Pop Culture

People who watch publishing can often do so without any need to read the books it produces. That’s because, like any industry, publishing is filled with narratives, drama, and mysteries, many of which are fueled by gossip and often contradict each other. As such, those engaged in the publishing business were caught up this year

Pop music is a mirror of its time. In Brazil, it’s hard not to connect the best music released in 2024 with the themes that dominated politics, culture, and social media discussions throughout the year. This was the year when Black Consciousness Day became a holiday across all Brazilian states, and pop music played the

More than a few descriptions of this Arizona-based, analog-ish, synth-obsessed band’s music reference similarities running from the vague, inaccurate catchall, “Krautrock”, to Italian horror or John Carpenter film soundtracks, Giorgio Moroder‘s desolate synth-scapes or private press ambient and New Age. If you know some or all of these styles or players, the first seconds of

Erika Angell – The Obsession With Her Voice (Constellation) The Obsession With Her Voice by Erika AngellThe Obsession With Her Voice by Erika Angell In The Obsession With Her Voice, Erika Angell successfully dances between echoes of jazz, free improvisation, opera, and dark blues without ever being trapped in a single mode; her muse is sufficiently light-footed that

Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America Paola Ramos Pantheon September 2024 The most important lesson I took from my doctoral work was an understanding that empirical, results-driven research must first be conducted in a way that is free of bias. One of my mentors, Dr. Kent Jennings,

30. Alison Moyet – Key (Cooking Vinyl) Instead of abandoning the synthpop of her previous work, Alison Moyet simply revisits the sounds on Key. So much of current dance-pop is influenced by New Wave, so she doesn’t have to stretch too far when re-recording the tunes. There is an elegant sleekness to the remakes. “When

Anyone familiar with Phil Elverum and his extensive catalog knows his music is not exactly for the casual listener. His albums under Mount Eerie, and even earlier with the Microphones, are usually deeply personal, immersive, and often challenging, asking listeners for close attention and commitment. Following those same lines, Night Palace, his 11th release after

Africa Negra – Antologia Vol. 2 (Bongo Joe) África Negra – Antologia Vol. 2 by África NegraÁfrica Negra – Antologia Vol. 2 by África Negra São Toméan group África Negra were at the peak of their popularity in the 1980s, and that’s where Antologia Vol. 2 picks up. Featuring 13 of the group’s lesser-known tracks

Guitar maven Arlen Roth has released his 20th solo album, an acoustic set of ten classic folk-pop tunes and one new original (the title track). Playing Out the String is a blissful treat. The master guitarist delightfully picks and strums his way through songs well-known among to fans of 20th-century acoustic guitar music fans, such

Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons Benjamin Barson Wesleyan University Press September 2024 A Nazi march in Columbus, Ohio. Flyers plastered in Northwest Indiana from the local chapter of the KKK. A policy mandate to infuse Christian nationalism into the federal government. These are not the headlines of old, but national news from

Do we even want to understand ignorance in these times? Does the ability to understand ignorance still matter when we are positively inundated with it from every direction? These are sincere questions that reasonable people may well have found themselves asking during the first Trump presidency when philosophy professor Daniel DeNicola’s systematic treatise on ignorance,

Jouer Annarella and Django We Are Busy Bodies / Sing a Song Fighter 25 October 2024 After meeting through their shared participation in the transcontinental music project Wau Wau Collectif in 2021, Swedish flutist Annarella Sörlin and Mali-born, Senegal-based ngoni player Django Diabate went their separate ways–at first. The creative spark was already lit; three

Heather Maloney could be the symbolic voice of Christmases past, present, and future. Even if her words and music during a career that unofficially began in 2009 with a self-released album aren’t usually tied to the holidays, the Massachusetts-based folk singer brings golden pipes, soothing thoughts, and a warm heart to the world through her songs,

PopMatters hereby presents a glorious cavalcade, a prestigious panorama, a scintillating smorgasbord of classic films (and one newbie) released on Blu-ray or DVD during 2024. Many titles are on Blu-ray only, while others offer the regular DVD format before it officially goes dinosaur. Some titles are also offered on the newest and more expensive 4K

It’s been a strong year for shoegaze. The genre rediscovery via TikTok during the first stages of the pandemic has been going on long enough that we might consider it a Shoegaze Revival Revival. All over the world, teens and 20-somethings are rediscovering the revolutionary power and possibilities of picking up a guitar, bass, or

Psychedelia is alive and vibrant in 2024. Musicians worldwide have been exploring the visionary potential of electrical instruments in all manner of new and novel ways, integrating shimmering production and stream-of-consciousness song structures into hip-hop, progressive rock, metal, jazz, and most other genres you can think of. Meanwhile, previously under-appreciated genres are being busted out

I’ve been covering the BFI London Film Festival for over a decade. Each has been its unique experience—like a combustible reaction, in which the films, their directors, and cast bounce off one another in ways you cannot anticipate. It’s difficult to articulate how 20-plus films emotionally and intellectually affected you. While you can say which

Office CultureEnough(Ruination) A Brooklyn-based art-pop quartet that refuses to adhere to any particular genre, Office Culture are led by vocalist/keyboardist/songwriter Winston Cook-Wilson. They take cues from off-kilter 1980s pop artists like Talk Talk and China Crisis while also digging into the stylings of Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan, and Avalon-era Roxy Music. On their fourth album, they

Vancouver’s Peach Pit are one of those rare, self-aware bands that take criticism in stride. Early in their career, after they performed at a Battle of the Bands, they received rather negative feedback from a judge, something to the effect of “generic indie rock band”. So they saw it fitting to name their self-released debut

25. Guided by Voices – Strut of Kings (GBV Inc.) Strut of Kings by Guided By VoicesStrut of Kings by Guided By Voices The title Guided by Voices’ Strut of Kings is a giveaway for the attitude of the LP, which is confident while also possessing an undertone of self-deprecation. It is also unusual, given Robert Pollard’s

This has been a notable year for hardcore and punk, with several up-and-coming bands continuing to build on the promise of their previous releases and reliably excellent records from more established artists. The scene is as far-ranging as ever, with musicians taking pages from late 1980s New York to Revolution Summer to the heyday of

This was another year of riches in jazz and creative music, with barriers between the tradition and the avant-garde melting away. A thriving global scene of brilliant musicians playing “mainstream” post-bop is out there, of course, but it is not retro or at war with newer structures and bolder flavors. Instead, it is proof that

Nicoletta Favari and percussionist Christopher Salvito, known collectively as Passepartout Duo, thrive on creating works derived from unique instruments and processes. Their previous full-length releases, Vis-à-Vis (2020), Daylighting (2021), and Circo Pobre (2022), derived from original concepts that translate into music that excites, inspires, and transcends. It’s experimental music in the truest sense of the word, but also manages to be

Arthur Russell has become a cult figure over the past three decades for his work as a musician and composer in New York during the 1970s and 1980s. Like many polymaths of that fertile period, such as Patti Smith or Andy Warhol, Russell experimented with many genres that reflected an eclectic set of interests. However,

The most widely held Garifuna ethnogenesis story is one of resistance and resilience: escaping from shipwrecked European slave ships, a group of West African survivors made their way to the island of Yurumein, already inhabited by Indigenous Arawak and Kalinago people. Their shared descendants would fight against the colonists claiming Yurumein as Saint Vincent, leading

It’s another big weekend in the Bay Area with STS9 (aka Sound Tribe Sector Nine) making their highly anticipated return to the region with two shows at Oakland’s Fox Theater on 15-16 November. It’s been over a year since the illustrious instrumental quintet’s previous shows in the region, a special two-night stand at the Quarry

It was the dis heard round the film world. In the summer of 2019, Martin Scorsese raised eyebrows in the moviegoing community when he famously dismissed the entire output of Marvel Studios—still riding high on the record-breaking success of Avengers: Endgame—as something other than cinema. “Honestly, the closest I can think of them,” he told Empire

In 2024, independent games outshined big-budget AAA releases in quality and innovation. This year, scholar Brendan Keogh’s exegesis The Video Game Industry Does Not Exist serves as gospel. Indie developers utilize the platforms and distribution methods owned and operated by Nintendo, Valve, Microsoft, and Sony to challenge these multinational corporations’ grip on the medium. Hence, why

Erupting from the early aughts post-grunge volcano came the band Shinedown, then a group of troubled talents, now the clean and sober record-holders for most No. 1 mainstream rock singles. The pensive Jacksonville, Florida quartet, ever distilling their lives into song, inadvertently composed seven studio albums that chart a nearly 20-year climb from the mire

It’s been a strange year, and it’s not over yet. But as critics have noted in the past, exciting times make for great art. This year is no exception to the rule. Many outstanding Americana records came out as part of the recent deluge of available music. According to Will Page, former Chief Economist of