One of the reasons The Who’s “My Generation” is so memorable is, of course, because of Roger Daltrey’s distinctive delivery—his stuttering: ...

Yesterday I discussed the way white male rockers have appropriated codes of black masculinity to define their identities. In the study I men...

Although the subject of his book, Black Magic: White Hollywood and African American Culture , is the racial appropriation of black culture i...

There is a long tradition in the Western world of likening the effects of alcohol to the ecstatic frenzy of divine possession. Socrates like...

According to this article from today’s L. A. Times , there’s been a “mini-boom” of neighborhood record stores in the Los Angeles area. Sale...

Etymologically, the word hunger derives from the Old English hungor , akin to the Old High German hungar , and is related to the Lithuanian...

“Come on baby, I’m tired of talking,” Elvis sings in “A Little Less Conversation” (in Live A Little, Love A Little ), telling his baby he wa...

Since April is National Poetry Month, why not talk about music and poetry? After all, the month of April figures rather significantly in a f...

I feel a slight bit of guilt in recycling a blog entry from last year, but then again, since today is Earth Day 2009, I think recycling is ...

The recent (April 15) ninety-seventh anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic reminded me of the many popular songs written about disasters...

Rock music is, and shall always be, a hopelessly overcrowded field, analogous to the Darwinian state of nature, in which only the strongest ...

Today’s paper carried the news (news to me) that Billy Bob Thornton’s band, the Boxmasters, canceled the remainder of its Canadian tour, no ...