One of the bright, albeit brief, marvels to have flashed upon the ’80s with a singular approach to rock music, JoBoxers filled a niche of their own creating. Bridging a nifty ’50s aesthetic with the urgency of new wave pop,… Read More
When “Bipp” by SOPHIE first appeared on the scene around 2013, it was controversial for some pretty specious reasons. Certain segments of the dance community, already fed-up with the contortions and genre-bastardizations coming out of the ill-defined nu-grime scene associated… Read More
James Oscar Smith, popularly known as Jimmy Smith, died in 2005 and is buried just outside Philadelphia under a headstone that proclaims him to be the “world’s greatest jazz organist”. Fellow jazz organists like Jimmy McGriff and Richard ‘Groove’ Holmes… Read More
Mouchette (1967), one of French master Robert Bresson’s many essential films, begins and ends with conspicuous absences. The opening credits roll over an image of an empty chair, out of which the title character’s mother (Marie Cardinal) has just risen… Read More
Before 2004, few people would classify Green Day’s music as particularly sophisticated, intellectual, or thematically mature. Sure, “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life),” with its poignancy, fragility, and beautiful orchestration, quickly became the introspective acoustic ballad of a generation, and… Read More
10. “King Harvest (Has Surely Come)” (The Band, 1969) An anthem for the working class, this song tells the woebegone tale of a poor country farmer, desolate over the loss of his crops and seeking refuge from a fast-talking “Union” man,… Read More
German indie rock band the Notwist have not released an album of new material since 2015. Although they have been around for more than 20 years with various members, the central trio of the group, Markus (guitar) and Micha Archer… Read More
Not everyone who works in Hollywood is famous, but some actors who work consistently across the decades achieve a level of face or voice recognition that compels viewers to sometimes shout with joy at the television, “hey, it’s that one… Read More
German indie rock band the Notwist have not released an album of new material since 2015. Although they have been around for more than 20 years with various members, the central trio of the group, Markus (guitar) and Micha Archer… Read More
In 2019, music fans around the world fell in love with Japanese citypop due to an algorithmic boost in a Youtube upload of Mariya Takeuchi’s “Plastic Love”. No one knew how the song would appear in their video recommendations –… Read More