In this PopMatters exclusive, the directors, choreographers, and dancers behind Tina Turner’s platinum-selling Private Dancer video 45 recall how the Queen of Rock went from MTV to number one.
Paula Abdul confounded her critics with Spellbound, looking to expand pop hooks and catchy melodies with more esoteric sounds to festoon her state-of-the-art dance-pop.
In her tribute album, Juliana Hatfield Sings Olivia Newton-John, Hatfield gives us a direct line to the heady days of the ’80s and makes us wonder if shiny, electric blue lycra was really so bad.
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.
M. Ward discusses the writing and recording of Supernatural Thing as well as his love of radio and how songwriting elevates his spirits.
Keith Richard’s 1977 drug bust in Toronto led to the controversial “Blind Date” benefit concert in nearby Oshawa. Many benefited, but not in the way you think.
Vampire Weekend’s Modern Vampires of the City is very much a studio creation in the 21st-century sense, born from many months of sweat and obsession behind computer screens.
The great “songster” Dom Flemons has pandemic stories to tell, but also shares his new album’s inspirations, including a love of Bob Dylan and Black cowboy narratives.
Janet Jackson’s Janet, released 30 years ago today, embraces the maturity of her sexuality and political identity, and in the process, she creates beautiful music.
Bob Dylan’s 1967 album John Wesley Harding is more about what it is not than what it is. Does that hold true for the mythology of John Wesley Hardin himself?
With eight records across a 27-year discography, each of Sum 41’s albums have ranged widely in style from pop-punk to thrash metal.
Ramones’ Ramones uses reduction as a means to end, to bring rock back to its roots, whereas Devo’s Q: Are We Not Men? uses reduction as the end itself to mirror society’s decline.
