Well enough worryin’ and map-surveyin’ for the moment, let’s at least get the tunes set. Impossible to even hope to survey the Jazz contributions—just stand around in the NOLA airport diggin’ the vintage Pops—so we’ll start instead with 50s-era, or 50s-esque . . . . Continue Reading »
Since I want films about any and every sort of pop music since the advent of jazz, and about the rock music of 1966 to the present, for this topic I’m sort of overlooking the rock v. rock n’ roll distinction I insist upon elsewhere . And since what I really want are films that convey what . . . . Continue Reading »
The last Songbook post could have been titled What Martha Bayles Has to Learn from Retro Rock n’ Roll. This post could be titled What Retro Rock n’ Roll Has to Learn from Martha Bayles. The basic lesson: the primitivist aesthetic cultivated by many in the retro scenes, and particularly in . . . . Continue Reading »
[Note: by the criteria laid out in Songbook #12 , this is not a Rock song, but a rock n’ roll one.] Songbook #37 considered the New-Wave-cloaked revival of earlier rock and roll styles burbling amid the early 80s pop charts, but now it’s time to go down to the underground as X-Ray Specs . . . . Continue Reading »
In previous Songbook posts, I’ve posed rock and roll against rock, and against hard rock in particular. So what about the punk rejection of 70s dinosaur rock? Wasn’t that a return to rock and roll fervor and simplicity? Why have I suggested that punk belongs to Rock more than it does to . . . . Continue Reading »
I accept the saying that The Who were one of the “thinking man’s rock bands,” but this Songbook entry is more music-focused than idea-focused. Instead of considering the fairly interesting and very zeitgeist-representative lyrical content of these two songs, I’m contrasting them . . . . Continue Reading »
My “Rock n’ Roll Patriotism” 4th of July post was meant to be fun little confection of you-tube music, a music-lover’s way to show the colors. But Peter got me thinking again . . . so look out! He commented: “How much we can be proud of this is questionable: No blues and . . . . Continue Reading »
Today was a day for patriotism, and Tocqueville describes two kinds. One is the natural love humans develop for the place and polity they were raised in, for its folkways and so forth. The second is a more reflective patriotism that, aided by enlightenment rationality, “grows with the exercise . . . . Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
