Music Reviews
Purling Hiss Take the Piss Out of Mainstream Rock on ‘Drag on Girard’
Purling Hiss’ Drag on Girard carries on a long-standing tradition of revisiting and updating the garage rock canon to extend its legacies to the next level.
Music Features
Nickel Creek Repeat Themselves Anew on ‘Celebrants’
Celebrants finds Nickel Creek returning after nearly a decade. Sean and Sara Watkins tell PopMatters about finding creativity in repetition and their ambitious new album.
Film
Fregonese’s ‘Marco Polo’ Traveled a Twisty Road to Production
Hugo Fregonese’s 1962 Italian-French production of Marco Polo is a film whose history is more twisty than the spaghetti Marco Polo discovered in China.
Pop Past Film
Books
Jayne Mansfield Outsmarts the “Dumb Blonde” Role In Steinbeck Adaptation ‘The Wayward Bus’
Jayne Mansfield’s dramatic performance in the John Steinbeck-adapted drama The Wayward Bus disproves the notion that she was only capable of playing a “dumb blonde”.
Pop Past Books
Television
Succession’s Final Season of Satire and Calamity Offers No Parting Panacea
Succession, HBO’s most lauded release of the decade solidifies its place as one of TV’s best dramas, even though it shares nothing positive about our capitalist world.
Pop Past TV
Interviews
Lists
The 10 Best Early Billy Bragg Songs
In his first records, Billy Bragg slashes and burns his way through the political and personal struggles of early adulthood with youth’s passion and idealism.