Pop Culture

The anniversaries keep piling up as the years tick by. In 2024, it was 30 years since Kurt Cobain’s death by suicide. In 2026, it will be 35 years since the release of Nevermind. That makes me feel both old, although I was only 12 then, and sad, as I don’t think there’s been a

A Teacher, A Preacher, & a Bad Farmer Ernie Palmer Independent 6 June 2025 Ernie Palmer’s music is about as unhip as one can imagine. The 76-year-old retired elementary school teacher and Vietnam veteran sings self-penned old-fashioned songs about rural life, old times, and war in a creaky voice. He plays the acoustic guitar in

Much of television today is overrun with safe reboots, uninspired writing, and tired tropes. HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones bucks this trend. The show features a divided family of unethical televangelists trying to manage the transition of power from their aging father to the next generation. The Righteous Gemstones is a clever satire you won’t want

The best hip-hop serves as a voice for the voiceless and a vehicle for the marginalized. This was certainly true in the early days, and over time, the groups, ideas, and sensibilities represented in the broader hip-hop ecosystem have slowly expanded. At the same time, the stylistic diaspora of hip-hop has spread far and wide,

Southern rock as a genre had faded by the mid-1990s, but its legacy lived on under other designations. It found a liberal home in Americana and certain jam bands, but settled largely amongst right-wing audiences associated with country music culture. That trend began at the end of the ‘70s when perceptions of the failure of

Paper Flowers Tim O’Brien and Jan Fabricius Howdy Skies 6 June 2025 Nostalgia can be a good thing; a warm blanket to wrap oneself in, offering comfort when the present day seems too much to bear. For many people these days, this means watching old movies on television, playing the records of one’s youth on an

Silence is commonly assumed to be the absence of sound, a lack, or an empty void. However, Estonian composer Arvo Pärt’s work suggests that silence is more generative and elusive, a mystery that is neither merely absence nor presence, implying that it may be more than either term can encapsulate. Mississippi Records‘ recent release of

In April 1988, Scorpions released Savage Amusement, the long-awaited follow-up to 1984’s Love at First Sting, which had catapulted the German band to global superstardom. While the new record played to the band’s strengths, something felt a little off. The razor-sharp heavy metal tone and kinky Helmut Newton cover art of Love at First Sting

Many questions about Addison Rae lingered in my mind as I listened to the singles that preceded her debut album, Addison (2025). “Diet Pepsi” and “Aquamarine” are so charming, so artistic. Is it weird to be weirded out by an artist releasing something that feels like art? Was this always there? Could Rae have always

Take the low-key eloquence of Elliott Smith and the pop smarts of Paul McCartney, and you’re in the general neighborhood of Peaceful Faces. Led by singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Tree Palmedo, the band defy easy categorization, but those two artists are dependable comparisons when attempting to wrap arms around the winning, deeply enjoyable songs Peaceful Faces

Let All That We Imagine Be the Light Garbage STUNVOLUME 30 May 2025 Among the central pillars of the Garbage approach to music is an unflinching resolve. It comes through in music and lyrics alike, in songs about love, hate, sorrow, and struggle. Throughout the highs and lows of the last band’s three decades, it

Birthing is the latest sonic crucifixion from Swans, Michael Gira‘s relentless sound monolith that has been bludgeoning listeners since Ronald Reagan was president. From the first convulsion of sound, Birthing, like any Swans record, isn’t so much music as a reaction against music—a disavowal of melody, pleasure, and your nervous system’s comfort threshold. If forgotten gods

When I first saw MIO: Memories in Orbit at Summer Game Fest 2025, I thought I knew what I was getting: another Metroidvania in an already crowded genre, probably robots, and platforming that would scratch the Hollow Knight itch while we wait for Silksong. Maybe it would capture some of the existential weight of Nine

Critics and fans are buzzing over James Gunn’s Superman starring David Corenswet. Jewish journalists and popular authors have expressed a particular interest in the upcoming film because Corenswet is half-Jewish. Gunn’s casting choice sparked celebration of Corenswet as a “Jewish superhero” and reenergized the widespread belief that Superman is secretly Jewish, but is he? This

12. “Surf City” – Surf City and Other Swingin’ Cities (1963) Written by Brian Wilson and Jan Berry The Beach Boys were the first band to give a major voice to surf music, helping spread the surf craze nationally with songs like “Surfin’”, “Surfin’ Safari”, and “Surfin’ USA”. But the first surf song to hit number one

In the introduction to 2014’s Best Americana feature, I noted the distinctions between Americana and country becoming blurred. This held true in 2015, with country artist Sturgill Simpson being named Americana Artist of the Year while roots-oriented musicians Jason Isbell and Blackberry Smoke both topped the country charts. While derived from the same roots, you

In 2018, I faced particularly challenging situations in my professional and personal life—challenges whose resolution required prayer, reflection, and conversations with multiple trusted individuals. Seeing the arrival of my son and first child was another factor that informed how I decided to navigate these situations. Netflix’s 2025 drama Rotten Legacy (Legado) has stirred these memories.

May delivers an embarrassment of riches, from established veterans in …And Oceans and Pelican, to upcoming acts like Blood Monolith and Zeicrydeus. Some acts are leaping from newcomers to becoming pivotal. I see you, Neptunian Maximalism. That and much more, so dig in! – Spyros Stasis … And Oceans – The Regeneration Itinerary (Season of

Flicker Alley, one of the most important promoters of silent film heritage, has issued new Blu-ray restorations of two major epics of Hollywood’s 1920s. Both projects could be called miraculous. Rupert Julian’s Universal Super-Jewel, Merry-Go-Round (1923), is actually Erich Von Stroheim‘s Merry-Go-Round, or it was until Universal got fed up and fired Stroheim. This behind-the-scenes

Make no mistake, Sports Team are a 21st-century British alternative rock band, just as Wikipedia says they are. However, the music on their new album, Boys These Days, makes it clear that the six members of Sports Team must collectively own an impressive CD collection of the best and brightest Britpop bands from 1985 through 1995,

Foxwarren are primarily known as Andy Shauf‘s original band, but they are more than just that. The group, which is comprised of Shauf (guitars, keys, vocals), Dallas Bryson (guitar, vocals), and brothers Darryl Kissick (bass) and Avery Kissick (drums, percussion), played together for almost a decade before their lauded 2018 self-titled debut. After a successful

Seeing the revitalized dB’s play a show last fall to celebrate the reissue of their first two albums was a must-see event for me. Happily, in addition to seeing the dB’s tear through a set of their classics, I was introduced to their opening band, the Mayflies USA. I probably should have known about the Mayflies

For the better part of the last 15 years, Virginian-born musician Lael Neale has resided in Los Angeles. Cue Altogether Stranger, Neale’s fourth album, where Los Angeles is the all-encompassing subject matter; it’s far from a sun-drenched homage to the City of Angels, but rather an antithetical dark satire on its consumer-driven culture, in which

The miniseries Sirens debuted in May, quickly making Netflix’s list of Top 10 most-watched shows. At first glance, preview images of beauty and a luxurious seaside estate may initially attract viewers looking to satiate their appetite for “wealth-porn”, but I found the series, based on Molly Smith Metzler’s 2011 play Elemeno Pea, has more to

Moonrisers’ debut album, Harsh & Exciting, is a stirring invocation, which finds Libby DeCamp and Adam Schreiber utilizing instrumentation as their primary storytelling tool. Relying on DeCamp’s 1930s Slingerland May Bell parlor guitar and Schreiber’s century-old calfskin drum kit, Moonrisers craft a hypnotizing experience. The contributions of bluegrass musicians Tim O’Brien and Chris Scruggs add subtle

Jazz singer José James has just released 1978: Revenge of the Dragon, his 13th studio recording in a career that has swung dramatically from relatively “straight ahead” jazz (his third Blue Note album was a tribute to Billie Holiday) to groove-based music, including a recent tribute to a different singer: Erykah Badu. It is his

On 2 May 2024, Rockstar Games dropped a BOMB on gamers through a viral tweet announcing a one-year release delay for the highly anticipated open-world video game Grand Theft Auto VI. Fans are still dusting off the fallout. “With every game we have released, the goal has always been to try and exceed your expectations,

The television history books are wrong. Most accounts of network TV’s early days claim almost no women wrote for 1950s sitcoms. While the industry was male-dominated, more women wrote television comedy in its infancy than has been frequently reported. Often marginalized by colleagues and now forgotten by history, their successes and struggles should be remembered. 

The 2024 Brat Summer phenomenon is unlike any other pop music/culture of the year. Against the backdrop of a highly divisive Presidential Election, a 24-hour news cycle with new stories of misogynistic and anti-trans legislation every day, and increasingly impossible costs of living, young adults in their 20s and 30s took the rollout of Charli

“Where’s my Scorpios at?!?!” yelled Katy Perry, quite possibly the hardest working woman in show business, strutting over towards a portion of the arena that she had deemed insufficiently hyped. It was a Monday night in Chicago, and the house was sold out or damn close to it.  Shimmery blue “California Gurls“ hair, Left Shark,