The holiday season was too busy for me to compile this sort of list, especially with a move to a new home thrown in, an event that always makes one ambivalent about book ownership anyhow. “Isn’t time to invest in a Kindle?” was the crack my younger economist friend made as we filled . . . . Continue Reading »
This is the conclusion of the long series of Songbook posts kicked off by my simple observation that many bands championed as representative of new music , such as Crystal Castles, really aren’t . While many themes have been touched upon, overall, Songbook posts #36-51 have been about 1) . . . . Continue Reading »
Pop music critic Simon Reynolds, in his book Retromania , and style-writer Kurt Andersen, in his “You Say You Want a Devolution” essay, have their finger upon a certain pattern in our contemporary cultural scenes of recyle-ment, repetition, and lack of forward motion. To be more specific, . . . . Continue Reading »
Does anyone not know the story of Icarus? . . . let us imagine that young Icarus manages to actually live through this ordeal: he falls back into the labyrinth . . . bruised but still alive. . . . He has to go back to normal life after having thought himself capable of attaining the sun . . . Today . . . . Continue Reading »
As a book on pop-music, Simon Reynolds’ Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction to Its Own Past earns a high B, but does not rate among my very favorites, being too beholden to Rock attitudes, and too long-winded for its own good. Some of its detail is welcome—I found Reynold’s . . . . Continue Reading »
I like all the “Beach Goth Noise-Pop” music I linked to last time, and have a real fondness for a number of the bands. But now it’s time for some critical observations. The major objections to this music are three: 1. It doesn’t swing, and the blues has been totally bleached . . . . Continue Reading »
[Note: by the criteria laid out in Songbook #12 , this is not a Rock song, but a rock n’ roll one.] Songbook #37 considered the New-Wave-cloaked revival of earlier rock and roll styles burbling amid the early 80s pop charts, but now it’s time to go down to the underground as X-Ray Specs . . . . Continue Reading »
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