PopMatters

Music

[Fri, 26.Jun.09]

Wilco: Wilco (The Album)

While Wilco (The Album) has its strong moments, it does not have many innovative ones. For a band whose reputation was built on being sonic pioneers, this can only be perceived as something of a letdown.

Regina Spektor: Far

Regina Spektor returns with a new album that's darker than Begin to Hope, but just as poppy.

Bob Dylan: New Morning / The Basement Tapes / Before the Flood / Dylan & the Dead

This set of CD reissues is welcome for The Basement Tapes alone where it now possesses a clarity that belies its humble and informal origins.

R.E.M.: Reckoning (Deluxe Edition)

Reckoning was a clear-eyed document of a young band energized by the road and each other.

Warbringer: Waking Into Nightmares

Warbringer's second album might seem like the same old thrash, but they continue to improve by leaps and bounds.

Weinland: Breaks in the Sun

This Portland indie band's second album proves they can wing it in the studio and walk away with an album on par with their more calculated material.

Short Takes
[Fri, 26.Jun.09]
:. Alan Wilkis: Pink and Purple
:. Hermit Thrushes: Slight Fountain
:. Spring Creek: Way Up on a Mountain
:. Cocktail Slippers: Saint Valentine's Day Massacre

MORE MUSIC

Events

[Fri, 26.Jun.09]
Phish: 4 June 2009 / 6 June 2009 - Wantagh, NY and Mansfield, MA
It's good to have 'em back, warts and all.

[Thu, 25.Jun.09]
Ben Folds: 20 May 2009 - Los Angeles
Sometimes, you just need a safe bet.

MOST RECENT

:. Black Moth Super Rainbow + School of Seven Bells: 20 May 2009 - Chicago

:. Beirut: 6 May 2009 - Brussels, Belgium

:. The National: 29 May 2009 - Philadelphia

:. Katie Melua: 12 May 2009 - Chicago

:. The Weakerthans + Constantines: 1 May 2009 - Vancouver, BC

MORE EVENTS

Mixed Media

MP3s, videos, trailers, streaming media and more

:. [2.Jul.09] Silent Paper Radios - Reborn As a Wind Chime (full album download)

:. [1.Jul.09] Slaraffenland - We're on Your Side (new album / MP3)

:. [1.Jul.09] The September Issue (trailer)

:. [1.Jul.09] Keak Da Sneak and San Quinn -- Welcome to Scokland

:. [30.Jun.09] Dirty Projectors - "Stillness Is the Move" (video)

:. [30.Jun.09] The Fiery Furnaces - I'm Going Away (new album / MP3)

:. [29.Jun.09] Regina Spektor - "Laughing With" (Live on David Letterman) (video)

:. [29.Jun.09] Grizzly Bear - "Cheerleader" (Live on Jimmy Fallon) (video)

POPWIRE

News, Reviews and Commentary from the World of Popular Culture

[Tue, 30.Jun.09]
:. Johnny Depp turns gangster in ‘Public Enemies’
:. When Motown met Michael
:. Wilco’s latest album is love letter to fans
:. Spike Lee’s gem ‘Do the Right Thing’ tops latest Blu-ray releases

[Fri, 26.Jun.09]
:. ‘Thriller’ was greatest triumph, greatest tragedy
:. A guide to books you should read before the movies hit theaters this year
:. INTERVIEW:Ellen DeGeneres just can’t stop dancing , even if she wanted to
:. Hard times demand a ... oh, nevermind
:. Michael Jackson was a man and an artist of contradictions
:. INTERVIEW:‘Soraya M.’ star Shohreh Aghdashloo wants her film to shine a light on Iran
:. Farrah Fawcett defined celebrity

FEATURES

The Edge of Change: The Most Memorable Albums of 1999
By PopMatters Staff
[29.Jun.09] :. PopMatters is on our one-week summer publishing break, except for film and blogs. We return to our full publishing schedule on Monday, July 6. Meanwhile, explore the music of 1999 as we celebrate our 10th anniversary. [Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5]

2009 Silverdocs Documentary Festival
By Chris Barsanti
[29.Jun.09] :. Silverdocs 2009 was a rewarding and refreshing event, offering classic and independent documentaries and previewing several that will crop up over the next year or two on TV and art house screens.

The Futility of Truth or Reconciliation in Waltz with Bashir
By Luke Z. Fenchel
[26.Jun.09] :. Although it examines culpability and responsibility in service of truth and reconciliation, this film fails to address the structures of power, and arguably perpetuates the very atrocities that it sets out to condemn.

MIXED MEDIA:

Silent Paper Radios - Reborn As a Wind Chime (full album download)

— recent features —

COLUMNS

Pickin' Down the Line: Five Days in March: Uncle Tupelo’s Quiet Revolution
By Bob Proehl
[26.Jun.09] :. Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy may have left country behind, but in 1992, he helped redefine the sound of alt-country.

Pop Past: Black Hollywood: Blaxploitation and Advancing an Independent Black Cinema
By Thomas Britt
[25.Jun.09] :. In recent history, the myriad commercial and social reactions to so-called Blaxploitation films made feasible the rise of a robust, intelligent, and independent black cinema in the US.

IN THE BLOGS:
Short Ends and Leader: Zabriskie Point (1970)
Marginal Utility: Slowing down
Peripatetic Postcards: If I Could Get Away, I’d Go to . . .
Short Ends and Leader: The Unborn: Unrated (2009)
Short Ends and Leader: 10,000 AD: Legend of the Black Pearl (2008)
Moving Pixels: Mario: Upward Mobility and the Working Class Hero
Notes from the Road: Fatboy Slim: 24 June 2009 - Terminal 5, New York

— recent columns —

Books

[Fri, 26.Jun.09]

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

This maddening new novel is cinematic, set in New York City in the midst of its slide into near-complete dysfunction.

Gods and Soldiers: The Penguin Anthology of Contemporary African Writing

Perhaps the strongest theme here is that there’s no singular “voice of Africa”, no overarching cosmology to unify the continent’s literature -- and that’s a great thing.

MOST RECENT

:. Leaving India by Minal Hajratwala

:. Love Will Tear Us Apart by Sarah Rainone

:. Studs Terkel's Working: A Graphic Adaptation

:. Satchmo: The Wonderful World and Art of Louis Armstrong: Steven Brower

:. The Book of Cool by Marianne Taylor

:. Hound Dog & How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll

:. A Boy's Own Story by Edmund White

MORE BOOKS

Multimedia / Comics

Multimedia

[Fri, 26.Jun.09]

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2

Through its gameplay, Devil Summoner 2 seems to represent a strange drama about the relationship between religion and the political world, exposing gaps that may exist between ethical systems and the political causes that they intend to inform.

MOST RECENT

:. Ninja Blade

:. Wallace & Gromit in Fright of the Bumblebees

:. Klonoa

:. The Sims 3

MORE MULTIMEDIA

Comics

[Thu, 25.Jun.09]

Ghost Rider

Corporate compromise or faulty execution the tale of a Ghost Rider addict cannot be told.

MOST RECENT

:. The Strange Deaths of Batman

:. The Bun Field

:. Runaways: Dead Wrong

MORE COMICS

Film / TV

Film

[Wed, 1.Jul.09]

Public Enemies

Sensational and turbulent, the relationship between John Dillinger and Melvin Purvis sold newspapers and attracted newsreel audiences. It was good for business.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs alters the pattern established by the previous two films, focusing not on the herd but on action-packed, 3-D adventure.

MOST RECENT

:. The Stoning of Soraya M.

:. Chéri

:. My Sister's Keeper

:. Afghan Star

:. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

:. Dead Snow (Død snø)

:. Whatever Works

MORE FILM

Television

[Tue, 30.Jun.09]

POV: Beyond Hatred

Allusive and abstract, Beyond Hatred works something like a puzzle, examining the murder of a young gay man while never showing him or his killers.

MOST RECENT

:. Hung

:. Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge

:. Be Like Others

:. POV: New Muslim Cool

:. Iran and the West

:. The Queen and I

MORE TELEVISION

DVDS

[Fri, 26.Jun.09]

Dominick Dunne: After the Party

Dominick Dunne’s own story has all the requisite tragic-romantic elements of any personality he’s written about.

Une Femme Mariee

An erudite, somewhat autobiographical, handsome and twisted examination of female infidelity.

MOST RECENT

:. My Dinner With Jimi

:. Thrilla in Manila

:. Rip: A Remix Manifesto

:. Apollo 11: A Night to Remember

:. Wayne's World 1 & 2

:. America Betrayed

:. The Seventh Seal

:. Weeds: Season 4

:. Iron Maiden: Flight 666

:. Eddie Murphy Delirious: The 25th Anniversary Edition

MORE DVDS

RECENT FEATURES

— recent features —

Long Live the King: Remembering Michael Jackson
By Evan Sawdey
[26.Jun.09] :. As the world mourns the passing of its definitive pop star, we must ask ourselves why his death means so much to us -- and where the legacy of one of the greatest entertainers of all time now stands.

Yesterday's Jukebox: Miles Davis: Sketches of Spain (Legacy Edition)
By Sean Murphy
[24.Jun.09] :. The secret to creating music that stands the test of time is to create timeless music: Sketches of Spain was, and remains, quite unlike anything else created in the jazz idiom.

20 Questions: Aleksandar Hemon
By PopMatters Staff
[23.Jun.09] :. “Hell,” Hemon tells PopMatters 20 Questions, “is being stuck at an airport without a book, starving for thought, forced to watch CNN.” Heaven might be a bathtub full of Turkish coffee …

Bumming Smokes in Paris and London: George Orwell’s Obsession with Tobacco
By Josh Indar
[19.Jun.09] :. Cigarette smoke so permeates George Orwell’s stories it almost leaves stains on one’s fingers when reading his books.

Primavera Sound: On the Beach
By Ally Brown
[19.Jun.09] :. Providing the perfect midway point between British and American festivals, Primavera Sound really is the best of both worlds.

The New Games Journalism
By L.B. Jeffries
[18.Jun.09] :. The most useful moments for New Games Journalists are ones that occur in multiplayer, describing experiences that could never occur during just a general session of play.

The Iconographies: The History of Comic Conventions
By shathley Q
[18.Jun.09] :. This edition of "Iconographies" looks at the rise in popularity of the comics convention, and the pop-cultural changes conventions have brought to comics.

Dinosaur, Sr. or, Growing Old with (Prog) Rock and Roll
By Rob Kirkpatrick
[17.Jun.09] :. As part of his own personal “See ‘em While They’re Still Standing” 2008-2009 Tour -- tracking how his old music heroes are aging -- one PopMatters writer checks in on Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood.

Pixelated Brains and New Media: Part Two
By PopMatters Staff
[16.Jun.09] :. Pixelated Brains continues... Today: “The Power of Story in the Digital Age” argues that the ancient art of storytelling emerges from the random bytes of factoids. “Screaming in Digital” asserts that we are permanently altering the DNA of communication.

20 Questions: Crayton Robey
By Christian John Wikane
[16.Jun.09] :. The Boys in the Band defined a moment in LGBT history. Crayton Robey explores that history in Making the Boys, which debuted at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival.

Like Tiny Bacteria Running Around: An Interview with the Dirty Projectors
By Mehan Jayasuriya
[15.Jun.09] :. The Dirty Projectors' Dave Longstreth discusses Bitte Orca, his recent collaborations with Björk and David Byrne and the art of discharging firearms in Canadian shopping malls.

RECENT COLUMNS

— recent columns —

The Tackle Box: Snagged by Bishop—Hook, Line & Sinker
By Chris Justice
[24.Jun.09] :. Like the lakes we fish in, there are great treasures lurking in those depths, and great depth lurking in those treasures.

Read Only Memory: Augusten Burroughs: The View Through a Saltine Cracker
By Michael Antman
[23.Jun.09] :. As a memoirist, Burroughs is highly skilled at the art of aestheticized self-pity.

Global Beat Fusion: For Summer Dancing in the Streets
By Derek Beres
[22.Jun.09] :. Six spectacular world beat albums that will have you dancing through those sweet summer nights.

Suffragette City: Ingmar Bergman: No Man is an Island
By Matt Mazur
[19.Jun.09] :. Bergman’s need to honor, discover and examine his intrinsic connection to women is quite simple: all men are influenced by women.

Retro Remote: ‘Have Gun - Will Travel’: Return to Fort Benjamin
By Kit MacFarlane
[18.Jun.09] :. With attempted justifications of military torture on our minds, Retro Remote heads back to the '50s TV Western to find a surprisingly tough moral stance on the U.S. military's destruction of human dignity and dehumanisation of 'enemy combatants'.

Deconstruction Zone: Out of Tune and ‘Amplified’
By Rodger Jacobs
[17.Jun.09] :. As George Orwell said, “Nearly every book is capable of arousing passionate feeling, even if it is only a passionate dislike.”

Blood and Thunder: Goatwhore: Crazed Endurance
By Adrien Begrand
[16.Jun.09] :. One listen to Sammy Duet's masterful riffing is enough to send the most fussy metal aficionado into paroxysms of headbanging ecstasy.

Backslash: Surfing Alone: Is Digital Technology Destroying Relationships?
By Liz Colville
[15.Jun.09] :. On the Internet, we must continually ask ourselves what we are doing, to borrow Twitter's slogan, which sounds at turns like a taunt, a greeting, and an admonishment from God.

Alternative Rock Cultures: On the Sixth Day God Created Man…chester
By Iain Ellis
[12.Jun.09] :. Boasting a plethora of bands whose creative imaginations have invariably left legacies of influence, pound-for-pound Manchester is the world’s greatest rock city.

Jazz Today: Great Vibrations: An Interview with Gary Burton
By Will Layman
[11.Jun.09] :. Our jazz critic talks to Gary Burton about his reunion with Pat Metheny, about starting a "gentle" jazz-rock group, and that no one seems to know what a "vibraphone" really is.