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The 100 Best Albums of the 2000s: 60-41
PopMatters' coverage of the 2000s' best recordings continues with selections spanning Swedish progressive metal to minimalist electrosoul.
30 October 2020
ABBA's 'Super Trouper' at 40
ABBA's winning – if slightly uneven – seventh album Super Trouper is reissued on 45rpm vinyl for its birthday.
30 October 2020
Jefferson Starship Soar Again with 'Mother of the Sun'
Rock goddess Cathy Richardson speaks out about honoring the legacy of Paul Kantner, songwriting with Grace Slick for the Jefferson Starship's new album, and rocking the vote to dump Trump.
30 October 2020
Black Diamond Queens: African American Women and Rock and Roll (excerpt)
Ikette Claudia Lennear, rumored to be the inspiration for Mick Jagger's "Brown Sugar", often felt disconnect between her identity as an African American woman and her engagement with rock. Enjoy this excerpt of cultural anthropologist Maureen Mahon's Black Diamond Queens, courtesy of Duke University Press.
30 October 2020
'Long Hot Summers' Is a Lavish, Long-Overdue Boxed Set from the Style Council
Paul Weller's misunderstood, underappreciated '80s soul-pop outfit the Style Council are the subject of a multi-disc collection that's perfect for the uninitiated and a great nostalgia trip for those who heard it all the first time.
30 October 2020
Ane Brun's 'After the Great Storm' Features Some of Her Best Songs
The irresolution and unease that pervade Ane Brun's After the Great Storm perfectly mirror the anxiety and social isolation that have engulfed this post-pandemic era.
30 October 2020
Horrors in the Closet: Horrifying Heteronormative Scapegoating
The artificial connection between homosexuality and communism created the popular myth of evil and undetectable gay subversives living inside 1950s American society. Film both reflected and refracted the homophobia.
29 October 2020
Johnny Nash Refused to Remember His Place
Johnny Nash, part rock era crooner, part Motown, and part reggae, was too polite for the more militant wing of the Civil Rights movement, but he also suffered at the hands of a racist music industry that wouldn't market him as a Black heartthrob. Through it all he was himself, as he continuously refused to "remember his place".
29 October 2020
'The Edge of Democracy' and Parallels of Political Crises
Academy Award-nominated documentary The Edge of Democracy, now streaming on Netflix, lays bare the political parallels of the rise of Bolsonaro's Brazil with Trump's America.
27 Oct 2020
Black Diamond Queens: African American Women and Rock and Roll (excerpt)
Ikette Claudia Lennear, rumored to be the inspiration for Mick Jagger's "Brown Sugar", often felt disconnect between her identity as an African American woman and her engagement with rock. Enjoy this excerpt of cultural anthropologist Maureen Mahon's Black Diamond Queens, courtesy of Duke University Press.
30 October 2020
Is Carl Neville's 'Eminent Domain' Worth the Effort?
In Carl Neville's latest novel, Eminent Domain, he creates complexities and then shatters them into tiny narrative bits arrayed along a non-linear timeline.
29 October 2020
Horrors in the Closet: A Closet Full of Monsters
A closet full of monsters is a scary place where "straight people" can safely negotiate and articulate their fascination and/or dread of "difference" in sexuality.
28 October 2020
Recent
Music
Jefferson Starship Soar Again with 'Mother of the Sun'
Rock goddess Cathy Richardson speaks out about honoring the legacy of Paul Kantner, songwriting with Grace Slick for the Jefferson Starship's new album, and rocking the vote to dump Trump.
30 October 2020
Books
Black Diamond Queens: African American Women and Rock and Roll (excerpt)
Ikette Claudia Lennear, rumored to be the inspiration for Mick Jagger's "Brown Sugar", often felt disconnect between her identity as an African American woman and her engagement with rock. Enjoy this excerpt of cultural anthropologist Maureen Mahon's Black Diamond Queens, courtesy of Duke University Press.
Maureen Mahon
30 October 2020
Music
Ane Brun's 'After the Great Storm' Features Some of Her Best Songs
The irresolution and unease that pervade Ane Brun's After the Great Storm perfectly mirror the anxiety and social isolation that have engulfed this post-pandemic era.
30 October 2020
Music
'Long Hot Summers' Is a Lavish, Long-Overdue Boxed Set from the Style Council
Paul Weller's misunderstood, underappreciated '80s soul-pop outfit the Style Council are the subject of a multi-disc collection that's perfect for the uninitiated and a great nostalgia trip for those who heard it all the first time.
30 October 2020
Music
ABBA's 'Super Trouper' at 40
ABBA's winning – if slightly uneven – seventh album Super Trouper is reissued on 45rpm vinyl for its birthday.
30 October 2020
Music
The Mountain Goats Find New Sonic Inspiration on 'Getting Into Knives'
John Darnielle explores new sounds on his 19th studio album as the Mountain Goats—and creates his best record in years with Getting Into Knives.
30 October 2020
Music
The 100 Best Albums of the 2000s: 60-41
PopMatters' coverage of the 2000s' best recordings continues with selections spanning Swedish progressive metal to minimalist electrosoul.
30 October 2020
Books
Is Carl Neville's 'Eminent Domain' Worth the Effort?
In Carl Neville's latest novel, Eminent Domain, he creates complexities and then shatters them into tiny narrative bits arrayed along a non-linear timeline.
29 October 2020
Film
Horrors in the Closet: Horrifying Heteronormative Scapegoating
The artificial connection between homosexuality and communism created the popular myth of evil and undetectable gay subversives living inside 1950s American society. Film both reflected and refracted the homophobia.
29 October 2020
Music
Johnny Nash Refused to Remember His Place
Johnny Nash, part rock era crooner, part Motown, and part reggae, was too polite for the more militant wing of the Civil Rights movement, but he also suffered at the hands of a racist music industry that wouldn't market him as a Black heartthrob. Through it all he was himself, as he continuously refused to "remember his place".
29 October 2020
Music
John Hollenbeck Completes a Trilogy with 'Songs You Like a Lot'
The third (and final?) collaboration between a brilliant jazz composer/arranger, the Frankfurt Radio Big Band, vocalists Kate McGarry and Theo Bleckman, and the post-1950 American pop song. So great that it shivers with joy.
29 October 2020
Music
The Return of the Rentals After Six Years Away
The Rentals release a space-themed album, Q36, with one absolute gem of a song.
29 October 2020
Music
Matthew Murphy's Post-Wombats Project Sounds a Lot Like the Wombats (And It's a Good Thing)
While UK anxiety-pop auteurs the Wombats are currently hibernating, frontman Matthew "Murph" Murphy goes it alone with a new band, a mess of deprecating new earworms, and revived energy.
29 October 2020
Music
The 100 Best Albums of the 2000s: 80-61
In this next segment of PopMatters' look back on the music of the 2000s, we examine works by British electronic pioneers, Americana legends, and Armenian metal provocateurs.
29 October 2020
Music
In the Tempest's Eye: An Interview with Surfer Blood
Surfer Blood's 2010 debut put them on the map, but their critical sizzle soon faded. After a 2017 comeback of sorts, the group's new record finds them expanding their sonic by revisiting their hometown with a surprising degree of reverence.
29 October 2020
Music
Artemis Is the Latest Jazz Supergroup
A Blue Note supergroup happens to be made up of women, exclusively. Artemis is an inconsistent outing, but it dazzles just often enough.
28 October 2020
Books
Horrors in the Closet: A Closet Full of Monsters
A closet full of monsters is a scary place where "straight people" can safely negotiate and articulate their fascination and/or dread of "difference" in sexuality.
28 October 2020
Music
'Wildflowers & All the Rest' Is Tom Petty's Masterpiece
Wildflowers is a masterpiece because Tom Petty was a good enough songwriter by that point to communicate exactly what was on his mind in the most devastating way possible.
28 October 2020
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