Take heed that thou wash said the Angel to Dante before opening the gates to the Purgatory with two keys, a silver key for remorse and a gold key for reconciliation. Irrespective of where the path leads henceforth, this is… Read More
One of the exciting aspects of the explosion in queer studies in recent decades has been the growing body of work on place-based queer histories. While the quality of the scholarship varies (along with the intended audience: some popular, some… Read More
When Elvis Costello crashed into the consciousness of rock fans in 1977 with his debut album, My Aim Is True, he seemed like the bastard son of Buddy Holly and Johnny Rotten, the personification of the angry young nerd inside… Read More
I first noticed Maxwell Stern from a pleasant, unassuming tweet that somehow snuck into my usually gloomy feed. Stern’s tweet said something about not really wanting fame but wanting that low-key 12:30 am talk show slot, and he said he’d… Read More
The worlds that the Shanghai Restoration Project create are unfailingly sublime. Soothing, the group intrigue with their intricacies rather than overwhelm. Over the last 15 years, the duo have moved from Shanghai’s streets as reimagined on their 1930s jazz-influenced eponymous… Read More
By now, creative music fans know Susan Alcorn for her feat in bringing the pedal steel guitar to New York’s downtown music scene, with guitarist Mary Halvorson’s Octet and with other knotty improvising collectives. But Alcorn hasn’t entirely forsaken her… Read More
For a television show that centers on a masked, male individual, the final episode of Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian Season 2 (which premiered on Disney+ 18 December 2020) showcases a sequence that is wildly unexpected and politically telling. In the… Read More
In December, we featured upcoming London neo-soul artist Kianja’s single “I Get By” on the PopMatters Picks playlist. It’s an upbeat piano-driven number born of fierce determination to succeed and overcoming life’s barriers. That track displayed Kianja’s tremendous vocal power… Read More
Christian Petzold’s lengthy collaboration with actress Nina Hoss, from Wolfsburg (2003) to Phoenix (2014), saw the pair become inseparable. With the back-to-back films of Transit (2018) and Undine, their collaboration has hit pause, and a new one has begun with… Read More
While the Bee Gees are most famous as the emissaries of disco thanks to the monstrous success of the soundtrack to the movie Saturday Night Fever, like other British Invasion acts (via Australia), they always had roots in American country… Read More