Author Archive
Soulful Realism and Romance
Womack Shows Steve Harvey How to Think Ben Kessler takes a critical look at Think Like A Man Act Like A Woman, the Steve Harvey-based bestseller and box-office phenomenon that stole the spotlight from The Hunger Games blockbuster and contrasts its musical recording version with the soul music legacy. As demonstrated in The Nutty Professor...
Imelda’s Dancing Shoes
David Byrne mythifies Marcos in ‘Here Lies Love’ The ambivalence provoked by women who wield power is reflected in the current photo-manipulation meme “Texts From Hillary,” in which a half-scowling secretary of state, peering dismissively down at her BlackBerry through sunglasses, fires scathing bits of digital wit at supplicants including Joe Biden, Mark Zuckerberg and...
Mad Mania
“Smart” TV and the Gray Flannel Ego Mad Men, like The Sopranos and The Wire before it, now enjoys a singular cultural status. Neither pop nor art, it is smart TV. And smart TV, we’re told, is not for analysis or even entertainment; it is to be dutifully let into our lives, much as we’re...
CITYARTS EXCLUSIVE: Mad Mania
Return of the Gray Flannel TV Ego With the premiere of its fifth season imminent, Mad Men is trending hard. Everywhere in the mediasphere, you’ll hear that the return of Matthew Weiner’s dramatic series about the social and professional doings of 1960s advertising pros in New York City is a Cultural Event of Unquestionable...
Coalminer’s Canary
Springsteen Plays Politics For Armond White’s “Not-So Brilliant Disguise” article, click here. Bruce Springsteen recently told ABC News, “I genuinely believe an artist [is] supposed to be the canary in the coal mine, and you’re better off with a certain distance from the seat of power.” He has criticized several aspects of the president’s handling...
Something from Nowhere
The Ting Tings’ Pet ‘Sounds’ From the name on down, The Ting Tings’ second album, Sounds from Nowheresville, shows that remarkably little has changed for the pop duo since their platinum-selling debut, We Started Nothing (2008). It took four years for Katie White and Jules de Martino to shake off their success and return to...
Dynamiting Stereotypes: Jared Hess puts TV on blast
Fox TV’s new Napoleon Dynamite cartoon confirms Jared Hess’ step up in status from cult director to protean pop auteur. As co-creator of the show (adapted from his 2004 live-action feature film), he has faithfully guided his vision into a new medium, almost to an entirely new idiom. Even with a good deal of the...
Dancing With Myself
Solo videos go viral Too often, music videos exist solely to maximize a performer’s impact on consumer culture, a branding exercise. But there’s a small subgenre of solo dance performance videos—typified by the recent viral hits “Lonely Boy” and “Call Your Girlfriend”—that inverts consumerist logic, expressing instead the impact of popular culture upon the individual...
Song of the Year
Saluting Stevie Nicks’ “Soldier’s Angel” Years from now, 2011 may be remembered as the year postfeminism produced poster girls for the status quo. Female-fronted hits such as the movie Bridesmaids and the TV show New Girl were hailed as breakthroughs, despite their unremarkable content. (Bridesmaids even showed up on some confused critics’ year-end best lists.)...
Prophecies to Dance to: How pop can get better
The suicide of 14-year-old Jamey Rodemeyer on Sept. 18—three days before the first anniversary of the “It Gets Better” online campaign supporting bullied LGBT youth—should give our culture pause. It forces us to recognize that in this era of change, cruelty has at least kept pace with the spread of compassion. Even after Rodemeyer took...
To the Curb: Officer Krupke gets appropriated
When baby boomer comedian Larry David incorporated “Gee, Officer Krupke” into a 2009 episode of his TV show Curb Your Enthusiasm, he showed more than his age. David’s “Krupke” renaissance exposed how juvenile delinquency has gone upscale during the five decades following the release of the movie of West Side Story. The song “Gee, Officer...
Squirmingly Seeking Hipness
Erasure and Frankmusik survive In the face of our current cultural upheaval, Erasure’s new studio album almost defiantly compresses a broad range of inspired and inspiring pop references. Neither comeback nor throwback, Tomorrow’s World attempts to sum up the legendary synthpop duo’s 25-year career in just 30 minutes. This concision may be necessary for survival...
Man Cave Masterpiece
Minnelli epic explores masculinity “Let me show you how a man lives,” says wealthy Texas landowner Captain Wade Hunnicutt (Robert Mitchum) as he ushers his son into patriarchy’s lair in Vincente Minnelli’s 1960 melodrama Home from the Hill, screening Oct. 15 at BAM’s current retrospective The Complete Vincente Minnelli. Mitchum’s man-cave invitation could also be...
Critical Condition
‘Ode to THE Bouncer’ Liberates Pop Culture Is “Ode to the Bouncer,” Studio Killers’ debut single and music video, so liberating because it’s so entertaining, or vice versa? All good pop temporarily relieves us of the need to be respectable, but Pop Art also removes the obligation to be frivolous by freeing our wits and...
Nevermind Kurt Cobain, Here’s Jon Stewart
Political hipster turns grunge classic into bumper shtick I had seen the singer interviewed on TV. He was a foppish young man who seemed thoroughly disgusted to find himself so liked. —Mary Gaitskill, Because They Wanted To
