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Music

Songs in Conversation: Prince & Peter Gabriel Making It Big

Putting two songs on aspirational success released a decade apart into conversation 26 years later.

1 March 2022 in Music, Songs in Conversation.

“Beaten By the Wind: The Forgotten Mystery Movie at the Heart of Bob Seger’s ‘American Storm’”

In a guest essay, Ty Matejowsky examines the once ubiquitous and now mostly forgotten movie tie-in music video format through the example of one for a movie that never existed.

13 July 2021 in Film, Guest Post, Music.
Western Flyer

Retuning Nostalgia: Anti-Black Racism and the Cultural Politics of Country Music

Nicholas Miller returns with an essay on whiteness, country music nostalgia, and charting a new course to re-imagine the past and the future.

1 June 2021 in Music, Race.

All-Female Fanfare: Examining Marvel Fanfare #38

When it is a surprise to the editor that both stories in a comic are written and drawn by women, it takes an engaged reader to consider the actual significance.

7 April 2020 in Comics, Gender, Music.

Reachin’ Not Drowning: Songs in Conversation About Abortion

The personal is political and sometimes – as in the case of abortion – the political is personal.

8 October 2019 in Music, Politics, Songs in Conversation.

“I Didn’t Mean to Turn You Kong” – Seeking out #MeToo in Pop Music

Listening to Cherrelle’s “I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On” in the #MeToo moment.

6 February 2018 in Music.

Imagining What Silence Looks Like: Prince & Queering the Popular Love Song

The dark sound and minimalist instrumentation on “If I Was Your Girlfriend” demonstrates Prince’s willingness to bend and distort expectations with a lyrical and sonic playfulness that challenges the listener to think beyond the obvious gender stereotypes inherent in most popular love songs.

2 May 2017 in Gender, Music, Queer.

“Nobody Speak” – Pulling Back the Curtain on Trumpist Politics

You wanna hear a good joke? Nobody speak, nobody get choked.

17 January 2017 in Music, Politics.

Hip Hop Levels Up: Sammus & Pieces in Space

Sammus embraces the kind of freedom afforded to grassroots, independent artists who don’t have corporate overseers menacing with strange gazes and mandates to sellout.

1 November 2016 in Albums, Guest Post, Music, Review.

Songs in Conversation: Don’t Knock the Intimacy of Urban Sound

Tony Orlando & Dawn’s “Knock Three Times” vs. Suzanne Vega’s “Luka” in the soundscape of urban living.

30 August 2016 in Music, Songs in Conversation, Sound Studies, Urban Space.

“Forever is Already There” – On Thumb of the Maid

The best band no one has ever heard (or at the very least a quirky band whose one record brings me joy).

12 July 2016 in Albums, Music, Review.

Songs in Conversation: Those are Some Fragile Men, Baby Doll.

Defamiliarizing gender to highlight its constructedness.

7 June 2016 in Gender, Music, Songs in Conversation.

Back to the Old School: 5 Classic Hip Hop Albums You Need to Learn

“You know what you need to learn? Old school artists don’t always burn!”

22 September 2015 in Albums, Guest Post, Music.

“The Revolution was Postponed Because of Rain”

A song from ’95 about the state of Black Revolution in America in light of the appeal of consumerism and individual contentment.

21 July 2015 in Music, Politics.

“Hip Hop Started Out in the Art” – Tom Brevoort, Post-Racial Hip Hop & Comics

You can’t separate hip hop from race without looking like you’ve separated your head from sense.

16 July 2015 in Marvel Comics, Music, Race.

1999: Radical Possibilities of Apocalypse

1999’s appeal emerges from a sense of danger, from the scandalous possibilities of a morality unbound by the coming apocalypse, disguised as synth-heavy dance pop

28 April 2015 in Albums, Music, Review.

Songs In Conversation: I Can Go For Dialogics

Dialogics represent the rejection of a finality of meaning. It moves back and forth like a crossfade.

14 October 2014 in Music, Songs in Conversation.

Cracking the Prototype: Serial Monogamy and the Pop Love Song

Songs that explore the more complex reality inherent in the tension between the intensity of romantic feelings and the experience of serialized monogamy.

24 June 2014 in Music, Songs in Conversation.

So, You Say You Want a Revolution? It’s Gonna Be Alright, Just Buy Something.

The Nike commercial is simply a recapitulation of the song’s co-opting of revolutionary affect to sell popular music itself as a commodity and line the Beatles’ pockets.

3 June 2014 in Music, Politics.

The Who’s “I’m a Boy” as Transgender Anthem

Gender identity is over-determined.

29 April 2014 in Gender, Music, Queer.

Sympathy for “Sympathy for the Devil”

The finest trick humanity ever played was persuading itself that he devil was real.

18 March 2014 in Music.

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  • Oglaf: Sexual Phantasmagoria (NSFW)
    Oglaf: Sexual Phantasmagoria (NSFW)
  • "Nobody Speak" - Pulling Back the Curtain on Trumpist Politics
    "Nobody Speak" - Pulling Back the Curtain on Trumpist Politics
  • Cracking the Prototype: Serial Monogamy and the Pop Love Song
    Cracking the Prototype: Serial Monogamy and the Pop Love Song
  • Humanity Not Included: DC's Cyborg and the Mechanization of the Black Body
    Humanity Not Included: DC's Cyborg and the Mechanization of the Black Body
  • "It's Not About a Salary. It's All About Reality. . ." KRS-One, 'My Philosophy' & Discursive Tension
    "It's Not About a Salary. It's All About Reality. . ." KRS-One, 'My Philosophy' & Discursive Tension

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