The recent release of Switchfoot’s new project Fading West led to more questions for lead singer Jon Foreman on how his band can be Christian when its songs lack explicit Christian content. Foreman’s answer has basically remained that his songs are Christian because they are deeply . . . . Continue Reading »
It’s very cool, very punk-rock, folk-rock, and all the other rockin’ signifiers of hip radicalism, to be going to a commune. Or to hang-out at one for a season. But to actually stay for good is not what rock-tuned set wants.How do we know that? Well, tell me about a rock song that celebrates . . . . Continue Reading »
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 »
For those of you who waded through all that muck, and have now got the likes of Morlocks in your head, here’s a musical palatte cleanser for you: Anne Sofie von Otter singing a brief Berlioz song . For a more thorough cleansing, here’s the first movement of my favorite Sibelius piece, . . . . Continue Reading »
Speaking of the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds is somewhat cliché when it comes to rock criticism. Its awesome harmonic sonorities in terms of the then latest of pop/rock music of the day, as well as the studio technique on the multi-track recorder, is indeed unparalleled. Pet Sounds is what Pink Floyd . . . . Continue Reading »
Rock’s other significance in relation to modernity, which David Bowie understood better than anyone, is that it sanctions a new type of heroism, that in contrast to, say, an astronaut’s bit part in a space-flight that is essentially the military-industrial establishment’s . . . . Continue Reading »
This last year I’ve been living in upstate New York, and the people have been great. Delightful students at Skidmore College, for one. But now, largely thanks to Lucas Morel , author of one of our better books on Lincoln, I’m returning to what’s become my home away from home, the . . . . 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 »
The Poetic Wisdom Paradox, which I abbreviate as the PWP, works as follows. A wise poet, let us say Homer, wants to convey wisdom in his poetic creation. Unlike the bohemian model of the underground poet satisfied with a tiny audience, we assume he begins with the poet’s traditional desire to . . . . Continue Reading »
“Friends of Mine” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ON-F0i69_8k is a song in which the narrator has an appreciative yet ultimately ambivalent attitude towards marriage, and towards “pairing off” more generally. Officially, that is, judged by the meaning of the lyrics alone, it is a . . . . Continue Reading »
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