Column
Column from web archive September 3, 2008
Only in America…
On the final night of the Democratic convention, at the conclusion of the nominee’s acceptance speech, Barack Obama beamed and waved to 80,000-plus supporters as they danced and sang along to…”Only in America” by Brooks & Dunn? Wow. Entertainment Weekly’s Chris Willman (author of Rednecks & Bluenecks: The Politics of Country Music) has outlined the [...]
Column from web archive August 15, 2008
Hot Buttered Soul
I hope the death of Isaac Hayes will inspire those who know him only for his “Theme from Shaft,” amazing though it is, or his role as Chef on South Park, to track down his early records. Albums like Hot Buttered Soul, …To Be Continued, The Isaac Hayes Experience, and Black Moses anticipated much if [...]
Column from web archive August 5, 2008
A Shared Vocabulary
In my far-too-long-ago last entry here (I apologize to those who may have been checking in), I ended by quoting from a book that rests very near the top of my short list of essential music criticism, A Change Is Gonna Come: Music, Race and the Soul of America by Craig Werner. “[R]eal dialogue,” Werner [...]
Column from web archive June 27, 2008
Significance, Slight Return
In my last entry here, in a call-and-response with Carl Wilson at Zoilus, I conjectured a bit about the evolution of, or more accurately the dissapearance of, old-school signifcance in rock-n-pop music. Following Carl’s lead, I was using Elvis Costello as my example, and in the end, I concluded that, per Carl, it was unfair [...]
Column from web archive June 10, 2008
Significance is so twentieth century…
In one of those sweeping-yet-concise graphs that are becoming one of his specialties, friend Carl Wilson recently got my attention with a post at his blog Zoilus. Carl wrote: “Momofuku finds Costello…in his most incisive mood in a long while, much more of a return to form to my ears than When I Was Cruel [...]
Column from web archive June 6, 2008
Country Music, U.S.A.
The International Country Music Conference convened in Nashville last month, its 25th annual meeting. I didn’t attend, but I wish I had — most of all because I would love to have attended the panel titled “Country Music, U.S.A.: A Fortieth Anniversary Retrospective And Prospective.” It was a celebration of the book that, four decades [...]
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