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Best Music of 2002
BY POPMATTERS MUSIC CRITICS
Following several less than stellar musical years, 2002 shaped up to be the best year for new music since 1997.
[end of year 2002]

Best Film and Television of 2002
BY POPMATTERS FILM AND TV CRITICS
Still, many good and several great films arrived in theaters, some quickly gone, others adored by critics and viewers, and it was possible to track down tolerable, and even excellent, television.
[end of year 2002]

Joe Strummer 1952-2002
BY POPMATTERS MUSIC CRITICS
Joe Strummer's musical legacy is astounding. He, along with Mick Jones, wrote the soundtrack of an era -- late '70s Thatcherite Britain with all its decaying industry and racial strife and the cynical and selfish early Reagan '80s.
[27 December 2002]

Of Big Oil, By Big Oil, For Big Oil: The 10 Most Startling Speculations and "Conspiracy Theories" About September 11 and America's New War
BY MIKE WARD
Following are the 10 most alarming theories about September 11, the "war on terror," and the future of the world.
[27 December 2002]

Axl Uses His Disillusion
BY MICHAEL CHRISTOPHER
Axl must realize that he no longer comes off as the dangerous and volatile bad boy of rock, but rather the immature and irresponsible poster boy for middle age ego and disillusionment.
[26 December 2002]

The 2002 Texas Book Festival
BY JENNIFER BENDERY
Now, six years later, things are quite different: George W. is our president, Laura Bush is the First Lady, and the Texas Book Festival has morphed into one of the premier literary events in the country.
[26 December 2002]

Ten Reasons Why American Culture Didn't Suck in 2002 . . . And Ten Reasons Why It Did
BY SCOTT THILL
Here's 20 watershed moments of the past year whose impact will most likely be felt long after Dick Clark's balls drop on New York City and Los Angeles.
[24 December 2002]

CMJ This!
BY VARIOUS WRITERS
In these indie rock heydays, our writers turn away from what's hyped and delve into the ripe (and sour) of North America's largest new music festival.
[16 December 2002]

Fate Wears a Fedora
BY DAVID SANJEK
As much as the cinema molded his worldview, Jean-Pierre Melville was a man of action, tested in the course of conflict like few individuals who have chosen to display violence on screen.
[6 December 2002]

An Outsider's Insight: Karel Reisz (1926-2002)
BY JONATHAN KIEFER
Reisz had done more than touched a nerve. He had opened a vein.
[5 December 2002]

The Thrill is Gone: The 20th Anniversary of Thriller
BY MARK ANTHONY NEAL
Since the off-the-chart global success of Thriller 20 years ago, Michael Jackson has been on the unenviable quest to top himself and unfortunately his out-of-studio antics have done just that, obscuring a musical career of some distinction.
[3 December 2002]

Smile When You Say That: James Coburn (1928-2002)
BY DAVID SANJEK
You had the feeling the man possessed an undeniable center of gravity that could allow him to prevail effortlessly in the midst of abject chaos.
[29 November 2002]

Select Your Memory: Geffen, MTV and Pop Culture Exhume Nirvana
BY SCOTT THILL
[T]rue to the reflexive nature of media in general, MTV's self-absorption quickly deflects whatever cultural capital the station tries to give Nirvana back onto itself.
[8 November 2002]

The "I" in Team
BY TOBIAS PETERSON
Superstar athletes are caught in a paradoxical bind: rewarded for being better than the rest of us, punished for letting us know.
[8 November 2002]

Look Back and Laugh
BY ADAM DLUGACZ
Since it's inception in 1980 Dischord has released 133 of the best albums by some of the most interesting and diverse bands ever... The CDs are still cheap, most bands still record in Don Zietra's studio, their advertisements all feature the brilliant black and white photography, and most of the band members have stayed.
[6 November 2002]

Transcendent Realism: Jacques Becker Film Retrospective: Brooklyn Art Museum Cinemathek
BY KATE JOHNSON
Jacques Becker's work features a moral neutrality that leaves viewers to judge for themselves, unlike many contemporary efforts.
[3 November 2002]

Royalty? (for Jam Master Jay a.k.a. Jason Mizell)
BY MARK ANTHONY NEAL
[W]ithin the context of hip-hop music and culture the killing of Jam Master Jay is comparable to someone walking up to Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin and shooting them in the head. It is cultural treason.
[2 November 2002]

Pearl Jam Roach Motels
BY DAVID MEDSKER AND WILL HARRIS
What the public and the music industry have forgotten is that the people can still make things happen. The Attack of the Glue Albums may seem like a silly, innocuous act by itself, but it's part of a bigger plan to beat the music buyers into submission.
[22 October 2002]

Two Cheers for Jeff Tweedy
BY MATTHEW P. BROWN
The world on the ground is a house of blues, made worse by compliance, made better by songs and heart and -- most un-punk -- civic-mindedness. Tweedy might take seriously the Woody Guthrie mantle he inherited with Billy Bragg during the Mermaid Avenue sessions.
[8 October 2002]

The World According to Shorts: Brooklyn Art Museum Short Film Festival
BY JOCELYN SZCZEPANIAK-GILLECE
Hope for the future of filmmaking seems, this year at least, to reside not in epics but in short films.
[26 September 2002]

Rock of Ages
BY MARK DIONNE
Let's face it: you have a musical past and it can't be buried.
[18 September 2002]

The Racial Lessons of 9/11
BY CAROL CHEHADE
Unlike Arab-Americans, the flag that African-Americans know is so heavily drenched in blood and tears that it can never flutter lightly anywhere. Looking at how Arab-Americans use flags reminds me of the Biblical story when the God of Moses instructed the Hebrews to mark their doors with blood so that the wrath of God bypasses their homes.
[10 September 2002]

A Conversation with Lewis Lapham
BY KEVIN CANFIELD
The editor of Harper's Magazine, took time this week to discuss the nation's reaction to September 11, his problems with the current caretakers of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. and the onslaught of media coverage that threatens to obscure the real truths of 9/11.
[10 September 2002]

Marty Beckerman is Stronger Than You
BY MATTHEW CHABE
In the land of milk and honey, Beckerman sets out to sour an oversexed youth contingent.
[5 September 2002]

MTV Video Music Awards
BY LEAH HOCHBAUM
Axl Rose delighted mature viewers but left much of MTV's new target audience -- those who think the Backstreet Boys are old -- thinking the 40something's antics were a bit sad.
[3 September 2002]

Jazz Today Part Five - Hip-Hop and the New Jazz Funk
BY MAURICE BOTTOMLEY
For some reason (possibly the urban secularism of both forms) jazz and hip-hop have generally made sympathetic partners.
[27 August 2002]

To: Big Five Re: Download Sites
BY DAVID MEDSKER AND NEIL SOISETH
In a perfect world, the Big Five would all go to bed one night and wake up to find the Internet had been destroyed while they were sleeping. What they don't realize is that the Internet is their salvation.
[21 August 2002]

Creating Audiences: Reeling 2002: The 21st Chicago Lesbian and Gay International Film Festival
BY JOHN DEMETRY
Reeling 2002 provides an opportunity to investigate how audiences create their movies and how movies create their audiences.
[15 August 2002]

Dylan Revisits an Old Burial Ground
BY SCOTT WALDMAN
While Newport reveled in going against the grain it was never a place for musical revolutions. That is why Dylan made such a big splash when he used it as a place to introduce his new sound. But now, there is no establishment.
[14 August 2002]

Fans Gather for the Rising, While a Beleaguered City Is Shut Out
BY JOHN DUFFY
Bruce Springsteen is said to have saved rock and roll. Despite the fact at 52 he remains one of the most engaging performers in the history of the genre, it's not his to save anymore.
[13 August 2002]

Jazz Today Part Four - The Singers and the Songs
BY MAURICE BOTTOMLEY
It's a pretty good time to be a jazz vocalist -- particularly a female one. If your name is Diana Krall, it is of course even better.
[5 August 2002]

Sunday Singing: The Black Gospel Quartet
BY MARK ANTHONY NEAL
The intricate four-part harmonies that were the bedrock of the black gospel quartet tradition, were honed over centuries in the work songs that enslaved blacks incorporated into their daily activities as exploited laborers. These harmonies have always had a "public" visibility that connected them more to the secular world, though so many of the narratives were "other-worldly", which would also include visions of emancipation and a return to the "homeland".
[5 August 2002]

"Warm? Cool? What's the Difference?": Reevaluating ECM
BY MATT CIBULA
Is there anything common linking these artists? A sound? An aesthetic? A philosophy? I don't really think so. All they have in common is their brilliance at playing jazz music, and having once been signed to the same label.
[5 August 2002]

Manchild Revisited: Race Crusader or Falling Star?
BY MARTY THAU
We're talking mucho bucks and financial strategy and public image when all is said and done. It's big-time scumbag business.
[12 July 2002]

Summer Mixes - A Soul Spectrum Supplement
BY MAURICE BOTTOMLEY
Any one comp will give you a fair picture of the possibilities each scene has to offer. One or two will find their way into your lives, as perfect headphone or car driving accompaniment to your summer groove.
[10 July 2002]

John Entwistle, 1944-2002
BY SEAN ROVALDI
Onstage, while Townshend would be smashing his guitar, Moon kicking over his drum kit and Daltrey scraping the microphone on one of Moon's dislodged cymbals, Entwistle would stand in front of his bass cabinet playing various scales right through the chaos around him.
[1 July 2002]

Success Story
BY JASON THOMPSON
The camera falls on Entwistle, who's caught with a half-assed grin that quickly turns into a grimace. That one shot says it all for John: the guy standing at the back who had more up his sleeve than he was letting on.
[1 July 2002]

The Coolness of John
BY NICOLE PENSIERO
I understood the value of John Entwistle's rock-solid strength amid the pinball-bouncing craziness of his bandmates' fierce energy. If they were the sizzle, 'The Ox', as he was affectionately known, was the steak.
[1 July 2002]

Hard Hitting Blues: Blues, Boxing, and Work
BY CARLO ROTELLA
Comparing bluesmen to boxers is a parlor game -- okay, a saloon pastime -- worth trying once or twice.
[28 June 2002]

Hard Hitting Blues: Baby Workout: Jackie Wilson
BY MARK DESROSIERS
His tragic career will always be offered as an object lesson in power and greed (not to mention the fate of the black man in entertainment).
[28 June 2002]

Hard Hitting Blues: Requiem for a Heavyweight: Jackie Wilson
BY MATT CIBULA
Jackie Wilson will be recognized as a superb gloveman who wasn't afraid to mix it up in the corners, only to be brought down by the same habits he acquired when he was learning to harness his amazing gifts.
[28 June 2002]

Hard Hitting Blues: Johnny "Clyde" Copeland
BY JORDAN KESSLER
Like many bluesmen -- and any boxer -- Texas guitarslinger Johnny Copeland got knocked down a lot, but he always fought hard to get back up.
[28 June 2002]

Hard Hitting Blues: How'd a White Boy Get the Blues
BY DOMINIC FORCELLA
Popa Chubby is one of today's rising blues musicians and one of the blues' biggest fight fans.
[28 June 2002]

Hard Hitting Blues: Every Picture Tells a Story, Don't It?
BY DAN COLLINS (AS TOLD TO BARBARA FLASKA)
The most telling connection between blues and boxing were the bluesmen themselves who had also been fighters. But evidence of this association can be seen elsewhere, if you happen to look in the right places. If you're lucky, there it is, staring you straight back in the face, just like the early blues and R&B posters do.
[28 June 2002]

Hard Hitting Blues: Jelly Roll Morton
BY MARSHALL BOWDEN
The life of the New Orleans piano 'professor' who grew up playing in whorehouses and clip joints has long been the stuff of legend in both jazz and blues music.
[28 June 2002]

Hard Hitting Blues: Champion Jack Dupree: Great Long Ways From Home
BY MAURICE BOTTOMLEY
Dupree's own life, as well as his music, provide a narrative that touched on so many aspects of the 20th century African-American experience that it at times beggars belief.
[28 June 2002]

Hard Hitting Blues: Walkin' the Blues: Willie Dixon
BY ANDREW GILSTRAP
Dixon's stature only grew with the British Invasion.
[28 June 2002]

Hard Hitting Blues: Professor Longhair
BY MARSHALL BOWDEN
Longhair is the Picasso of keyboard funk.
[28 June 2002]

Hard Hitting Blues: Remembering the Mighty Man
BY BARBARA FLASKA
Mentioning his name will jumpstart memories of powerful Chicago-style soul blues that telegraphs a rhythm into the soul of any blues fan.
[28 June 2002]

Hard Hitting Blues: Ten Reasons Bo Diddley Is the Forgotten Heavyweight Champion of Rock
BY MATT CIBULA
Bo Diddley is more important than the Stones, more crucial than the Beatles, more fundamental to rock as a lyricist and an instrumentalist and a conceptualist than Elvis Presley or Buddy Holly or Brian Wilson.
[28 June 2002]

Hard Hitting Blues: Smitty's Blues
BY BARBARA FLASKA
Byther Smith has been a working man his whole long life, and rightly takes pride in that honest fact.
[28 June 2002]

Hard Hitting Blues: The Last Man Standing: James Brown
BY J. VICTORIA SANDERS
The tag "Soul Brother Number One", attributed to the great funk God James Brown, didn't come without him paying dues -- literally and figuratively.
[28 June 2002]

Be Like June . . .
BY MARK ANTHONY NEAL
If June Jordan has been invisible to the mainstream in her death, it was not simply because she was black, but because she was a black woman, who chose to be an activist and an intellectual, in a society that seemingly has little value for black women who aren't taking off their clothes, while celebrating their "bootilicious" reality on a Viacom-owned video channel or an HBO "sex" series.
[25 June 2002]

The Legend of the Lipstick Killers
BY MARTY THAU
The record business perceived the Dolls as too dangerous, too radical, too frightening even to be in the same room with, too hard to sell. Every time Leber and I talked to record people we came across an invisible wall. Could they play as well as the Allman Brothers? What is this gender bending thing? Are they gay?
[25 June 2002]

This Is It
BY POPMATTERS MUSIC WRITERS
PopMatters' own bring to the surface a dozen under-the-radar musicians who are sure to blow your mind and your speakers.
[11 June 2002]

Tyson Meade is a Rock God
BY STEVEN MAY
Meade was the real ugly truth. During the 1960s and '70s he grew up gay in the nowhere north Oklahoma oil outpost of Bartlesville, where football and Our Lord Jesus Christ rule the roost and homosexuality is considered unnatural and satanic. Music was his only salvation...
[4 June 2002]

The Cult of Personality
BY DEVON POWERS
Ahh, Gary Wilson. For the performer who is as much performance artist as he is lounge act, a pat fairy tale simply will not do. His fade into obscurity came largely because no one could understand his music; today, it still sounds light years ahead of its time and maybe not even of this planet.
[3 June 2002]

Hip-Hop and Beyond: Hip-Hop Comes to Berkeley
BY MARK ANTHONY NEAL
The Jay Zs and Ja Rules of the world would no longer be role models to black youth if we all had a more prominent role in their lives.
[6 May 2002]

Los Imposibles Hombres Impasibles: Café Tacuba at the Crossroads
BY MATT CIBULA
The real key to Café Tacuba is the fact that all four members write beautiful songs.
[4 May 2002]

Narcocorrido: A Journey into the Music of Drugs, Guns, and Guerrillas
BY BARBARA FLASKA
Elijah Wald is single-handedly defining the narcocorrido phenomenon.
[4 May 2002]

Working the Borders: The Tijuana and Monterrey Scenes
BY MATT CIBULA
Tijuana and Monterrey are both closer to the U.S. border than they are to Mexico City, and both have enthusiastic and committed local music scenes that have little to do with trying to sound like 'chilangos' (natives of Mexico City) and everything to do with musical hybridism.
[4 May 2002]

Ain't Trickin' Me
BY CYNTHIA FUCHS
As soon as word got out that Lisa Lopes was dead, the news-and-entertainment industry kicked into a depressingly familiar gear.
[2 May 2002]

Explorations: The Brooklyn Jewish Film Festival
BY JOCELYN SZCZEPANIAK-GILLECE
The efforts of the Brooklyn Jewish Film Festival to use Jewish identity as a jumping-off point to promote understanding among many groups, are admirable and welcome.
[2 May 2002]

Tell Me When It's Over: The Paisley Underground Reconsidered
BY JOHN L. MICEK
The bands that made up the Paisley Underground provide a direct link between the early American underground and the modern alternative rock and alt.country that was to follow a decade later.
[30 April 2002]

Goodbye, Layne
BY STEPHEN RAUCH
I remember the feeling of sadness when I read that Staley had taken to wearing fingerless gloves, presumably to hide the puncture wounds on the backs on his hands, from injecting heroin when his other veins refused to cooperate.
[25 April 2002]

South by Southwest on a Shoestring: A Diary
BY MARGARET SCHWARTZ
Schwartz writes about her odyssey at this year's South By Southwest Festival in the "Home of Live Music" [Austin, Texas]; the place where "Music Still Matters".
[19 April 2002]

The Wisconsin Film Festival 2002
BY CHRISTOPHER SIEVING
The Wisconsin Film Festival represents the Badger State's belated but nimble leap onto the festival bandwagon.
[18 April 2002]

Paranoia Over Privacy
BY CHRIS FITZPATRICK
How is a sense of security retained in an environment embedded with hidden policies and clauses that come to the foreground only after the fact? The same security measures put in place to protect our privacy have the capacity to strip them from us.
[10 April 2002]

A Cynic's Demise: Billy Wilder (1906-2002)
BY DAVID SANJEK
To the movie maven, Billy Wilder was the last of his kind, the most visible link to the Golden Age of Hollywood . . . he epitomized the professional spit and polish that the factory system of the major studios promoted.
[10 April 2002]

Freedy in the Aftermath
BY MATTHEW P. BROWN
Something of this clumsy love can get us through a season of war. By way of the benefit concert, pop has seemed like a parade of virtue; by way of everything else, it has sounded like knee-jerk nationalism.
[10 April 2002]

Art Forms
BY STEPHEN RAUCH
When talking about movies, the phrase "based on a video game" does not have to mean simply "dumb".
[4 April 2002]

Eight Years After: A Remembrance of Kurt Cobain's Troubles and the Music They Inspired
BY CHARLOTTE ROBINSON
At the start of the '90s, Kurt Cobain appeared to be the savior of rock 'n' roll. He was a beacon of hope to the black and flannel set, who saw him emerge from the fog of macho groups like Guns N' Roses as the only guy who could wear liberalism on his sleeve, begging sexist, racist, and homophobic rednecks not to buy his records, while still gaining their admiration by rocking fucking hard.
[4 April 2002]

Dueling Banjos: Scruggs-style vs. the Clawhammer
BY CHUCK HICKS
What Earl Scruggs brought to banjo was a "little something extra", that being his middle finger . . . In fact, it can be said with a straight face that Scruggs is the father of industrial music, because his home environment had everything to do with his sound.
[2 April 2002]

Czech New Wave Cinema: The Children of Marx and Kafka
BY LAUREL HARRIS
Czech New Wave film was able to hold up a mirror to the other side of the Iron Curtain, and to demystify the influence of the West.
[31 March 2002]

South by Southwest Film Festival 2002
BY TOBIAS PETERSON
Indications are that the SXSW Film Festival may be soon outgrowing the Music Festival's shadow and stepping into a light all its own.
[28 March 2002]

Bono Re-finds His Inner Yeats
BY MATT CIBULA
We knew, just 'knew', that U2 was so political and fiery and impassioned because they were Irish.
[15 March 2002]

Cadence to Arms: the Dropkick Murphys
BY MARK DESROSIERS
[The Dropkick Murphys are] quite possibly the most brilliant and exciting live band around today, really. And if they don't make you start thinking patriotically about Irish-American heroes like Mother Jones, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Michael J. Quill, and George Meany, then they haven't done their job.
[15 March 2002]

Irish Music, Roots and Branches
BY MICHAEL STONE
Irish traditional song reflects the cultural cross currents and historical conflicts that long have linked Ireland and the British Isles. So what makes Irish traditional music 'Irish', and for that matter, what might distinguish it as 'Celtic'?
[15 March 2002]

Oisin's Arguments with St. Patrick
BY MICHAEL STEPHENS
Taken together, the St. Patrick and Oisin tales constitute a dialogue that is also a theological battle between Christianity and Celtic paganism.
[15 March 2002]

Jazz Today Part Three - Smooth Jazz Not Jazz Shock!
BY MAURICE BOTTOMLEY
The fact is that this saccharine child of our times [smooth jazz] bears no more relation to modern jazz than Glenn Miller's sound did to Count Basie's or George Shearing's to Bud Powell's.
[13 March 2002]

Brits Take Pride in Their Pop
BY JESSICA HODGES
Pop music has long had a strong hold on British airwaves. But the national obsession seems to have reached new heights this year with the success of star making series like Popstars and the even bigger Pop Idol.
[6 March 2002]

Oh, what heights...: Chuck Jones [1912-2002]
BY JOHN G. NETTLES
During the 20-plus years he spent making cartoons for Warners, alongside such other luminaries as Fred "Tex" Avery and Bob Clampett, Jones left an indelible mark on popular culture.
[6 March 2002]

The 2002 Indies
BY BILL KELLY
"What exactly is indie rock, anyhow?" or possibly "How does a band receive a nomination for these obviously prestigious awards?" Well, though not an exact science, the most obvious characteristic is that the artists usually release their music on an independent record label rather than one of the major corporate labels.
[1 March 2002]

Jazz Today Part Two - Mainstream Variations
BY MAURICE BOTTOMLEY
If a blues artist stays "true" to the blues, it viewed as a plus. Jazz with its emphasis on innovation is less easily pleased. Hence the recent rows. The musician has to be both radically innovative and belong to an unproblematised lineage that stretches back to New Orleans.
[18 February 2002]

The Velvet Underground in New York, New York in the Velvet Underground
BY NICOLAS TAYLOR
If they were not just noisemakers in funny clothes with funny voices, then what exactly did the Velvet Underground do that was so important?
[7 February 2002]

Fans on the Run: Flickerstick, The Strokes, and the Art of Instant Stardom
BY CHARLES MARSHALL
But in the end, I wanted to see more Flickerstick in the Strokes -- an aggressive stage presence rather than a haughty stage attitude; a carefully crafted setlist rather than a rendition of songs in the order they occur on the record; a physical immersion in the music rather than a mere recitation of words and notes.
[3 February 2002]