Cotton Mather’s Kontiki sports almost relentless invention, vitality, toughness, brightness, and irrepressible exuberance—a powder keg full of the joy of making music.
Looking at Rina Sawayama, Azealia Banks, Charli XCX, and Kim Petras’ rise and fall in the charts one wonders – does gay fandom help pop divas’ careers?
K-pop group ONEUS talk with PopMatters about taking traditional Korean music, Gugak, and mixing it with hip-hop and electronic music to wow fans on their US tour.
Alt-rocker Justin Mayfield talks about Ghedtair Composite, a hypnotic blend of Armenian folk standards mixed with a math-rock meets indie-folk hybrid.
Initially met with ridicule, annoyance, and even anger, Phoebe Bridgers’ SNL guitar-smashing performance might have Pete Townshend’s art professor applauding from his grave.
Thirty-five years later, the redemption narrative driving Paul Simon’s Graceland has expanded to excuse the morally questionable decisions he made in recording the album.
Although Pearl Jam and Nirvana vied for grunge dominance in the ’90s, Pearl Jam valued something much better and more lasting than money and fame.
Before he sang about outcasts and shared the stage with Springsteen, Brian Fallon was singing songs like those in his new Christmas album, Night Divine.
The last live performance I saw before the pandemic shutdown was Robyn Hitchcock. Watching his remote concert from my bed, I can say I enjoyed it just as much.
UK MC Figure of Speech talks about his debut album, a judicious bridging between current affairs and the socially-conscious erudition of hip-hop’s early days.
Phoebe Bridgers’ lyrical concern with boredom is not just creative wordplay or the avoidance of cliché but argues a more engaged stance on the melancholic.
Saturated in apocalyptic fears of the atomic bomb, 1980s music was also danceable and transporting. How can something that was so horrible also be so much fun?
