The Nearly Lost World of American Folk Music
If not for two eccentrics, Harry Smith and Moses Asch, American popular music wouldn’t have so many roots in folk music and we’d all be the poorer for it.
music history
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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.
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.
I Dream of Wires: Richard Evans’ ‘Listening to the Music the Machines Make’
Electropop history Listening to the Music the Machines Make comprehensively and at times humorously zeros in on five critical years in UK music.
Pub Rock Guitarist Wilko Johnson Was an Inspiration to a Generation of “Twitchy Dorks”
Guitarist Wilko Johnson of pub rock band Dr. Feelgood created a polyrhythmic down-and-up chop on open chords that inspired Paul Weller (the Jam), Hugh Cornwell (the Stranglers), and Jon King (Gang of Four) – and many more.
Public Image Limited’s Keith Levene and the Post-Punk Revolution
Post-punk is one of the most adventurous genres in rock history, and Public Image Limited’s Keith Levene is one of its greatest trailblazers.
Needles & Plastic: Flying Nun Records, 1981-1988
In this excerpt from Needles and Plastic, we learn about the force of will, the chance of kismet, and the couple of bands that piloted Flying Nun Records from New Zealand to the US.
In Bob Stanley’s Let’s Do It ‘The Winds Grow Colder’ for Judy Garland and Billie Holiday
In this excerpt from Bob Stanley’s history of pop music, Let’s Do It, the music and stories of iconic singers Judy Garland and Billie Holiday are forever intertwined.
We Are Future Ghosts: Haunting David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’ 45 Years Later
David Bowie’s Heroes expresses Berlin’s fractured psyche in 1977, caught between decadence and desolation, and mirrors his struggles to make a fresh start.
Who Put the Pop in Gen Z’s Pop Punk?
Although beloved by millions, Gen Z’s pop punk may also be punk’s most hated form, yet its roots are deep in “pure punk” soil.
Punk Rock Documentary ‘Nightclubbing’ Gives Max’s Kansas City Its Due
Danny Garcia’s chaotic, discursive documentary Nightclubbing, argues that Max’s Kansas City, not CBGB’s, was the true font of American punk rock.
‘The Dylan Tapes’ Peeks Behind the Curtain at a Landmark Biography
Anthony Scaduto’s posthumously published The Dylan Tapes is an engrossing journey into the research process of one gifted writer as he profiled another.