The Mountain Goats Brought a Secular Sense of Spirituality to ‘Heretic Pride’
The Mountain Goats’ Heretic Pride is the sound of connection and change of direction, a way for John Darnielle to connect his audience with a new joyful sound.
All Things Reconsidered
Barbra Streisand Made Her Splashy Debut in 1963
The boldness of Barbra Streisand’s fully-formed persona makes The Barbra Streisand Album an integral part of 1960s pop culture, revolutionary in its own way.
Rock ‘n’ Stroll: Robert Cray’s Blues Stormer ‘Midnight Stroll’
Robert Cray plays subtly with basic blues convention on Midnight Stroll, turning it into a brand-new face for listeners who have heard it all before.
Johnny Cash’s ‘American IV’: A Farewell to the Man in Black
Johnny Cash’s American IV: The Man Comes Around was the final album released while alive, and contains some of Cash’s best and most crucial work.
All Things Reconsidered/Featured: Top of Home Page/Features/Interviews/Music/Music Features/Pop Past
Revisiting Cotton Mather’s Classic ‘Kontiki’ 25 Years on with Robert Harrison
Cotton Mather’s Kontiki sports almost relentless invention, vitality, toughness, brightness, and irrepressible exuberance—a powder keg full of the joy of making music.
Carly Simon’s ‘No Secrets’ Created the Bond We Feel with Singer-Songwriter Music
Carly Simon’s No Secrets established what’s known as the “Carly Simon Principle”: the bond we feel with singer-songwriter music and how fans map their own meaning onto popular songs.
Ellen McIlwaine Made Music For ‘We the People’ 50 Years Ago
By combining multiple styles, playing techniques, and cultural influences, Ellen McIlwaine challenged notions of genre classification and embraced music as a “universal language”.
The Crowning Glory of Chicago’s Blues King Muddy Waters
Muddy Waters’ Hard Again is his best studio album. It’s a glowing monument to him and to what electric Chicago blues can be at its very best.
All Things Reconsidered/Featured: Top of Home Page/Features/Interviews/Music/Music Features/Pop Past
Jeff Heiskell Discusses the Judybats’ Exquisite ‘Pain Makes You Beautiful’ at 30
Brisk, dreamy, achingly plaintive: Rarely has such a ghostly character been maintained so steadily, and so well, as on the Judybats’ ephemeral masterpiece.
Hiding in Plain Sight: Bob Dylan’s ‘Good As I Been to You’ at 30
Good As I Been To You was warmly received by critics, but a Bob Dylan album of covers with a stripped-down, rough-edged acoustic aesthetic did not satisfy fans’ hunger for new Dylan material.
Through the Eye of a Needle: The Unlikely Success of Son House’s ‘Father of Folk Blues’
Son House is the most important Delta blues rediscovery of the 1960s, and his Father of Folk Blues LP is the best blues rediscovery studio album.
Dream-Pop Heaven: Jeff Runnings on For Against’s Landmark ‘Coalesced’ at 20
For Against’s Coalesced is an undeniably mature work, softer and less angular than prior efforts, and a culmination of everything they were aiming to accomplish.
