Giving Billy Joel His Due

by Bethel McGrew

Despite being cast as the epitome of uncool radio rock, Billy Joel is one of pop music’s most masterful craftsmen. Continue Reading »

15 Oct 2021

ABBA Immortal

by John Waters

Might ABBA, perhaps innocently, be paving the way for a new, dark, digital world? Continue Reading »

30 Sep 2021

We Rate a Mention

by Kate Pitrone

On Powerline, Steve Hayward mentions Postmodern Conservative as a “Blog to Log”. The other blogs to log are interesting and worth looking at.  Hey, Carl!  Hayward notes Acculturated.com , too. . . . . Continue Reading »

19 Jul 2013

Carl’s Rock Songbook #76: Rap and the Summer of ‘89

by Carl Scott

A slight change of plans here—I had wanted to talk about this recent Conor Friedersdorf piece about the lack of conservative rap critics as part of a three-part essay called “Paradoxes of Conservative Pop-Culture Studies,” but I realized that to really to do that, I would have to . . . . Continue Reading »

18 Feb 2013

Carl’s Rock Songbook #64: Robert Fripp and Laura Jane

by Carl Scott

This is an odds n’ ends post. I’m going to do ONE more post on rock films, soon enough, and then give that series a rest for a while. High-time for the songbook to get back to SONGS. This week I came across a two interesting tidbits. First, my good friend, philosophic advisor, and loyal . . . . Continue Reading »

21 Sep 2012

Studies Show My Rock Songbook Is Right

by Carl Scott

The pop music of the last 50 years really has become progressively bereft of musical variety.  So says this Spanish analysis of gobs of pop songs . So Martha Bayles is right.  Geoffrey O’Brien’s nightmare last chapter of Sonata for Jukebox is right.   And me too, I . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Aug 2012

Incoherence and Independence

by James Poulos

A semi-tangent apropos of the thread developing below on Reagan’s is-it-or-isn’t-it conservatism: it’s true that Reagan’s public brew of conservative moralism and vigilence combined with western-libertarian free-range thought, inclusive of religion, reflects in telling or . . . . Continue Reading »

29 Aug 2009

Celebrating Obscenity

by Will Wilson

It’s official. Cultural libertarians have jumped the shark. Read this Reason.com article and marvel. That’s right, the author isn’t celebrating the fact that citizens have a right to be vulgar, but rather the fact that citizens are vulgar. James’ article on the ‘Sex . . . . Continue Reading »

28 Jul 2009

Dept. of “You’re in Over Your Head”

by Will Wilson

Sci-Fi Author John C. Wright takes down a belligerent reviewer in style : The thrilling conclusion: An interviewer once asked me if my Christianity or my political philosophy would offend readers, by which he meant readers to the Left of Center. I answered that since such readers get offended at . . . . Continue Reading »

27 Jul 2009

Youth, Technology, Modernity, Time

by James Poulos

Thanks to Alan Jacobs , I have read the latest excerpt from The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs . “I will restore your sense of childlike wonder,” he vows. “There is nothing you can do to stop me.” Hold that thought. The excerpt in question reads thus: Did you know that now, . . . . Continue Reading »

26 Jul 2009