Human ingenuity in the face of crumbling infrastructure. One man’s quest to save a bird that might already be extinct. The cultural schism dividing a major musical genre. A personal essay braiding space and family. And a jungle trek gone horribly, horribly awry. These are our editors’ favorite reads of the week. 1. The Balkans’ […]
Nashville
Posted inEditor's Pick
Country Music’s Culture Wars and the Remaking of Nashville
“Tennessee’s government has turned hard red, but a new set of outlaw songwriters is challenging Music City’s conservative ways—and ruling bro-country sound.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Code Snitching
In Nashville, it’s become all too common for homeowners to find themselves on the receiving end of spurious fines for alleged code violations — an unnerving pattern rooted in the city’s policies, and weaponized by disingenuous (and gentrifying) neighbors. Radley Balko investigates, in a long and damning feature that embodies exactly why local journalism is […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Black Vanguard in White Utopias
“Country music issues a promissory note to its white listeners. The promise is that no matter how much the world around them may be changing, a country radio station or concert will be a safe space for white sentimentality.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Highlight, History, Quotes
If You Love the Music of the Carter Family, Thank Leslie Riddle
“First, you exclude black people from the festivals. Then write them out by not recording them. And pretty soon, ‘you have this manufactured image of country music being white and being poor.'”
Posted inArts & Culture, Culture, Essays & Criticism, Feature, Story
Funk Lessons in Sonic Solitude
“Joi’s recorded performances embodied all the funkiness my little soul had been waiting for.”
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Story
Doomed in Nashville
On a whirlwind book tour, Monica Drake fights to resist the pull of an emotional — and physical — abyss.
Posted inEditor's Pick, Essays & Criticism, Nonfiction
Doomed in Nashville
On a whirlwind book tour, Monica Drake fights to resist the pull of an emotional — and physical — abyss.
Posted inFood, Nonfiction, Quotes
‘Hotchickenfrication’: One Fowl Enterprise
The origin story of Prince’s Hot Chicken, and how imitators are polluting this spicy comfort food.
Posted inFood, Nonfiction, Quotes
The Current Hot Chicken Craze Is Also about Race and Gentrification
In Nashville, an exploration of the current obsession with the city’s signature dish: hot chicken.