The Ballad of Hip-Hop Icon Foxy Brown
Foxy Brown’s music is often overshadowed by the controversies that curtailed her career, but her rise to fame reveals a complex story.
1990s
How Afropunk’s James Spooner Punked the Movement
DIY Afropunk James Spooner tells how he stuck to his guns and helped alter the punk genre in his memoir, It Starts with Anger.
Edward Burns and the Vanishing Indie Ethos
With the release of his 16th feature film, Finnegan’s Foursome, it’s clear that writer/director Edward Burns is only making movies for one person: himself.
Gen X Suffers Mainstream Culture Constipation
In today’s overstuffed, mainstream culture of recycled “art”, nothing old moves and nothing new gets through. It’s enough to make a Gen-Xer pretty damn cranky.
Solace House’s Unsettling Tale of Coming-of-Age in Liminal Spaces
The horror in Will Maclean’s Solace House is informed by preoccupations as diverse as Usborne Books’ Mysteries of the Unknowm, The Backrooms, Shirley Jackson, and Donna Tartt.
Nu Metal Anomalies Slipknot, System of a Down, and the Strange Math of Mass Appeal
Nu metal’s ecosystem in the 1990s allowed unexpected forms of extremity to break into mainstream success, and Slipknot and System of a Down exemplify that.
Melissa Auf der Maur’s Memoir Mirrors 1990s Rock Attitude and Excess
Hole bassist Melissa Auf der Maur’s memoir goes beyond clichés to offer a truly compelling perspective on the bohemian community of 1990s rock.
What Gen X Thinks of Millennial Metalheads
One of the strangest things about being a Millennial in heavy music is realizing that you are basically Gen X’s baby goth.
How Nirvana Destroyed Rock’s Toxic Masculinity
Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain despised rock music’s posturing machismo, mocked its fundamental assumptions, and then utterly destroyed the genre.
Sophie Gilbert Excavates Millennial Misogyny’s Buildup
Sophie Gilbert’s critique of misogyny in the 1990s and 2000s, Girl on Girl, would be disheartening but for the iconoclastic and subversive feminist artists in pop culture.
Lollapalooza Is an Artifact That Will Never Be Replicated
Lollapalooza dragged alternative culture into the sunlight, created a safe space with Mötley Crüe-level hedonism, and became an artifact that will never be replicated.
The Passion of Garth Brooks
Stephen Deusner’s entry in the 33 1/3 series about the wreckage of Garth Brooks’ ‘The Life of Chris Gains project makes for a mightily entertaining read.