I spent the 4th of July post singing the praises of Rolling Stone magazine, and suggesting that their investigative reporting, arguably the only remaining vital component of the magazine, has served mightily over the pas decade in the service of American liberty. I still believe that, but today I wanted to wonder with you about [...]
A couple of field notes from the last week or so in this Summer of Gaga. First the serious: The Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, is now holding anti-Lady Gaga rallies outside her concerts. The “church” (as a Christian myself, how I hate to use that word here!) rose to infamy when it chose to [...]
An embarrassingly “lite” post for today—and what’s more, I’m going to try to make you, Dear Reader, do the work. It’s in the form of one of those analogy tests. Look at these two examples and, having sussed out the pattern, suggest other examples of your own? Talking Heads, “Radio Head” (from True Stories) = Radiohead [...]
Somebody—U. Kentucky musicologist Kevin Holm-Hudson, I believe—posted a link on Facebook yesterday to a story in The Onion, with this intro: “Yet another strange musical twist in Dylan’s long storied career. Wonder what Greil Marcus would say about this? .” Hours and hours later, there are still no comments to Kevin’s post, and I think [...]
I’m sorry today’s video choice is so utterly predictable: and not just because Gaga’s got me just where she wants me, as regular readers of fcrp well know. Every new Lady Gaga video is something of an internet sensation, at least for now. When I first watched “Alejandro” on YouTube Tuesday it had been viewed [...]
Today’s not our video Friday, kids—Mystery Science Auditorium—but this video is hosted at the Pitchfork.com site for this week only, so I thought I’d put it out here today, to give you a chance to have a look at it. Besides, I’m not really going to try to dig into the video itself (truth be [...]
So yesterday’s post was, in a sense, about guilty non-pleasures: those bands or artists in whom we’re supposed to delight, but just can’t. The “guilty” part is just optional, of course: I do feel guilty for not liking Wilco and Fugazi more than I do, but not a bit guilty about loathing Metallica and the [...]
I know, I know: I’ve already written, and raved, about Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” video (March 19-20). I’ve also written on fake chinese rubber plant, if briefly, about cover recordings (March 4, 6–7, 10): about how the best of them crack a song wide open, and make available readings of the original previously unimagined. Let me begin [...]
With real regret I bid farewell Tuesday to my senior seminar students in “Irony in the Public Sphere.” They were a great class; the topic as I conceived it is a big, baggy one (which goes some way to explaining why the book is taking me so long to finish), and the students took my [...]
Five more kvetches about Kakutani’s style of literary criticism and we’re done, boys & girls. Hold on tight. The first I sort of mentioned in the very first post, and it’s implicit in much of what I’ve written already: to wit, she (#6) too much enjoys delivering the jeremiad. As Neil Innes sings in his [...]