issues. What began in the series’ initial installment as part tease and part sight gag, now wraps up the comic’s out of time sequences. It also serves to underscore the point: Blue Estate is one of the best comic series this past year. We’re moving forward with Blue Estate issues eight and nine. Bruce Maddox is dead, his…]]>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?
Mad Men chronicles the lives of Madison Avenue advertising executives in the early 1960s. The show revolves around an advertising agency called Sterling Cooper, later Sterling Cooper Draper Price (SCDP), and its enigmatic Creative Director Don Draper. Since its premiere on AMC in the summer of 2007, Mad Men has received overwhelming critical acclaim for its “unflinching portrayal of Eisenhower/Kennedy-era sexism” (Schwarz, 4) and has built a dedicated viewership of rapid fans. Additionally, much has…]]>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?
As far as narrative and gameplay mechanics go, the silent protagonist has a long and venerable history in video games. In fact, it is only a slight exaggeration to say that the silent protagonist has been around as along as the medium itself. In the late 70s, the text-based RPGs Colossal Cave Adventure and Zork featured silent protagonists borrowed straight out of the D&D tradition, and the advent of graphical interfaces gave the first Ultima…]]>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.
“Mitt Romney is a rich man, but is Mitt Romney’s character formed by his wealth? Is Romney a spoiled, cosseted character? Has he been corrupted by ease and luxury? The notion is preposterous.” -- David Brooks, “The Wealth Issue,” New York Times, 19 January 2012 “As a man is, so he sees.” -- William Blake Whether we believe or not that a person’s character can be formed by wealth or, for that matter, by poverty,…]]>Special programs devoted to cinematic greats like Alfred Hitchcock or Deborah Kerr might be the flashiest part of an archivist’s job, but fiction curator Jo Botting also enjoys tracking down rare films and ensuring the next generation gets to see them.
The theater lights dim, and everyone’s attention turns to the screen as a story comes to life. But what happens after the screenings end and the film is relegated to moviegoers’ memory? Who decides whether, years from now, that film will again grace another screen or be re-introduced to new audiences? Jo Botting, Fiction Curator at the British Film Institute (BFI) National Archive, can answer those questions first-hand. She helps ensure that the world’s cinematic…]]>Crusty walls of distortion co-exist with pop hooks in the second and latest solo album from Liam Finn. Here the songwriter talks about taking a break from life on the road to write FOMO in far-off New Zealand, working with producer Burke Reed and percussionist Glenn Kotche to seriously tinker with his sound and taking inspiration from, of all people, Beyoncé.
"As a sonic thing, I really loved the way that bands like the Latin Playboys had made records that mixed that lo-fi thing with the high-fi stuff in a really beautiful way," says Liam Finn. "They showed how you could make your sound as interesting and crusty and wild as possible, but if you've got one element like a vocal, one thing that's recorded beautifully, it's an otherworldly element." Liam Finn has a feel for…]]>In 1982, with the charts ruled by “Physical”, “Don’t You Want Me” and “Eye of the Tiger”, along came a low-tech record about killers, small-time thieves and other forgotten souls -- and it's still one of the best albums in American music.
I was sent David Burke’s thorough and incisive new book, Heart of Darkness, Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, and was reminded that March is the 30th Anniversary of the release of Nebraska, so I figured that’s as good an excuse as any to muse on about one of the most extraordinarily brave records ever released by a major artist and the happenstance that helped bring it to creation. A little context. In the late fall of 1981,…]]>Filmmaker Kevin Smith may be in a celluloid slump, but his new podcast network is on point.
Just two years ago, Kevin Smith was at a crossroads. Cop Out, the first movie he directed from a script he didn't write, starring Tracy Morgan and Bruce Willis, tanked at the box office. It was the second straight box office bust for him after the weak performance of Zach and Miri Make a Porno. But Cop Out was different: it was panned by critics and not received warmly by his old fans. Burned by…]]>The concept of a “trilogy” is such an overdone thing. Be it film trilogies, album trilogies, book trilogies, video game trilogies… we have all seen trilogies in various forms of entertainment media to the point of it becoming banal. At the end of the Deathspell Omega experience however, do not be alarmed if you wake up to find yourself in Silent Hill.
Clandestine French black metallers Deathspell Omega are a rare breed; they have had their fair share of primitive black metal days just like most other black metal forces of the metal underworld had, and yet after only two albums of primitive black metal worship (2000’s Infernal Battles and 2002’s Inquisitors Of Satan), they were already at the frontlines of something new. They possess something so rare and different in the contemporary black metal scene that…]]>It's been our longest interview for an exclusive yet, Editor John Ficarra, the mind behind MAD. And it ends in the most unexpected place; compassion.
4am isn't even an idea yet. But I'm up, I'm up. Tom Waits drones out in a part of the house that is safe enough and distant enough to not wake She Who Gently Snores. It's a vain prayer for "hair-of-the-dog". A hope that by actually playing "Little Drop of Poison" out loud the song will no longer loop on the iPod of my mind. To no avail thus far. Shakespeare arcs across neurons, "If…]]>The three-day 2011 edition of Slipped Discs -- where we feature great albums that missed our Best Albums of 2011 -- concludes with the smart hip-hop of the Roots, indie greatness from Real Estate and Youth Lagoon, blasts out of the UK from WU LYF and We Were Promised Jetpacks, and many more.
Artist: Real Estate Album: Days Label: Domino US Release Date: 2011-10-18 UK Release Date: 2011-10-17 Image: http://images.popmatters.com/music_cover_art/r/real_estate_days.jpg Display as: List Display Width: 200 Real EstateDays With Days, Real Estate has crafted a soundtrack for doing nothing and whiling away the time. Real Estate's loosey-goosey aesthetic is quintessentially indie, but the New Jersey outfit's languorous melodies seem to revel in ennui even more than your average slack-rock band. So while Real Estate is basically a straightforward,…]]>Serge Marcotte's The Sickroom compresses Franz Kafka's A Country Doctor into a nightmarish rush of hard-boiled film noir cynicism that, like all the best literary adaptations, is simultaneously faithful and unique.
One morning, when Retro Remote woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin: he realised that he hated short films. Perhaps it was the delayed after-effects of enforced undergraduate film project screenings, perhaps it was the blatant "calling card" mentality of the productions, perhaps it was just the recurring tendency to be "cute" or "clever" rather than, y'know, interesting, or perhaps the converse tendency towards impossible pretension (something…]]>At the end of the day, "insincerity is so visible, says the much-loved Canadian troubadour.
At just 28 years old, Dan Mangan has secured a favoured spot among the short list of "buzz" artists in his home country of Canada. A famously dogged worker -- Mangan seemed to rise to his current success through sheer force of will -- he is also a committed craftsman, and his three successive records have demonstrated not just his own evolving talent as a songwriter, but also his maturing approach to presentation and performance.…]]>After a British government official declared them "Wreckers of Civilization", Throbbing Gristle understood their mission -- to destroy the Control society.
When we finished that first record, we went outside and we suddenly heard trains going past, and little workshops under the railway arches, and the lathes going and electric saws, and we suddenly thought, "We haven't actually created anything at all, we've just taken it in subconsciously and re-created it." -- Genesis P-Orridge, 1983 Imagine walking down blurred streets of havoc, post-civilisation, stray dogs eating refuse, wind creeping across tendrils…. It's the death factory society,…]]>Al Mundy (Robert Wagner) enjoys a reputation as a world-class thief, a glamorous burglar, a pickpocket's pickpocket. Too bad he landed in prison.
A product of TV's schizophrenic late '60s, It Takes a Thief is a light-hearted escapist adventure that ran on America's ABC network from January 1969 to March 1970. Some shows come out on DVD a season at a time, or even half a season, but not this one. The box contains all three seasons plus a few bonuses, and we shall stroll through the summery maze of its garden with our magnifying glass in one…]]>Hollow Earth isn’t just any book. It may be the Next Big Thing in young adult (YA) literature. It’s cover proclaims that “Imagination can be a dangerous thing,” but fans of John and Carole E. Barrowman are more than willing to take that risk.
Carole Barrowman admitted on Facebook that she squealed when she saw the cover of her first young adult novel, Hollow Earth. Many first-time novelists might have a similar reaction, but Carole is not your typical author. Her previous non-fiction books have made best seller lists. Plus, her co-author (and brother) is entertainer John Barrowman. If anyone should be used to the spotlight or even blasé about success, it’s these siblings. However, Hollow Earth isn’t just…]]>I'll Be There in the Morning offers an affectionate but hardly rose-colored view of Townes Van Zandt and his influence on other songwriters.
The 1st of January 2012 marked the 15th anniversary of singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt's death. By most accounts, Van Zandt's final days were hard ones, as his years of substance abuse wore him down before exacting their final price. Unsurprisingly, this only added to the legend of Van Zandt, even though he was already regarded as one of the best songwriters to ever come out of Texas. Like Hank Williams before him (who also died…]]>The three-day 2011 edition of Slipped Discs -- where we feature great albums that missed our Best Albums of 2011 -- continues with the forward-thinking R&B of Frank Ocean, the Americana brilliance of Ha Ha Tonka and Lydia Loveless, the unheralded collaboration of Talib Kweli and Res, and many more.
Artist: The Go! Team Album: Rolling Blackouts Label: Memphis Industries US Release Date: 2011-01-31 Image: http://images.popmatters.com/music_cover_art/3/3154588.jpg Display as: List Display Width: 200 The Go! TeamRolling Blackouts There's really no concise way to sum up what you're hearing when you listen to Rolling Blackouts, despite the unmistakable Go! Team-ness of every single one of their songs. It's difficult to parse the common bond between the marching band-inspired noise-pop of "T.O.R.N.A.D.O." and the jangly '60s girl group…]]>As challenging as it can be to grow up gay or lesbian in an area where the next closest homosexual is 50 miles away, it's often not the sad existence that an urban dweller might assume it to be.
"Berea's got to be the gayest place in Kentucky, outside of Louisville and Lexington," this according to Seth, a young gay man from the town of just over 11,000. While it may be difficult to quantify Seth's assertion, the fact that this rural town located south of Lexington has one of the state's largest arts communities lends some credence to the claim. What's more, census data reveals that there are between 100 to 200 same-sex…]]>Yet for all of the good will and good information generated by focusing on Grambling, there is still a deeper story to be told about the other great black college football programs and coaches.
There's an old joke that goes like this: a newlywed couple sits down for dinner and right before the wife serves the roast she asks the husband, "Can you cut the edges off of the roast?" The husband replies, "Why do I have to cut off the edges?" The wife replies, "Its a family tradition. The open edges lets the flavor circulate and it tastes better." The husband cuts off the edges and the roast…]]>The three-day 2011 edition of Slipped Discs -- where we feature great albums that missed our Best Albums of 2011 -- kicks off with Akron/Family's most experimental work, Kate Bush's sound poetry, the stunning Anna Calvi, the brilliant hip-hop of Drake, and many more.
Artist: 13Ghosts Album: Garland of Bottle Flies Label: Skybucket US Release Date: 2011-11-08 UK Release Date: 2011-11-08 Image: http://images.popmatters.com/music_cover_art/g/garland.jpg Display as: List Display Width: 200 13GhostsGarland of Bottle Flies Garland of Bottleflies exists where several dark fringe lines cross. It's a rock 'n' roll record at turns quiet and brash, but its conflicted, restless, paranoid, violent, literate Southern Gothic heart elevates it above most other records released in 2011. Principal songwriter/vocalist Bradley Armstrong paints a…]]>Critics can be fools, particularly in their own eyes. Here are five jazz discs from 2011 that should have been on my top ten list but slipped from view, then. It's not too late to dig them.
To be a critic is to risk being a boob. Those who dare to open their blabbermouths and spout an opinion are going to get called on the carpet. As they should. And in the arts, with matters of judgment being highly subjective, getting it “wrong” is essentially guaranteed. Not everyone can agree with you. And often enough, a critic can’t even agree with himself. For me, as a jazz critic, the music is in…]]>I have the greatest record collection imaginable. But it's almost exactly the same as all of Rhapsody’s other customers.
As an always music-obsessed but often cash-strapped kid, I could never have guessed that one day my record collection would be better than the entire inventory of the used-record stores I used to browse for hours on end. Or that your record collection would be just as good. In the age of vinyl, owning an album was a physical act, and perhaps even an accomplishment. There were obstacles and limitations, including the inventory of your…]]>This year was a year when something called Lesbian Spider-Queens of Mars could be celebrated alongside the latest Gears of War game. This was a year in which one of the most reviled games, Dragon Age II, was also one of the most revered.
Our Game of the Year list is taking shape. I don't remember the previous year being so full of nauseating dilemmas. “Mass Effect 2! DONE." -- Ludwig Kietzmann (@ludwigk), Senior Editor, joystiq.com It's not clear yet exactly what 2011 will mean for video games once we gain the perspective of hindsight. It could be that the increased quality of independent and digitally-distributed games is blurring the lines of what are considered truly great game experiences;…]]>Where are these towns and neighborhoods that Montgomery Gentry sing about? The Mythical Country; the country that exists in the collective imagination of Nashville songwriters and singers, and that of the audience.
Montgomery Gentry’s newest album, Rebels on the Run, has a song about the town they’re from (“Where I Come From”), one about the people who live there (“I Like Those People”), one about the “hardworking Americans” they know there (“Work Hard, Play Harder”), one about their closest male friends there (“Rebels on the Run”), and at least two about the lifestyle they and their friends lead there (“Damn Right I Am” and “Simple Things”). Besides…]]>PopMatters previews some of February's most eagerly awaited offerings.
February is the month when the record release schedule really comes out of hibernation and starts to heat up with the year’s first batch of anticipated albums. In addition to a list of notable releases for February, PopMatters previews some of the month’s eagerly awaited offerings. Artist: Archers of Loaf Album: Vee Vee (Remastered) Label: Merge Image: http://images.popmatters.com/reviews_art/a/archers_vee_vee.jpg Display Width: 200 Display as: List US Release Date: 2012-02-21 UK Release Date: Import Archers of LoafVee…]]>It's especially hard to shift between being a world-class media theorist writing nonfiction, and a writer of fiction. That's even more so when the fiction appears as comics. Why does Douglas Rushkoff make it look so easy?
It's hard not to trust Douglas Rushkoff immediately from just speaking to him. He's polite, unassuming, affable. And one of the secret architects of the kind of criticism that is now shifting to the core of interpreting our progressive easing into digital culture. The interview begins with my almost Stockholm-Syndromed awe. One of the most rewarding aspects of the interview however, is the ease with which Douglas is able to return to the ideas themselves.…]]>In speaking to PopMatters about the creation of the Flaming Lips' latest edible piece of insanity, frontman Wayne Coyne reveals how he turned mistakes into opportunities, gives much love to the major label he's signed to, and remains unshakably upbeat about what's next for one of the greatest bands working today.
Talking to Wayne Coyne is exhausting. It's not that the enigmatic frontman of the Flaming Lips doesn't have anything interesting to say, but rather the opposite. Ideas come quickly, like an enthusiastic machine gun. There are many reasons why so many people love the Flaming Lips -- their unhinged pop aesthetic; the sheer massiveness of their sound; their theatrical live performances; their weirdness -- but if not for Coyne, none of that would even exist.…]]>By the end of this film, the line dividing Tabloid from “the tabloids” thins to the point of imperceptibility.
Most of us have been there: The moment in a conversation when we realize that the person with whom we’re speaking is oversharing. We want to listen, but even listening becomes stressful as the pace and intensity of the monologue increases. Small talk becomes a recitation of a life story, and all of its heights and hardships. The longer this continues, we realize we’re approaching a point of no return, wherein it’s easier to indulge…]]>War is a science, science is an art and art, as Library After Air Raid attests, is everything.
In June of 2011, I purchased a postcard reproduction of Library After Air Raid (London 1940) (depiction, following page) at Vroman’s Books in Pasadena, California, and for the duration of that year, 12 months that were as hellish and chaotic for me as the events memorialized in the anonymous photographer’s lens from 1940, that postcard was always within arm’s reach; sometimes I employed it as a book mark for books I never finished reading. When…]]>Batman is a bit player in his own story, and I think a lot of that stems from his desire to save everyone.
Playing Batman: Arkham City has confirmed a suspicion I’ve had for a while now: Batman is a boring character. Sure, some writers and directors have done interesting things with him, and those stories are rightly propped up as the best of the Batman stories, but for the most part, he’s surprisingly static. Arkham City serves as the perfect example: Batman doesn’t change. He doesn’t develop over the story, he doesn’t grow, and there are no…]]>Exploring the strange parallels between the writing of mythologist Joseph Campbell and the first four Police Academy films.
What do Joseph Campbell and Officer Carey Mahoney have in common? Odysseus. Prometheus. Moses. Officer Carey Mahoney? Well, yes. The idea that all narratives share common themes and structures was coined as a “Monomyth” or “Hero’s Journey” by author Joseph Campbell. Campbell posits that, with some minor tweaks here and there, every story can be boiled down to the following essentials: “A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of…]]>“Everything that [people] think and everything that they see and everything that they say [about me] is just make believe. It’s all just made up. Most of it is just a projection of who they wish they could be and that’s a shame because I spend a lot of time trying to tell people that they already are amazing. They see nothing in me but themselves."
Anthony Green has made a name for himself over the course of the better part of the last decade as the wild and unpredictable front-man of some of post-punk’s more buzz worthy acts, most notably with his current band Circa Survive. His entertaining and often-untamed stage presence and quirky personality coupled with one of the most distinct voices in rock today have lent a hand in elevating him to lofty heights in the eyes of…]]>She's a young country hopeful with an incredible voice and even more incredible songs. Speaking with PopMatters, we discover how some of her new songs were originally written when she was 16, the "anti-folk" influence on her own work, and how she very well could've made it as a stand-up comedian ...
Having gained momentum and increased notoriety over the past several years, 2011 has been the biggest year yet for Nashville singer-songwriter Caitlin Rose. Buoyed by the strength of her Dead Flowers EP, her Own Side Now full-length, and her charming live shows, Rose has signed to ATO Records, headlined tours in the UK, and earned a heaping portion of critical acclaim along the way. With an ardent ear for the most personal of human emotions,…]]>Bowie's odd magnetism has long been interpreted as a function of his ambiguous sexuality, but could it be that he was transgressing more than just gender norms and heralding the rise of the man/machine?
An older cousin introduced me to David Bowie’s Space Oddity, an album he insisted he hadn’t purchased. It had mysteriously appeared in his stack of records and he wanted me to take it off his hands; it would have made him a pariah to own it, even if he acquired it unintentionally. To be clear, there once was a time when Bowie was decidedly not cool. On this, Bowie’s second album under his own name,…]]>The HBO dramedy How to Make It in America, despite being one of television's best programs, could not make it because it was too hopeful and joyful to survive a culture of cyncism.
Once upon a time, a fundamental aspect of compelling narrative was the presence of, at least, one likable character. In recent years, however, a character who is kind, decent, gentle and joyful has become a pariah on American television. Good people are routinely eliminated to create space for boring anti-heroes who are sold as fascinating because, despite being violent, vicious, racist, or sexist, they occasionally show a slight hint of humanity. The cynicism and nihilism…]]>The most frustrating thing about the controversial new copyright legislation making its way through Congress? It lacks creativity.
On a list of people I’d most like to spend New Year’s Eve with, lawyers don’t rank particularly high – well below musicians, writers, and doctors, though still above the likes of actuaries, SEO experts, and whatever Fergie is. But somehow I found myself ringing in 2012 amidst a group of recent Bar-passers, only a few of whom I’d actually met before that night. Thankfully, the legal discussions were kept to a minimum – really,…]]>Now that The Artist gave the Golden Globes a distinctly French flavor, and Meryl Streep fueled the controversy in the British camp, a simultaneous rapprochement and tension defines the relationship between the European and American film industry.
The Golden Globes of last Sunday had a distinctly French flavor. After composer Ludovic Bource apologetically excuses himself for being a little uncomposed (he was so overwhelmed by emotion that he had trouble starting his speech) by drawing on cultural differences “I’m sorry, I’m French”), his fellow countryman and national treasure Jean Dujardin stole the show when he accepted the gong for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical. Dujardin has enjoyed celebrity status in…]]>After scoring a Mercury Music Prize nomination for her first solo album after working with Damien Rice, Lisa Hannigan returns with an effort more sophisticated and mature than before, and tells PopMatters all about it ...
Certain voices for certain people have a way of burrowing into psyches, attaching onto something unknowable and leaving them forever changed. If you hear Lisa Hannigan's voice in the right way at the right time of day and the right time in your life, it will become a part of you. She first made herself known as Damien Rice's back-up singer, responsible for many of the most memorable moments from his 2002 Shortlist Prize-winning album…]]>2011 was a year of good, not necessarily great, films, though the amazing choices by our staff might argue against such a overall cinematic classification.
Film: Attack the Block Director: Joe Cornish Cast: Jodie Whittaker, John Boyega, Alex Esmail, Franz Drameh, Leeon Jones, Simon Howard, Luke Treadaway, Jumayn Hunter, Nick Frost Image: http://images.popmatters.com/news_art/a/attack-the-block-poster.jpg Display as: List List number: 40 Display Width: 200Attack the Block Joe Cornish’s debut film is a fast-paced combination of action and horror that never lets up and never stops being fun. The premise is a simple twist on ‘80s monster movies like Critters and Gremlins where…]]>Bilal Oliver belongs to an elite class of late '90s Neo-Soul singers, but his guest appearances may be the true gems of his career.
First comes a wiry, stuttering drum pattern, and then a series of slinky horn riffs. Within 30 seconds, a creeping, smoky, almost ghostly voice becomes the centerpiece. The song is "Cheeba", a track from Shafiq Husayn's 2009 LP, En'a-Free-Ka. The vocalist is the always fabulous Bilal Oliver, a musical innovator from the fabled "Neo-Soul" era of the late '90s and early '00s. Marked by a revival of an "old school" '70s soul aesthetic, Neo-Soul intertwined…]]>Caroline Moorehead's A Train In Winter, like Daniel Mendelsohn's The Lost, leaves nothing to the imagination, a decision that makes reading it simultaneously engrossing and deeply disturbing.
In 2008, biographer Caroline Moorehead set out to find any surviving members of a group known as Le Convoi des 31000, 230 women who had actively participated in the French Resistance during World War II, only to be caught and transported to Auschwitz. She learned seven were still alive. Some were too ill to meet with her, but the others were amazingly forthcoming. Betty Langlois, known to the French police as ‘Ongles Rouges’ for her…]]>J. Torres is a mature, creative voice, a powerful storyteller, and a gifted intellect. Exactly the kind of person you'd want reimagining a classic from your childhood.
Early on in the Introduction to Bob Dylan by Greil Marcus, you'll find the kind of writing that is easy flawless, the writing that Greil does best. The piece is titled "Where I Came In", and it relates the narrative of Greil himself making an appearance in the story of Bob Dylan. They were both younger, and the story plays out "In the summer of 1963, in a field in New Jersey". After a few…]]>Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce were more than just maverick dissenters; they were the founding fathers of what would later coalesce under the umbrella of the “counter-culture”.
Despite the hoopla that invariably surrounds controversial incidents within popular culture—Lady Gaga wears raw meat dress! Muppet movie spreads anti-corporate message!—social dissent is largely absent from our film, TV, music, and radio output. Moreover, where critical voices do exist, they mostly come from the margins, put out by independent companies with limited audience reach. Thus, for those thirsting for alternative perspectives to the reigning ideological persuasion, one must seek left of the dial, in the…]]>The Flaming Lips have spent the past year doing off-beat collaborations, releasing songs in skulls both Gummi and real, and creating songs that last up to 24 hours. In this extensive interview with PopMatters, frontman Wayne Coyne discusses all of this... as well as his peacocks.
The Flaming Lips have achieved a rare sound: a psychedelic that’s as meaningful as it is spacey. While their music is undoubtedly referential of '60s hippie counter-culture, it tends to have more substance than a lot of the psychedelic freak-out bands they reference so liberally. The swirling patterns that serve as the backdrop to their music are no random tie-dyed vortex ... or they are, but they’re more than that, too. Rather than suggesting cheap,…]]>The 50th anniversary of Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, along with the recent discovery of a vast archive of the author's unpublished work, should shine fresh light on one of the 20th century's most prolific, daring and underrated writers.
"The whole of English Lit. at the moment is being written by Anthony Burgess. He reviews all new books except those by himself... Do you know him? He must be a kind of Batman of contemporary letters. I hope he doesn't take to poetry." -- Philip Larkin, in correspondence with Anthony Thwaite, 1966. There was a time I actually became angry that nobody told me about Anthony Burgess. I discovered him quite by accident, and…]]>Super 8, The Muppets, and some of the other great movies of 2011 owe plenty to movies of the past. And they pull off a neat trick too: they're as vivid and delightful as your memories of those movies.
When Super 8 came out in June, it was as if it left a portal open behind it: every few weeks, it seemed, a new movie would be enthusiastically described as the kind of throwback adventure movie Steven Spielberg would have directed, or at least produced, back in the '80s. Super 8 had a British equivalent in Attack the Block and a less sensitive one in Real Steel. In fact, Attack the Block recalled John…]]>Recent US crime shows claim not only that the law does not provide justice to ordinary Americans, but also that it cannot do so.
Crime is ubiquitous on the small screen. As noted by Barbara Villez in her 2009 book, Television and the Legal System, of the 120 law and crime shows on television since the late 1940s, more than half appeared between 1990 and 2008. Since then, the numbers have only expanded. But as the general topic grows familiar, the shows' formats keep changing. In the '90s, police officers and lawyers in the original Law & Order and…]]>In another strong year, crime and punishment take on heart and heroism for the right to be called 2011's best male film acting work.
Film: Margin Call Director: J.C. Chandor Cast: Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Penn Badgely, Simon Baker, Demi Moore, Stanley Tucci Image: http://images.popmatters.com/news_art/j/jeremy_irons_margin_call.jpg Display as: List List number: 20 Display Width: 250Jeremy IronsMargin Call As the CEO of an investment bank just before the financial crash, Jeremy Irons may be the most indelible movie villain of the year. There is something leonine and outwardly dignified about his presence, but this hides a ruthless…]]>