Tag: music

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Part 1

QAnon gives me déjà vu.

This guy appears out of nowhere on an internet forum. He claims to have secret knowledge. But he won’t just come out and tell you what it is. (more…)

Ivan Bilbin, Igor’s Campaign, 1941.

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It is often said that a new year can be the start of a new life. Along with my own year-end traditions, I have always spent New Year’s Eve reflecting on the past while looking forward to each new year. Due to the events of 2020, it is difficult for many of us to have a positive outlook for the future. After reading The Tale of Igor’s Campaign this week, I was reminded that our ancestors have also faced difficult times and uncertain futures. (more…)

Paul Revere’s engraved frontispiece for Billings’ The New England Psalm Singer, 1770.

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The Yankee tunesmiths were a group of composers active in New England in the late 18th century. Most of them were self-taught and made a living as craftsmen or farmers. Many also fought in the Revolutionary War. Their music draws on their British heritage, namely the tradition of English psalmody, but it is also uniquely American. (more…)

Phil Eiger Newmann, Beethoven, 2020.

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Today is the 250th anniversary of the christening of Ludwig van Beethoven, a titan of classical music and one of the greatest composers of all time. Beethoven transformed every genre in which he wrote and singlehandedly changed the trajectory of classical music. Rooted in the Classical idiom of Mozart and Haydn, he paved the way for the Romantic era and influenced composers such as Brahms, Liszt, and Wagner. His works remain cornerstones of the classical repertoire. (more…)

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It would be easy to make Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 masterpiece Ikiru into something trite and hopeful — like an existential affirmation of life. But that wouldn’t be right. Despite the film’s title translating into English as “to live,” the film poignantly demonstrates how any real meaning life has is barely hanging by a thread. In fact, you would have to be a little crazy — or on death’s door — to act upon this meaning at all. You will be going against the grain, you see. Humanity is organized in such a way to impede meaning. (more…)

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He came from a world where soft music lilted through dining rooms and ballrooms and salons . . . it was played to make life sweeter and more festive, to make women’s eyes flash and men’s vanity throw sparks . . . [his] music on the other hand didn’t offer forgetfulness; it aroused people to the feelings of passion and guilt and demanded that [they] be truer to themselves . . . such music is upsetting . . . [1] (more…)

Hans Gude, Likferd Pa Sognefjorden, 1853.

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I watched American History X with my roommate last night. Watching the film brought back memories and nostalgia for my teenage years. When I first saw the movie as a teen, I was obsessed with Scandinavia due to my passion for heavy metal and my own Danish roots. (more…)

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Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

So, there are blacks with beats, heebs with chutzpah, and Swedes with serenity. What is a white dissident to do in an environment in which the talents of his people are so easily turned into springboards for cultural developments that annoy at best and brainwash at worst? (more…)

Icona Pop performs at Summerburst Festival, Gothenburg.

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White people are the undisputed masters of making catchy music. American and European pop songs make their way onto the airwaves of the entire world through a robust mechanism of economic globalization and sheer memetic power. But why is the music we make so catchy to just about all ears? And who doesn’t find our music appealing? It would be easy to chalk it up to the undeniable creative strength of our people, but like all endeavors in the arts in the modern world, songwriting has taken on the forms of science and cynical commercialism. (more…)

Jay-Z and Rick Rubin.

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Part 1

Who is Rick Rubin?

If you asked in the early part of his career, he was a member of the provocative hardcore punk band, The Pricks. He would also stress that he was a nobody. Rubin’s purpose for being in the Pricks was, functionally, to piss off his rich Jewish father; (more…)

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As the country gets more diverse, the radio gets more homogeneous. I don’t mean this in the ethnic sense, of course; America’s rockstars are more colorful than ever! Instead, the songs that dominate the country’s charts are beginning to sound more and more alike. The average pop station tends to be an indistinct mass of the same noises (more…)

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If there ever was a time that whites and blacks have aired their grievances, then the past two weeks have been it. Cities are burning. People are being killed. “Justice,” as defined by one person or another, is being demanded. In so many ways, the true nature of blacks in the United States is being put on display for all to see. In fact, many blacks are expecting us to thank them for their mere presence. (more…)