My best friend and the New Kids on the Block, 30 years later.
Search results
Posted inUncategorized
Musical Rivalries and our Weekly Top 5
“Before hip-hop brought the concept of ‘beef’ into the mainstream, rock and roll’s aggression and excess resulted in many an unfriendly rivalry; decades earlier, the hard life of the traveling jazz musician led to some heady and memorable fallouts. Whether it’s pop stars, country singers, dancehall artists, or Kendrick Lamar and Drake’s recent multi-song war, […]
Posted inFeature
20 Years Later: Little Brother, “The Minstrel Show”
Like minstrelsy, Little Brother’s album shows you one hand, convinces you of one thing, while something else works behind the scenes.
Posted inUncategorized
10 Short Stories, The Power of Music, and Our Top 5
“I always admired how my father could play so delicately with such brutal hands. They were rough, mired with patches of psoriasis, calloused from playing the charango and the guitar, and scarred, scarred all over.” I have fond memories of playing the violin when I was a child, and over the years I’ve considered returning […]
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Feature, Nonfiction, Story
What I Did for (Strange) Love
As a teen, Laura Bond went all out to meet Depeche Mode — and to hang onto her best friend.
Posted inUncategorized
The Legendary Band Who Got the Beat (and Our Top 5)
“They were both powerful images that the bands chose themselves, which subverted the idea of how women should market their music. There was also the idea that the women wanted to conceal themselves, whether with face masks or mud, to keep a part hidden, especially from a music industry that wanted women to reveal themselves, […]
Posted inFeature
30 Years Later: Phyllis Hyman, “I Refuse to Be Lonely”
The singer’s first posthumous album deserves to be remembered as the bravest of her career.
Posted inNewsletter
Burgling the Rich, a Cat’s Life Lessons, and Our Top 5
“I learned to adore the way he sidled against me and to hate his momentary affection, just as he learned to detach from me in weariness and depend on me in hunger. Days with him were a quick education in a cat’s existence.” I once spent a year shadowing a musician I loved, whose body […]
Posted inFeature
The Women Who Built Grunge
Bands like L7 and Heavens to Betsy were instrumental to the birth of the grunge scene, but for decades were treated like novelties and sex objects. Thirty years later, it’s time to reassess their legacy.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books, Nonfiction, Story
Manic Street Preachers’ Album The Holy Bible
How a band seemingly out of step with its times outlasted so many of its indulgent, in-step contemporaries.
