Pop Culture

Language shapes and sculpts our reality. It delineates what’s possible, what’s probable, and what’s merely a flight of fancy. It helps us clarify what’s possible, stand up for our rights, and call out injustices. Words are our roadmap and the keys to our prison. The powers that control language control our reality, and we might

On View at the Five Spot Café: The Complete Masters Kenny Burrell With Art Blakey Blue Note 25 April 2025 Since there is not a lot of golden-era jazz music left in the vaults, the question begged by the constant stream of reissues is, Why? There is money, of course. However, many classic jazz titles,

Space Junk Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives Snakefarm 12 April 2025 It takes all of two seconds of Space Junk to realize what Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives are up to. That alternate-picked run is straight out of the surf rock playbook; Dick Dale would be proud. Stuart has played a little bit

Song of the Earth David Longstreth, Dirty Projectors, and s t a r g a z e New Amsterdam / Nonesuch 4 April 2025 As floodwaters rise and we “Walk the Edge”, Song of the Earth emerges as a reckoning. David Longstreth’s recent album is an ambitious 24-part song cycle for voice and orchestra, performed

Irma Thomas, the “Soul Queen of New Orleans”, has teamed up with that city’s beloved funk band, Galactic, to deliver a joyful and life-affirming new album,Audience with the Queen. While acknowledging that some things aren’t great right now, the LP brims over with love and hope, and fabulous music. Audience with the Queenis the perfect

In the relative safety of comfortable hindsight, think back to that moment of propulsion as our collective species hurtled towards one of time’s inevitable barriers. One of the most expansive and reflexive centuries in history was slamming to a close, and an equally mythologized future was careening toward us, promise, and uncertainty reaching out to

Safety has become a virtue. Yet what if too much safety becomes dangerous? What happens when ensuring one’s safety causes one to avoid the pleasures of life? When does the fear of being hurt mutate into a refusal to engage, relate, and change? Two absurdist cartoon television series—SpongeBob SquarePants and South Park—expose the dangers of

People bombarded with images of what their lives can be can’t fully grasp the importance of representation in pop culture. When you don’t see people like you who are ahead of you in life’s journey, it can be difficult to conjure an image of the future. It was for Tiff Hannay, lead singer for Rodeo

Laura Glipin’s powerful poem “Two-Headed Calf” inspired Rodeo Boys’ first single from Junior, a raucous heartbreaker of an album that has staked a claim for one of my favorite albums of the year. The Lansing, Michigan-based band self-describes as “the sound of a quiet rebellion of a queer, blue-collar heart” and “what happens when the

A Living: Working-Class Americans Talk to Their Doctor Michael D. Stein Melville House April 2025 Michael D. Stein’s A Living: Working-Class Americans Talk to Their Doctor is a human-centric depiction of labor and identity. The book is a collection of vignettes based on conversations between Dr. Stein and his patients. Stein’s book serves as both

With the 2020s halfway over, the past seems painful yet tangible, the present chaotic, and the future… well, perhaps just an exercise in retaining the core of humanity’s soul in a world increasingly like that of Lord of the Flies. For many, emotional trauma seems to be life’s painful act of branding — hollowing out

It is always nice to see how varied the trends within a genre can be. Take death metal, for instance, where Ancient Death and Diabolizer represent two vastly different strands. The former are informed by Timeghoul’s off-kilter progressive visions, which Blood Incantation brought back to prominence with their early works. The latter find purpose in

Long After the Fire Vicki Peterson and John Cowsill Label 51 Recordings 18 April 2025 Nothing comes from nothing, especially in music. Every song has its roots in something that came before it. That said, the magic of a great new track is found in how creatively interesting the artist tweaks an older formula and

Living with grief is one of the most challenging assignments every one of us has to take on. The ones we love are imprinted on our memories and artifacts. At times, it feels like they are everywhere, and while that can overwhelm us, sometimes we can reach a place where we feel the presence and

Mogwai: If The Stars Had a Sound Mogwai Lightbulb Film Distribution 28 April 2025 There is an early moment inMogwai: If the Stars Had a Soundwhen John Peel, the esteemed BBC presenter, is quoted as saying he never thought Mogwai would gain wide acclaim. Peel made this remark as a diehard fan, and his assessment

What better way is there to mark Stephen Malkmus‘ past milestones and present achievements than to revisit his most memorable Pavement songs? Malkmus’ wordplay, enigmatic and open to interpretation as it was, revealed different aspects to Pavement, often hinting at a sentimental, emotionally in-touch side that belied the wiseacre reputation that preceded the band. This

Bands come and go, and sometimes come back (again and again, especially when the well runs dry). But the Denver indie pop-rock duo named Tennis, formed in 2010 by college philosophy students Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley, aren’t playing around regarding their music career. Calling their downtown Denver apartment “home” for over a decade while

Eli Winter’s debut album didn’t reveal all his tricks. The Time to Come was a solo acoustic guitar affair, a cathartic release put out while Winter was still in college. The nature of the LP and his references to Jack Rose and Daniel Bachman suggested he was heading down one path. Still, he was simultaneously

Some of the most creative guitar music of the past decade and a half has come from female artists. On the outer fringe of jazz, there’s the incomparable work of MacArthur Genius Mary Halvorson, along with her recently rising acolytes, Ava Mendoza and Wendy Eisenberg. For art rockers, there are the stylistic and disjointed riffs

Suppose one glanced at the pitch for Send a Prayer My Way. One could conclude that this collaborative project is fraught with the dangers of novelty, a wild-hair whim of two indie rock darlings who wanted to cosplay as country music artists, blowing off steam from their day jobs. Julien Baker and Torres have established

Asheville, North Carolina-based singer-songwriter Colin Miller’s latest record, Losin’, was written in the shadow of his friend Gary King’s passing. Miller became King’s caretaker in his final years, living in a home on King’s property and tending to his day-to-day needs for care and friendship. Losin’ is Miller’s way of working through his grief, but

The first time I heard the Hold Steady’s Separation Sunday, I thought there must be some kind of mistake. This couldn’t be the band earning critical acclaim and making year-end lists. Who would want to listen to some guy scat-singing over bar music, especially this obscure kind that integrated blues guitar licks, organ notes, and

HausLive 4 Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet Hausu Mountain 29 April 2025 “We’re playing this music that I made on a record called Music for Four Guitars,” says Bill Orcutt in between songs on HausLive 4. “That record is 30 minutes; this show is an hour, so we’re improvising.” Orcutt‘s matter-of-fact explanation is admirable in its

Imagine a time when white, straight America was so insulated from reality that Gen-Xers were more likely to argue over the legitimacy of the alternative rock band Bush as opposed to, say, debating politics and social justice. But hey, that was 1995 for you. Too many of us were spoiled rotten, so much so that

Few bands can kick my synesthesia into high gear like the Raveonettes. Their sound is coated in glorious contradictions: Shoegaze static spilling forth from the guitars, keyboards twinkling like bright, blinding stars, booming bass and drums, rapturous harmonies that allude to the Everly Brothers and girl groups and evoke nostalgia for a time you may

This year’s Coachella kicked off over two April weekends in Indio, California, drawing an estimated 125,000 attendees. It featured performances from prominent bands and artists like Green Day, Lady Gaga, and Post Malone, as well as recent sensations like Benson Boone. The “Beautiful Things” singer’s live cover of Queen‘s “Bohemian Rhapsody” sparked online discussions when

One of the more fascinating solo artists I encountered while checking out the lineup for theKilby Block Partyfestival, which takes place 15-18 May in Salt Lake City, is a multidimensional Renaissance woman with a one-stage name. She isn’t Madonna, Rihanna, or Shakira.Want to take a guess? Sasami is a Northern California-based no-fear musician who learned

Scowl’s debut, How Flowers Grow, was a blast of traditional-leaning hardcore that showed promise. However, the follow-up EP. Psychic Dance Routine, suggested they were already outgrowing a classic hardcore sound, incorporating more sung vocals from lead singer Kat Moss and embracing Riot Grrl and indie rock influences. This trajectory continues on Are We All Angels,

Guitarist William Tyler’s albums are typically made for sipping a backyard beer or for soberly looking out the window as your van drives down a faceless, nameless highway. Take “Highway Anxiety” on his albumModern Country:A reverb-tinted guitar spends about seven minutes rolling out a slow-developing pick pattern that eventually slides into a smooth synth fade.