Tag: popular music
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It is hard to say exactly how David Bowie will be remembered, as he was defined by his ability to constantly reinvent himself, both musically and visually. (more…)
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1,860 words
Every time you turn around, someone’s hanging another Hakenkreuz on our Tay Tay. Latest and most famous culprit is Camille Paglia, that shooting star of the 1990s critical firmament. On Thursday this acerbic counter-feminist had a piece in the Hollywood Reporter in which she denounced Taylor Swift as a “Nazi Barbie” for swanning around with equally gorgeous female celebs. Almost immediately the story was picked up by The New Republic and New York magazine, as well as the NY Post, the Daily Mail, US magazine, and lord knows where else.
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It’s a big weekend for Taylor Swift. She winds up her record-breaking 1989 World Tour on Saturday, December 12, in Melbourne and reaches the ripe old age of 26 on Sunday, December 13. So now is a good time to sit back and think about what it all means.
What exactly is the significance of Taylor in pop music, modern aesthetics, and Western culture in general? (more…)
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“What can you buy, that lifts a heavy heart up to the sky?” This question, the opening words of New Order’s Music Complete, is meant to be rhetorical. But there’s a straightforward and rather obvious answer: you can buy Music Complete itself, one of New Order’s most joyous and compelling creations.
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A revolutionary movement seeking to destroy the current system and replace it with something better must contain within it both destructive and creative forces. In “How Traditional Catholics are Taking Back the Visual Culture of France,” I featured a vital, masculine cadre which destroyed the Piss Christ and the Christmas Buttplug. (more…)
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In the summer of 1969 the members of Fairport Convention were gathered together at a country house in Farley Chamberlayne in picturesque Hampshire. There they were to record their most celebrated album, Liege & Lief, the definitive statement in English folk-rock. The country retreat setting was partly therapeutic as the band had earlier that year been involved in a tragic road accident whilst on their way back from a gig in Birmingham. The drummer, Martin Lamble, and guitarist Richard Thompson’s girlfriend, Jeannie Taylor, were both killed. Clearly, the remaining members of Fairport were looking for a new musical direction as they sought to put the past behind them. (more…)
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I’m very happy to take WN’s suggestion and add a few words to Mr. Colin Liddell’s excellent article on the Rolling Stones’ classic Their Satanic Majesties Request — which I was glad to see since, for some reason, I seem to have not done Satanic Majesties justice in my own past ruminations, although on reflection, inspired by Mr. Liddell, it seems to have a large enough role. (more…)
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Their Satanic Majesties Request is, to my mind, the most British and therefore the most authentic of all Rolling Stones albums. Their characteristic hard-driving blues is put on the back-burner and suffused through a veil of psychedelia and English whimsy with which the band were seldom associated.
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Paul Trynka
Brian Jones: The Making of the Rolling Stones
New York: Viking, 2014“He was really trying to pass the buck, as was his wont. I wasn’t interested. ‘No. get in there, mate, this is your baby.’” — Christopher Gibbs, quoted in Paul Trynka, Brian Jones: The Making of the Rolling Stones
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TYR: Myth, Culture, Tradition, vol. 4
Ed. Joshua Buckley and Michael Moynihan
North Augusta, SC.: Ultra Press, 2014Finally receiving the new issue of TYR, one feels torn between wishing that each volume could appear more frequently, or at least more regularly, and on the other hand, appreciation for the time and attention devoted to bringing out such unparalleled collections of articles, interviews and reviews of books and music devoted to the “Myth – Culture – Tradition” of the North by Messrs. Buckley and Moynihan.[1] (more…)
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Dave McGowan
Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon: Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops & the Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream
London: Headpress, 2014“Oh the snot is caked against my pants,
it has turned into crystal.
There’s a bluebird sitting on a branch,
I guess I’ll take my pistol . . .”
— Arthur Lee and Love, “Live and Let Live” (more…) -
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Outside London’s Eventim Apollo the sign reads: “The KT Fellowship Presents: Before the Dawn: Sold Out” There is no mention of the name Kate Bush, but it fools nobody because news of her return to live performance has been so high profile and has often spilled over into hysteria. The conceit of anonymity is only part of the story. Before she had released a record, Bush played a series of gigs at various London pubs as part of the KT Bush band. The KT Fellowship sounds like a nostalgic throwback to such carefree times before she had even thought of the Tour of Life. (more…)