Culture
Year-End Listmaking Guilt
Revisiting two records that we didn't spend enough time with in 2008. Every arts writer is implored, to one degree or other, to write year-end...
Culture
Producers’ Choice
Hip-hop beat-makers Jake One and DJ Signify offer differing takes on the showcase album Hip-hop albums by producers who don't rap--unlike, say,...
Culture
Singles, Attached
New Order and Jay Reatard release singles compilations that challenge the hallowed album form Albums were once simply collections of previously...
Design
Clothes Make the Band
New photo books on early punks say at least a thousand words Two of the year's most enticing photo books tackle rock pioneers as their...
Culture
Sista Solange
How Beyoncé's younger sis may sidestep the trappings of success I wrote all those words last week discussing "A Milli" as a pop meme, and I...
Culture
An Intro to “Post-Standards”
Reimagining Lil Wayne's "A Milli" and M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" When does a song become a standard? Answer: when a lot of people put their spin...
Culture
The Listener: Studs Terkel
Remembering a great man's always-attentive ears There's something cosmically appropriate about Studs Terkel dying, at age 96, on Halloween. It...
Culture
The Art of the Segue
When two songs make a right A great segue is where you find it-even if you weren't necessarily on the lookout. The two I'm most besotted with...
Culture
Ball of Confusion
Did Motown lose its way in the 1970s? I used to believe that compiling every Motown A-side up to about 1970 would create the greatest album of...
Culture
Reinventing R&B History for the New Century
How Raphael Saadiq honors the past and blends in the present The Way I See It (Columbia), the third solo album by Raphael Saadiq, is one of...
Culture
Who’s a Dilettante?
Letting go of the impulse to be an expert Last year I decided I was going to teach myself about Duke Ellington. Great idea, right? We all know...
Culture
The Dylan Industry
Is there a more efficient machine in popular music than that of the Dylan Industry? It's sort of amazing how well oiled it is, in part because so...
Culture
Music in Everyday Life
Do something long enough and you can start to forget why you're doing it. This is the tenth year I've made at least part of a living writing about...
