When the Door Nearly Closed on Evanescence
With the success of Evanescence’s Fallen and The Open Door, which held to Amy Lee’s vision, she should have earned Wind-Up’s trust, not its vitriol.
music history
Detroit 1967: From Uprising to Amplification
The 1967 Detroit Uprising did not create the music that followed; it clarified it by stripping away ambiguity, making it harder to ignore what was already there.
Morrissey Returns to the Wilde
The admissions in the songs on Morrissey’s Oscar-Wilde-influenced Make-Up Is a Lie converge to create an intimate and candid portrait of the duality of self in the quagmire of celebrity.
When Danny Rapp Hopped onto the ‘American Bandstand’ Stage
American Bandstand’s Dick Clark gave Danny Rapp a framed gold disc for his teen hit “At the Hop”. Did teenage life get any better than this?
Ella Jenkins’ Biography Sings Her Song
Gayle F. Wald’s Ella Jenkins’ biography sings Jenkins’ commitment to social justice and her important multicultural and participatory approach to teaching children music.
When Feminist Anthems Were Volume-Controlled
From an era when protest music rang out across every other frontier, we have only seven feminist songs where the lyrics spoke explicitly to women’s liberation.
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Louisville Punk’s Defiance of Violent Conformity
Punk’s rooted, regional, and defiantly local identities made scenes like Louisville punk essential and life-affirming during the violently conformist Reagan years.
Kate Bush Taught Pop How to Dream with ‘Hounds of Love’
If Kate Bush’s The Dreaming is a hellscape of bizarre fragmentation and nightmarish beauty, Hounds of Love teaches pop how to dream and capture those contradictions in sound.
‘Such Great Heights’ Views Indie Rock from a High Vantage Point
Chris DeVille’s cultural commentary about the indie rock explosion, Such Great Heights, covers new ground and proves to be an entertaining read from a credible source.
How the Remarkable Tom Wilson Shaped Jazz and Rock
With his taste and track record, music producer Tom Wilson deserves the kind of fame afforded to his contemporaries Phil Spector and George Martin.
A Supreme Disappointment: When the Supremes Met the Beatles
When Detroit’s top-of-the charts the Supremes met Liverpool’s top-of-the-world the Beatles in 1965, the awkward silence was deafening.
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.