History
NYC’s Underground Scene: ‘This Must Be the Place’
Music may be the glue of every NYC underground scene This Must Be the Place covers, but Jesse Rifkin’s primary interest is in the community held together by that glue.
The Alt-Right’s Roots Go Deep in Co-Opting Pop Music
As with the Nazis and Goebbels and the Ku Klux Klan, the alt-right’s desire to co-opt pop music for their purposes requires ideological and ethical gymnastics.
When Record Labels Blasted Through the Barriers in Segregated America
While their motives were more mercenary than musical, American small record label impresarios could hear the barriers falling between the races right before their ears.
Retrofuturism: How the Alt-Right Learned to Love Depeche Mode
For Richard Spencer and today’s alt-right, ‘80s British synthpop bands like Depeche Mode satisfy their retrofuturist cultural fantasies.
James Baldwin Digs Into the Roots of American Music
James Baldwin’s writing about music illuminates the significance of racial slavery for all American music. Black American music can help America to move forward if used properly.
Ken Burns on the Heartbreak and Hope of ‘The American Buffalo’
Ken Burns talks about his forthcoming PBS documentary The American Buffalo, the near extinction of the majestic beasts, and their respectful return to their rightful homeland.
Silent Film’s Raymond Griffith Pulled Tricksters Out of Top Hats
In Raymond Griffith: The Silk Hat Comedian, the two clever silent films Paths to Paradise and You’d Be Surprised, make a working-class hero out of a toff in a top hat.
W. E. B. Du Bois’ Unfinished WWI History Speaks Volumes About America
W. E. B. Du Bois hoped that WWI would help Black Americans make gains at home after serving their country abroad. His work for racial progress, like America itself, remains unfinished.
Bob Dylan’s Art Is Best Served Naked
As Bob Dylan learned, only through baring of one’s soul does one show the way forward, providing both a glimpse into the other and perhaps the shape of things to come.
W.E.B. Du Bois’ Prescient Masterpiece ‘The Souls of Black Folk: A Graphic Interpretation’
Rutgers University Press’ engaging, accomplished interpretation of ‘The Souls of Black Folk’ confirms it as W.E.B. DuBois’ most prescient and indelible work.
The Kids Are Alt-Right: How Punk Got Co-opted by Fascism
Like political populism, punk’s traits and tenets are sufficiently vague, contradictory, and unmoored to be vulnerable to co-option by all political opportunists—including the fascist alt-right.