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Aretha Franklin: Context, Intersectionality, and the Rock Canon

Viewing Aretha Franklin's work through a focus on race, gender, and other categories of analysis can challenge us to do the same with all music, acknowledging how multiple points of oppression and privilege impact the production, consumption, and reception of a wide range of music.

Music

10 Conversation-Shifting Contemporary Books About Music

These are multiple works of genre history and works tackling important issues of race, class, and gender. All challenge dominant narratives of music.

Joshua Friedberg

Music

Is Brilliant Appropriation a Contradiction? On Gillian Welch and Pastiche

The historical references the virtuosic instrumental work, and the stunning close harmonies all took intelligence and skill to master, but that doesn't mean that Time (The Revelator) should be beyond critique.

Josh Friedberg

Music

Racializing Rock: The '60s and the White Sounds of 'Pet Sounds'

Pet Sounds is not a racist text, but its impact was racist because it further encoded rock as a white genre, perpetuating the institutionalized prejudice that relegated African Americans to the margins of rock.

Joshua Friedberg

Music

The Fluke That Wasn't: Reconsidering the Success of Ray Charles' Country Music Landmark

How did Ray Charles become a key face and voice for country music in the '60s?

Joshua Friedberg

Music

Textbook Oppositions and Alternatives: Re-Thinking the Role of Race in '60s Rock and Soul Music

Black rock musicians like Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, and Arthur Lee (Love), as well as white soul musicians in the racially integrated bands playing on recordings of singers like Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett, existed during the '60s. So why is rock and soul so black and white?

Josh Friedberg

Music

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Aretha Franklin: Context, Intersectionality, and the Rock Canon

Viewing Aretha Franklin's work through a focus on race, gender, and other categories of analysis can challenge us to do the same with all music, acknowledging how multiple points of oppression and privilege impact the production, consumption, and reception of a wide range of music.

10 Conversation-Shifting Contemporary Books About Music

These are multiple works of genre history and works tackling important issues of race, class, and gender. All challenge dominant narratives of music.

Is Brilliant Appropriation a Contradiction? On Gillian Welch and Pastiche

The historical references the virtuosic instrumental work, and the stunning close harmonies all took intelligence and skill to master, but that doesn't mean that Time (The Revelator) should be beyond critique.

Racializing Rock: The '60s and the White Sounds of 'Pet Sounds'

Pet Sounds is not a racist text, but its impact was racist because it further encoded rock as a white genre, perpetuating the institutionalized prejudice that relegated African Americans to the margins of rock.

The Fluke That Wasn't: Reconsidering the Success of Ray Charles' Country Music Landmark

How did Ray Charles become a key face and voice for country music in the '60s?

Textbook Oppositions and Alternatives: Re-Thinking the Role of Race in '60s Rock and Soul Music

Black rock musicians like Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, and Arthur Lee (Love), as well as white soul musicians in the racially integrated bands playing on recordings of singers like Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett, existed during the '60s. So why is rock and soul so black and white?

'The View from Somewhere' Exposes the Dangerous Myth of 'Objective' Reporting

Brother Hawk Bring Southern Rock Into the Next Century With "Like Water" (premiere)

Kae Astra Celebrates Letting Go With "Grow" (premiere)

Terry Riley Shoots the Kronos Quartet into Space with the Beautiful, Moving 'Sun Rings'

Old Crow Medicine Show Feel Right at Home on 'Live at the Ryman'

Hannah Williams & the Affirmations' '50 Foot Woman' Is Full of Soul

Eddie Murphy Returns to Form (and Fun) in 'Dolemite Is My Name'

Tea and Scones Suspense: Hitchcock's "English" Movies of the Early 1940s

On Arundhati Roy's 'My Seditious Heart'

Robert Eggers' 'The Lighthouse' Blazes with Brilliance

Brother Hawk Bring Southern Rock Into the Next Century With "Like Water" (premiere)

Kae Astra Celebrates Letting Go With "Grow" (premiere)

Punk Rock's V98 Channel Their Fury Stunningly on "Conversation Killer" (premiere)

Americana's Midnight North Take the "Long View" with New Single (premiere)

Rachel Mazer's "Is It So Wrong" Is a Celebration of Love (premiere)

"She's Older Now" Is a Previously Unreleased Tune From Roger C. Reale and Rue Morgue, Featuring Mick Ronson (premiere)

Pinto Bennett Dishes the Lonely Blues on "I Like Singin' the Blues in a Honky Tonk Song" (premiere)

Deep Tan Amplify the Groove on New Single "Shimmer" (premiere)

Signe Marie Rustad Finds Companionship In "A Thousand Lights" (premiere + interview)