The dimensional hierarchy of artistic mediums usually goes like this: Written Word < Music < Video < Music Video < Opera < Virtual Reality. Too often this is mistaken for a hierachy of quality, where movies are always better than books, music videos are always better than novelizations of music
Barack Obama's inauguration next week will be full of significant, historical events. But what about the seven days to follow?
Southern California is a dark and foreboding place. People commonly associate it with the Beach Boys and Gidget, but that was from a long time past when you could still swim in the ocean without having to bathe in disinfectant afterwards. Now it’s better known as the home of
Computer code may not be gobbledygook, but that doesn't make it art. A survey of the field of programming-cum-poetry to find the ghost (of Hamlet's father) in the machine.
Let’s just get this part over with quickly: Bad Brains, Fugazi, Dischord, harDCore. There, much better. It’s best to purge those words as soon as possible rather than continually dwelling on their importance in perpetual, middling adolescence. I wish I could say the same for a large portion
The legend is true: The infamous, ill-fated, Guns N’ Roses album Chinese Democracy has been leaked after 14 years of recording and scads of record-company dollars down the four-track. I had hoped it would be the greatest peak in maddening celebrity indulgence, like a thousand Golden Throats
Kids seem to love these mash-ups. It appeals to their dual desires of flaunting copyright laws and hearing lots of songs all at once. It’s a short-attention-span, intellectual-property-law jamboree. And this latest Girl Talk album is a sampling bonanza sure to boggle the minds
From what I can tell, Iceland is on a breakneck pace to make it seem like a place called “Iceland” is a sun-drenched adventure land. They don’t use gasoline, produced Björk and Sigur Rós, and race around naked to their hearts content. It’s all part of a
I really wanted to love bluegrass; I really did. It helped me think I didn’t actually avoid country music, just commercial country music. Or electric country music (or some other arbitrary distinction). That was before the Washington, D.C., N.P.R. affiliate would play 12 straight hours of
In Africa, they’re just getting around to publishing essential psychedelic compilations that should have been out eons ago. Few know a name outside of Fela Kuti or King Sunny Ade. If there were any justice in the world 50 Cent would take the offer from Taco Bell to change
