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The 10 Best Americana Albums of 2007
If 2007 didn't invite any gripping controversies, it was certainly filled with competitive comparisons -- between young and old, past and present, and among splintered factions -- and both surprising hits and disappointing misses. All in all, a dynamic and at times resurgent year for the broad scope of Americana.
12 May 2020
Music
Nicki Minaj Is the Greatest Rapper of the Decade Bar None
2020 and it's finally time to acknowledge Nicki Minaj's right to G.O.A.T. status, as the best female rapper AND the best rapper of the past ten years — no gender preposition required.
11 May 2020
Reading Pandemics
Reading Pandemics: Pandemics and Trumpian Echoes in Miller’s 'Blackfish City'
When we can't turn to the federal government for the truth, sometimes we need to turn to fiction. Sam J. Miller's Blackfish City maps a pandemic in a post-United States future.
11 May 2020
Music
The Best 10 Electronic Albums of 2005
Journey back 15 years ago, as 2005's best electronic albums are so emotionally involved and organically expressive that it's easy to forget they were created with advanced technology.
11 May 2020
Music
Counterbalance No. 15: Van Morrison - 'Astral Weeks'
Van Morrison ventured in the slipstream between the viaducts of your dreams with his 1968 LP Astral Weeks and made it to Number 15 on the List. Klinger and Mendelsohn recount the journey in this latest installment of Counterbalance.
11 May 2020
Reading Pandemics
Reading Pandemics: From Boccaccio to Indigenous Futurism
Join us -- at a safe distance -- on this journey through the canonical and radical as we look to literary representations of pandemics in the past to help us understand the politics and possibilities of the present COVID-19 pandemic.
11 May 2020
Film
The Highs Are Higher, the Lows Lower in 'Deadpool 2'
The first half of Deadpool 2, in which Vanessa is murdered and Wade becomes purposeless and suicidal, is a slog. The second half, where Wade commits to defending an angry teenage mutant, positively soars with fantastic action and some of the funniest superhero film moments in years.
08 May 2020
Music
The Best Jazz Albums of 2010
Jazz was working all the angles in 2010. Is there any other genre that has as much range -- from solo instruments to big bands, from instrumental to vocal, from European musicians to both North and South Americans, from truly pretty music to raucously avant-garde "noise"?
08 May 2020
Music
"Weird Music Is Still Good": Erik Hall on Isolation and Pulling Off an Impossible Steve Reich-ian Feat
Finding himself at a loose end, Erik Hall doesn't indulge in Netflix marathons or spends time sorting out his closet, instead he recreates Steve Reich's seminal masterpiece Music for 18 Musicians in his basement. And then he tells PopMatters about it.
Ian Rushbury
08 May 2020
Music
The Beatles 'Let It Be': So Good They Ruined It for Everyone
The Lumineers' Wesley Schultz recalls the Beatles' influence on his band, perhaps most of all the Let It Be album, released 50 years ago this month and the subject of a forthcoming documentary.
07 May 2020
Music
Bridget Kearney and Benjamin Lazar Davis Journey to Ghana for 'Still Flying' (album stream)
Lake Street Dive and Okkervil River members Bridget Kearney and Benjamin Lazar Davis travel to Ghana to create the exhilarating new album, Still Flying. The pair talk about their musical partnership and phenomenal new music.
07 May 2020
Film
The 35 Best Films of 2010
The best films of 2010 include a fake documentary, a comedy about Jihad, a vampire story NOT dealing with tacky tween romance, a haunting hillbilly noir, and an elegant tale about clones. Not necessarily the usual cinematic suspects.
06 May 2020
Television
Where's the Strong Woman in Netflix's Adaptation of 'Good Hunting'?
Contrary to the intention of Ken Liu's short story, "Good Hunting", Netflix presents a superficial arc of female empowerment, then allows animation and the role of male characters to undercut that message.
06 May 2020
Books
Home Computers: 100 Icons that Defined a Digital Generation (excerpt)
Whether you remember waiting for dial-up access, tiny screens, and green lines of text or not, you'll get a kick out of Alex Wiltshire's travel back in time to when computers came with wires. Enjoy this excerpt of Home Computers, courtesy of MIT press, with nostalgia photography by John Short.
Alex Wiltshire
06 May 2020
Music
All That Jazz and Then Some: An Interview with Defunkt's Joseph Bowie
Constructed with the intricacies of jazz, charged with the muscular pump of rock, and executed with punk's ferocity, Defunkt remains one of popular music's most intriguing acts. Frontman Joseph Bowie talks with PopMatters about the band's long, colourful, and arduous journey.
05 May 2020
Books
Class, Craft, and the Cost of Ambition: An Interview with 'Lake City' Author Thomas Kohnstamm
While Lake City masquerades as a social climber satire that is really something else, author Thomas Kohnstamm is an open book about his intentions in his work and his hopes for his city.
05 May 2020
Music
The 10 Best Country Albums of 2010
The synthesis of the past, present, and future was so much of what country music was about in 2010. Country was still fairly male-dominated in the era, although the changing winds, wherein women would create the most forward-looking music, were already beginning to blow.
05 May 2020
Music
The 70 Best Albums of 2019
From forward-looking electronic and experimental to new approaches in the ever-evolving R&B; scene, from hip-hop and punk to rock and pop, 2019 bestowed an embarrassment of musical riches upon us.
09 Dec 2019
Music
Losing Faith and Finding Joy: The Ecstatic Musical Journey of Ben Seretan
Songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Ben Seretan recently released Youth Pastoral, possibly his most cohesive work yet. PopMatters spoke to him about his multifaceted musical gifts and his unique artistic path.
04 May 2020
Music
The 10 Best Indie Pop Albums of 2010
2010 was a great year for indie-pop, with an assortment of new bands making an impression by putting a fresh new stamp on old sounds. Meanwhile, bands on their second, third, or fourth albums took their sound and refreshed it.
04 May 2020
Music
Counterbalance No. 14: The Beatles - 'The Beatles' a.k.a. 'The White Album'
The Beatles' 1968 self-titled double LP has been referenced by everyone from Joan Didion to Charles Manson and analyzed literally backward and forward. Mendelsohn and Klinger, always smiling and arriving late for tea, discuss the Number 14 album on the Big List.
04 May 2020
Music
The 20 Best Metal Albums of 2010
In 2010, the metal world honored the memory of Ronnie James Dio in the coolest possible way: by making it the best year for new music the genre saw in a very long time.
01 May 2020
Music
Cosmic Dust and Interstellar Grooves: An Interview with Nona Hendryx
As guest Artistic Director for 'The Cosmic Synthesis of Sun Ra and Afrofuturism' at Harlem Stage, funk rock icon Nona Hendryx brings audiences to other dimensions.
01 May 2020
Music
Work Doesn’t Always Look Like Work: In Defense of Radical Laziness During COVID-19
Expecting financially devastated artists to produce during the coronavirus shutdown is akin to handing a condemned man a typewriter on his way to the gallows. To hell with that.
30 Apr 2020
Film
The Action in 'Avengers: Infinity War' Is Relentless
The focus on Thanos single-handedly saves Avengers: Infinity War from becoming the overstuffed mess many feared and lends the film a relentless action pace more akin to Mad Max: Fury Road than a superhero blockbuster.
30 Apr 2020
Music
The 10 Best R&B/Soul Albums of 2010
It was fashionable to say R&B; was dead in 2010 because it wasn't the commercial force it was in the late '80s and '90s. Nothing could be further from the truth.
30 Apr 2020
Music
Novelty and Identity: An Interview With Colin Stetson
Colin Stetson discusses his process for scoring film and artistic satisfaction it gives him. "I get to invent a new array of solutions with novelty and identity. I hope the music has not existed in the particular guise and aesthetic before that."
30 Apr 2020
Music
The 10 Best Punk Albums of 2010
Punk rock gives voice to the hardest of times. As punk is a wide-ranging umbrella genre saturated with numerous subcultures, styles, aesthetics, and attitudes, making a list is more like trying to super-glue together a ripped and torn fanzine. But try, we must.
29 Apr 2020
Film
Parasites: Montesquieu on the End of Civic Virtue in a Republic
Bong Joon-ho's scathing Parasite reflects Montesquieu's critique that the decline of civic virtue causes great social inequality, which then incurs greed, envy, and violence.
29 Apr 2020
Books
Mieko Kawakami's 'Breasts and Eggs' Is a Feminist Masterpiece
Fearless in its demand for accountability, transcendent in its honesty, Mieko Kawakami's Breasts and Eggs breathes life into feminist literature and throws down a gauntlet for other writers to aspire toward.
29 Apr 2020
Music
Brits in Hot Weather Presents: Søren Lorensen
On Lake Constance, composer Davide Rossi and Matt Hales (better known as the voice behind Aqualung) have pooled their respective talents to craft highly evocative, sophisticated soundscapes from swathes of cool, digital textures and towering layers of majestic strings.
29 Apr 2020
Film
The 25 Best Independent / International Films of 2010
Journey back to 2010 to experience the best independent and international films from a time when our biggest worries involved "wars on terror". These films are highlighted by a host of superb documentaries, a stellar film from China, and one of the finest works of "hillbilly noir" ever.
28 Apr 2020
Events
Meet Peter Saul, the Bad Boy of American Art
Peter Saul's work is loud, vulgar, and outrageously offensive. It's perfectly tuned to America's violent culture from the '60s to life in the times of the Trump administration.
28 Apr 2020
Love in the Time of Coronavirus
Stressed About COVID-19? Seek the Tao of Coen
"Son, you got a panty on your head." As purveyors of gallows humor, filmmakers the Coen Brothers teach us how to laugh at things that aren't funny -- but kinda are.
28 Apr 2020
Music
Punk and Metal: Frenemies for Life
Worlds collided when punk and metal realized they were opposite sides of the same coin.
27 Apr 2020
Film
Pudovkin Makes the Revolution Human: The Bolshevik Trilogy
Inspired by D.W. Griffith's Intolerance, Vsevolod Pudovkin would leave his chemistry studies for cinema. His films Mother, The End of St. Petersburg, and Storm over Asia are presented in The Bolshevik Trilogy.
27 Apr 2020
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