Folk Punk: Three Chords and the Truth
When coupled with punk in the late 1970s to create folk punk, folk music’s most enduring and endearing traits—DIY, inclusivity, and proud amateurism—shined bright.
music history
Ballad of Big Hair: Los Angeles’ Glam Metal Scene Rises from the Ash Heap
The authors of a new and expansive oral history talk with us about Los Angeles’ 1980s glam metal scene and their book, Nöthin’ But a Good Time.
Aretha Franklin: Preacher’s Daughter
Aretha Franklin, born a musical prodigy, was nurtured by her father, Reverend C.L. Franklin, and his numerous houseguests of gospel and R&B renown.
Is Women’s Art Rock Album ‘Public Strain’ a Lost Classic?
On ‘Public Strain’ (2010), art rock band Women fused sonic experimentation and rhythmic complexity with an intuitive ear for melody.
Cowpunk: A Brief Y’alternative History
Cowpunk is a reaction against conventional country music, yet embodies some of its distant and deepest traits. Likewise, it's also a reaction against punk, yet manifests as one of its purest expressions.
What You Want, Baby, Aretha’s Got It
From January 1967 to January 1972, Aretha Franklin, one of 20th-century pop music's towering geniuses, stood the pop world on its head with a run, inconceivable today, of 11 albums. Tony Scherman's biography in progress about the Queen of Soul covers those years.
Sundance 2021: The Past Sings in Questlove’s ‘Summer of Soul’
Questlove's Harlem Cultural Festival documentary, Summer of Soul, is a propulsive reminder of the ways art and society speak to each other.
Evinha’s ‘Cartão Postal’: Revisiting the 50-year-old Brazilian Pop-Funk Gem
Evinha's Cartão Postal -- curated, produced, and performed in a way that entertains and thrills -- captures the best of Brazil's mainstream miscellany genres of the 1960s and 1970s.
Is Miles Davis’ ‘Bitches Brew’ a Tradition-Carrier or a Sellout?
Miles Davis' Bitches Brew does not sound like any mainstream popular music in the US from its time. What made this album different?
How Leeds Led the Goth Scene
Leeds' the F Club, Ace of Clubs, and the Warehouse are just a few of the clubs that ushered in goth. Ethan Stewart talks with musicians and fans who were there.
Psychobilly: Qu’est-ce Que C’est?
Many punk hybrids have come and gone since their heydays, but the punk-rockabilly one, psychobilly, has endured and is still thriving around the world today.