“Movies, Museums and the Hall of Fame” – Beat Street & the Past Future of Hip Hop

Hip Hop got up big time, and I love that, but its focus on cultural production left its political potential untapped.

Rock On and Drive: Songs in Conversation

Rock n’ roll songs about rock n’ roll disillusionment.

Nothing (But Taxis): Songs in Conversation on the Environment

I prefer a song that explores our conflicted relationship to “nature.”

“And Then We Take It Higher” – Interpreting Eddy Grant’s “Electric Avenue”

Poor black and brown people in the West joined by music and their relation to power.

Calling Out To (Anti)Liveness: Recording and the Question of Presence

Here we are, live in the studio, putting it on wax.

“It’s Not About a Salary. It’s All About Reality. . .” KRS-One, ‘My Philosophy’ & Discursive Tension

By All Means Necessary a record that tries to consciously address a variety of issues in the communities of people listening to it, while not sacrificing the braggadocio and arrogant subjectivity that so often gives hip hop its energy and fun.

Me Up On My Pony On My Boat

Expressing a desire to retreat from complex adult desire demonstrates how painful those desires can be.

“Once Upon a Time Not Long Ago”

Hip Hop: Unbound from the Underground

Weepin’ and Wailin’: Prince Schools ‘Em

I get a special thrill from watching Prince show them how a guitar can weep like a mourner.

“Our baby’s gone. . .” Camp and Multivocality in The Beatles’ “She’s Leaving Home.”

The weird corniness of “She’s Leaving Home” comes from its perfect ability to stand for its own artifice

Alternate Futures of Wonder

Like a great deal of science fiction Stevie Wonder’s “Saturn” presents an alternate future by imagining an alternate past

Blinded By the Sound: Marvel’s Dazzler – Light & Sound in Comics

Dazzler is the perfect subject for looking at the representation of sound in comics

On Fear of Music

Frank Zappa may have said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture, but fuck Frank Zappa

Thrills, Chills, and Safe Sexuality: The Sounds of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”

The “scariness” of black sexuality made palatable.

Gender Policing “This Woman’s Work”

The very act of singing what he is singing is the woman’s work he sings about.

Interpreting Tommy

It’s Oedipal.

Sometimes Samples Just Hypnotize

Hip-Hop does not eschew history, it honors it, it has a historical pluralism encoded and embedded in its foundational tracks.

“We Pledge Allegiance All Our Lives. . .”

Stevie is challenging traditional notions of white-washed American history and what kinds of accomplishments should be included in that narrative.

Hip-Hop History Comic

A hip-hop battle in comic form? Who drew this? I want a whole series!

Reading for the (Hip Hop) Conversation

Hip Hop and homage as critique

“That’s Really Super, Supergirl”

Pretty sure the dudes in XTC read Crisis on Infinite Earths