We leave a canyon behind us each summer. Each year its yawn grows more massive, and the echo from the shout that we wail from its rim resounds deeper and longer.  Dion knew this. By 1972, the former pop sensation had long since outgrown the narrow parameters that the pop charts afforded teen idols (heroin [...]

Simon Reynolds in the Guardian:
“See, I have this hunch. I reckon that if you were to draw up a top 2,000 albums of every pop decade and compare them, the noughties would win: it would beat the 1990s decisively, the 1980s handsomely, and it would thrash the 1970s and 1960s. But I also reckon that [...]

Gabe from Videogum, on MTV’s latest reality effort:
“The impulse that drives us to watch Jersey Shore with a smirk is the same impulse that drives the people on Jersey Shore to call us ‘faggots.’ Because the reality is that they are part of an actual community, with its own language and its own mating rituals [...]

When I read this quote, from Meghan Keane’s Awl-sponsored exegesis on the depressing turn of The Office, I nodded my head in agreement, and quickly posted a link on Facebook:
“Jim and Pam getting married did more than give Michael and excuse to hook up with Pam’s mom. It expanded the lens of The Office wide [...]

My last Grampall Jookabox Pitchfork review, of Ropechain, led to an interesting rebuttal from the label.  Not sure if AK’s got another Bill Veeck-esque gimmick in the hopper this time around, but my take on the new one, Dead Zone Boys, is up today.  The record is a big improvement on Ropechain, though the B-movie [...]

A total must-read about Eva Tanguay, whom Jody Rosen refers to as “the first rock star” in Slate:
“To call Tanguay a ‘rock star’ is anachronistic but appropriate. She was not just the pre-eminent song-and-dance woman of the vaudeville era. (One of her many nicknames was ‘The Girl Who Made Vaudeville Famous.’) She was the first [...]

“I live in a double-wide on a tribal reservation in western New Mexico. My ‘curtains’ include a tent, a beige comforter and a large green Goodwill rug that was supposed to be used for wiping feet. I have no television, no washer or dryer, a scrap or two of furniture. I’m a public school teacher. [...]