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How Jazz Albums Visualized a Changing America
In the 1950s, the covers of most jazz records featured abstract designs. By the late 1960s, album aesthetics better reflected the times and the musicians.
by
Ashawnta Jackson
,
Carissa Kowalski Dougherty
via
JSTOR Daily
on
August 22, 2024
Springsteen's U.S.A.
Steven Hyden's new book about Bruce Springsteen's iconic "Born in the U.S.A" album is the product of a lifelong passion for the music of "The Boss."
by
Matt Hanson
via
American Purpose
on
July 1, 2024
The Little-Known Legacy of the EP
“An Ideal for Living” explores the fascinating backstory of a mini music format.
by
Steven Heller
via
Print
on
June 4, 2024
Bob Marley’s ‘Legend’ Is One of the Bestselling Albums Ever. But Does It Tell His Full Story?
After 40 years and more than 25 million copies sold, what story does ‘Legend’ tell us about Bob Marley and the people listening to it?
by
Eric Ducker
via
The Ringer
on
February 14, 2024
We Got the Beat
How The Go-Go’s emerged from the LA punk scene in the late ’70s to become the first and only female band to have a number one album.
by
Lisa Whittington-Hill
via
Longreads
on
January 16, 2024
The Replacements Are Still a Puzzle
The reissue of “Tim” shows both the prescience and the unrealized promise of the beloved band.
by
Elizabeth Nelson
via
The New Yorker
on
September 21, 2023
How Joni Mitchell Shattered Gender Barriers When Women Couldn't Even Have Their Own Credit Cards
Joni Mitchell might not have wanted to be the glamorous bard of women’s rising consciousness, but with “Blue,” she became just that.
by
Jessica Hopper
via
Los Angeles Times
on
June 22, 2021
The Complicated Truths of Dr. Dre’s ‘The Chronic’
No rap album has quite the mythology attached to it—as a game changer, a king maker, a genre expander. But legends aren’t exactly fact.
by
Justin Sayles
via
The Ringer
on
April 20, 2020
'Free To Be You and Me' 40th Anniversary: How Did a Kids Album By a Bunch of Feminists Change Everything?
Forty years ago this fall, a bunch of feminists released an album. They wanted to change … everything.
by
Dan Kois
via
Slate
on
October 22, 2012
Bob Dylan and the Creative Leap that Transformed Modern Music
Bob Dylan decided he wanted to subvert the expectations of his fans – and rebel against industry forces intent on pigeonholing him and his work.
by
Ted Olson
via
The Conversation
on
December 20, 2024
How Green Day’s American Idiot Pitted Punk Against George W Bush
Twenty years ago, a trio of Calfornian stoners released a polemic against Republican America that politicised a generation.
by
Pippa Bailey
via
New Statesman
on
September 30, 2024
Knots, Ties, and Lines: “The Downward Spiral” at Thirty
Nine Inch Nails, the Manson Family, and the contradictions of Los Angeles.
by
Gianni de Falco
via
Cleveland Review of Books
on
July 16, 2024
The Visions of Alice Coltrane
In the years after her husband John’s death, the harpist discovered a sound all her own, a jazz rooted in acts of spirit and will.
by
Marcus J. Moore
via
The Nation
on
March 21, 2024
Michael Knott, Who Changed The Course of Christian Rock, Dies at 61
An entire industry wouldn't exist without him, yet few know his name. In his songs, Knott challenged the faithful to examine their faults and hypocrisies.
by
Lars Gotrich
via
NPR
on
March 14, 2024
Charting the Music of a Movement
Galvanized by an act of racial violence, the band A Grain of Sand brought a new version of Asian American activism and identity to the folk music scene.
by
Oliver Wang
,
H. M. A. Leow
via
JSTOR Daily
on
March 11, 2024
The Many Lives of ‘Sounds of North American Frogs’
This metamorphic record is a teaching tool, a flirtation device, a college radio favorite, a nostalgic object, and more. BOOP!
by
Cara Giaimo
via
Atlas Obscura
on
January 23, 2024
Not Not Jazz
When Miles Davis went electric in the late 1960s, he overhauled his thinking about songs, genres, and what it meant to lead a band.
by
Ben Ratliff
via
New York Review of Books
on
January 13, 2024
The Snoop Dogg Manifesto
A pop star’s road map to decadence.
by
Armond White
via
National Review
on
November 15, 2023
'Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)' Turns 30
How the album pays homage to hip-hop's mythical and martial arts origins.
by
Marcus Evans
via
The Conversation
on
October 31, 2023
Why Tupac Never Died
It’s because the rapper’s life and work were a cascade of contradictions that we’re still trying to figure him out today.
by
Hua Hsu
via
The New Yorker
on
October 23, 2023
Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska and Born in the U.S.A. Captured Two Sides of Reagan’s America
Springsteen's albums offer a tragic-romantic view of the working class in Reagan-era America.
by
William Harris
via
Jacobin
on
October 10, 2023
The Musical Legacy of a Mississippi Prison Farm
The new album “Some Mississippi Sunday Morning” collects gospel songs recorded inside a notorious penitentiary.
by
Hanif Abdurraqib
via
The New Yorker
on
October 2, 2023
Feel-Ins, Know-Ins, Be-Ins
The most hypnotic piece of music released so far in 2023 was recorded forty-seven years ago in a barely adequate studio in Rockland County, New York.
by
Adam Shatz
via
New York Review of Books
on
September 19, 2023
partner
Springsteen’s Early Struggles Reveal How the Music Industry Has Changed
The album was once king. Now it’s the live show.
by
Jim Cullen
via
Made By History
on
January 5, 2023
Forty Years of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Nebraska’
Decades after its release, the haunted highways and haunted characters of the Boss’s largely acoustic masterpiece still haunt the American psyche.
by
Elizabeth Nelson
via
The Ringer
on
December 14, 2022
Behind the Scenes of Ready to Die
An intimate look at the creation of an iconic album.
by
Justin Tinsley
via
Literary Hub
on
May 20, 2022
One Fan’s Search for Seeds of Greatness in Bob Dylan’s Hometown
The iconic songwriter has transcended time and place for 60 years. What should that mean for the rest of us?
by
T. M. Shine
via
Washington Post Magazine
on
April 18, 2022
The Discovery of Buck Hammer
A remarkable blues musician emerged from obscurity in 1959, but something about him just didn’t seem right.
by
Ted Gioia
via
The Honest Broker
on
January 17, 2022
Johnny Cash Is a Hero to Americans on the Left and Right. But His Music Took a Side.
Listen to Blood, Sweat and Tears again.
by
Michael Stewart Foley
via
Slate
on
December 7, 2021
Marian Anderson’s Bone-Chilling Rendition of “Crucifixion”
Her performances of the Black spiritual in the nineteen-thirties caused American and European audiences to fall silent in awe.
by
Alex Ross
via
The New Yorker
on
October 19, 2021
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