                                      
        A Certain Ratio Return with a Message of Hope on 'ACR Loco'
    
Rich Wilhelm

        25 Sep 2020
    
        The Flaming Lips Reimagine Tom Petty's Life in Oklahoma on 'American Head'
    
Steve Horowitz

        25 Sep 2020
    
        Colombia's Simón Mejía Plugs Into the Natural World on 'Mirla'
    
Marty Lipp

        25 Sep 2020
    
        Bright Eyes' 'Down in the Weeds' Is a Return to Form and a Statement of Hope
    
Alison Ross

        25 Sep 2020

                                      
        Oscar Hijuelos' 'Mambo Kings Play the Songs of Love' Dances On
    
Derick Gomez

        25 Sep 2020
    
        PM Picks Playlist 2: Bamboo Smoke, LIA ICES, SOUNDQ
    
Sarah Zupko

        25 Sep 2020
    
        'What a Fantastic Death Abyss': David Bowie's 'Outside' at 25
    
Adam Trainer

        23 Sep 2020
    
        Tim Bowness of No-Man Discusses Thematic Ambition Amongst Social Division
    
Callum Bains

        24 Sep 2020

Books

                                      
        Oscar Hijuelos' 'Mambo Kings Play the Songs of Love' Dances On
    
Derick Gomez

        25 Sep 2020
    
        David Lazar's 'Celeste Holm  Syndrome' Appreciates Hollywood's Unsung Character Actors
    
Christopher John Stephens

        22 Sep 2020
    
        Literary Scholar Andrew H. Miller On Solitude As a Common Bond
    
Linda Levitt

        21 Sep 2020
    
        Ignorance, Fear, and Democracy in America
    
Vince Carducci

        17 Sep 2020

Film

                                      
        'Lost Girls and Love Hotels' and Finding Comfort in Sadness
    
Paul Risker

        25 Sep 2020
    
        Audrey Hepburn + Rome = Grace, Class, and Beauty
    
Michael Barrett

        25 Sep 2020
    
        Paul Reni's Silent Film 'The Man Who Laughs' Is Serious Cinema
    
Lee Broughton

        23 Sep 2020
    
        NYFF: 'Notturno' Looks Passively at the Chaos in the Middle East
    
Chris Barsanti

        23 Sep 2020

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'Lost Girls and Love Hotels' and Finding Comfort in Sadness

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Bright Eyes' 'Down in the Weeds' Is a Return to Form and a Statement of Hope

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The Best Music of 2017

Catch up on all of PopMatters' year-end best music features, including our deep and rich genre lists.

Inspired by 2019's career-spanning box set, legendary Manchester post-punkers A Certain Ratio return with their first new album in 12 years, ACR Loco.

Oscar Hijuelos' dizzyingly ambitious foot-tapping family epic, Mambo Kings Play the Songs of Love, opened the door for Latinx writers to tell their stories in all their richness.

PopMatters Picks Playlist features the electropop of Bamboo Smoke, LIA ICES' stunning dream folk, Polish producer SOUNDQ, the indie pop of Pylon Heights, a timely message from Exit Kid, and Natalie McCool's latest alt-pop banger.

William Olsson's Lost Girls and Love Hotels finds optimism in its message that life tears us apart and puts us back together again differently.

Bright Eyes may not technically be emo, but they are transcendently expressive, beatifically melancholic. Down in the Weeds is just the statement of grounding that we need as a respite from the churning chaos around us.

William Wyler's Roman Holiday crosses the postcard genre with a hardy trope: Old World royalty seeks escape from stuffy, ritual-bound, lives for a fling with the modern world, especially with Americans.

Bomba Estéreo founder Simón Mejía electrifies nature for a different kind of jungle music on his debut solo album, Mirla.

The Flaming Lips' American Head is a trip, a journey to the past that one doesn't want to return to but never wants to forget.

With the release of his seventh solo album, Late Night Laments, Tim Bowness explores global tensions and considers how musicians can best foster mutual understanding in times of social unrest.

No one would call Angel Olsen's Whole New Mess a pretty album. It's much too stark. But there's something riveting about the way Olsen coos to herself that's soft and comforting.

Telling the tale of the cyclops through the lens of high and low culture, in O'Brother, Where Art Thou? the Coens hammer home a fatalistic criticism about the ways that commerce, violence, and cosmetic Christianity prevail in American society .

Dancer, healer, musician Devi Mambouka shares the trippy "Sundown Forest", which takes listeners deep into the subconscious and onto a healing path.

Alright Alright's "Don't Worry" is a gentle, prayerful tune that depicts the heart of their upcoming album, Crucible.

David Bowie's Outside signaled the end of him as a slick pop star and his reintroduction as a ragged-edged arty agitator.

Berlin's Wolf & Moon are an indie folk duo with a dream pop streak. "Eyes Closed" highlights this aspect as the act create a deep sense of atmosphere and mood with the most minimal of tools.

Years after its conclusion, The Wire continues to top best-of-TV lists. With each season's unique story arc, each viewer is likely to have favorites.

There's so much tragedy present, so many skullduggeries afoot, and so many cruel and vindictive characters in attendance that a sad and heartbreaking ending seems to be an obvious given in Paul Reni's silent film, The Man Who Laughs.

The Grahams' sweet-sounding "Don't Give Your Heart Away" is rooted in struggle, inspired by the couples' complicated journey leading up to their daughter's birth.