06/09/2011
Women are treated as second-class citizens. They're objectified, exploited and condescended to on a daily basis. When they, god forbid, raise their voice against this kind of treatment, they're hounded for speaking out of place.
05/26/2011
I walked into an Urban Outfitters last week. Don't ask me "why." I can hear your accusatory tone from here. I was on a walk, the temperature suddenly dropped, and figured maybe I could find something to pass the time in there. I was wrong. If Urban Outfitters is in some kind of financial trouble, then I'm unaware of it, but the large location was unusually sparse.
05/10/2011
“My pockets get annoyedI’m broke and two cents are useless when perceived like thisHonest disappointment, these people’s lives are basic,
04/21/2011
If one good thing came of the recent threat to shut down the Federal government, it’s that the conservative mask has definitively slipped. John Boehner, Jon Kyl and the rest of the Republican hit-squad showed themselves willing to stoop to any level to do away with what little social safety net remains in the United States.
04/06/2011
Gang of Four haven’t ever really gotten their due. Even as success has come to countless groups walking in their footsteps—from Bloc Party to Red Hot Chili Peppers—the pioneers of post-punk have somehow managed to stay just below the surface of pop culture. It certainly didn’t help that no new material had come from them in over 15 years.
03/14/2011
Lupe Fiasco says he has mixed feelings about his new album: “One thing I try to express about this project is, I love and hate this album... I listen to it and I like some of the songs. But when I think about what it took to actually get the record together and everything I went through on this record--which is something I can’t separate--I hate this album.
02/18/2011
Is pop music finally catching up with reality? It’s a loaded question. Especially when talking about the Grammys, an award show crafted by an industry for an industry. To take the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences at its word, music exists neither as expression nor labor, but as some mystical entity bestowed upon us by the exceptionally beautiful and gifted.
02/09/2011
If revolutions can be described as festivals of the oppressed, then the ongoing uprising in Egypt may be a festival par excellence.
01/21/2011
One of the many overlooked revelations from the ongoing WikiLeaks fiasco would be familiar to music fans.
01/10/2011
By now, 2010 is old news. Even as I write this, most other scribes are busy delving into right-wing assassination attempts in Arizona and uprisings in the north of Africa. Already the specters of yesteryear seem far, far away.
12/30/2010
When it was first released thirty years ago, the Clash’s Sandinista! blew minds in all directions. It was called “groundbreaking” and “unwieldy,” “revolutionary” and back to “self-indulgent.” Journalists in the mainstream had no clue how to peg the radical, genre-bending behemoth. Punk purists simply labeled it a betrayal.
12/08/2010
There’s a certain serendipity to the thirtieth anniversary of John Lennon’s death. Lately, and not entirely by chance, he’s been in the news a lot--especially in the money-making department. The Beatles’ long-awaited availability on iTunes has been unceasingly advertised over the past month.
11/29/2010
At first glance it might seem just another innocuous, sanitized link in this year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. An gray-haired Wilford Brimley-looking character singing a pop-ified folk song on a massive float of cornucopias sponsored by Ocean Spray.
11/07/2010
Kanye West has spent the better part of the last year attempting to rehabilitate his image. Ever since the interruption heard round the world at last year’s MTV Video Music Awards, the once-seemingly-untouchable rapper has faced an uphill battle in restoring his cred.
