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Features, reviews, interviews, and lists about books including cultural commentary and history, non-fiction, literature, and more.
What Puts the Pop in Pop Music?
As the Beatles learned, good music, even good looks, is seldom enough to break a band into the American mainstream. So what puts the pop in pop music?
Faulkner Bares His Fangs: Vampirism in ‘Sanctuary’
William Faulkner’s unproduced film script, ‘Dreadful Hollow’, was not his only foray into the fantastical, as 1931’s Sanctuary tells its twisted form of vampirism.
The Old Days Were Outrageous – You Couldn’t Say Anything
History of offense, protest, and censorship Outrageous is more of a clip show but also a riotous reminder that nothing in the cancel culture wars is new.
C. D. Rose’s ‘Walter Benjamin Stares at the Sea’ Plays Familiar Games with Time
Walter Benjamin Stares at the Sea plays with postmodernism, autofiction, philosophy, and a short story canon peopled by writers from Augustine to Raymond Carver.
Teju Cole’s ‘Tremor’ Records a Post-COVID Landscape of Art and Rage
If there is any consolation to be had in Teju Cole’s slippery and sinuous Tremor, it’s not found in art or literature but in the music that permeates its pages.
Gothic Tribes: The Cure’s Lol Tolhurst Explores Pop Music’s Dark Artists
Tolhurst’s goth music history intimately details the mercurial movement, interweaving personal memories and descriptions of the “architects of darkness”.
Personhood and Performance in Alexis Soloski’s ‘Here in the Dark’
Alexis Soloski’s Here in the Dark illuminates the act of performance (no matter the stage) and the notion of stepping into and out of one’s personhood.
‘Becoming Ella Fitzgerald’ Expands the Cultural Memory
Judith Tick’s Becoming Ella Fitzgerald corrects much of the public’s understanding of the First Lady of Song, necessarily expanding the cultural memory.
The Best Books of 2023
It won’t surprise PopMatters readers that many of our best books of 2023 are excavations of our increasingly clamorous culture. It wasn’t a year for escapism.
Peter Jesperson’s ‘Euphoric Recall’ Remembers His Wild Years with the Replacements
In Euphoric Recall, the Replacements’ manager Peter Jesperson is often as drunk as the band is, little more in control of their careening path than they are.
Depicting the Artistic Quest in ‘Miles Davis and the Search for the Sound’
Dave Chisholm uses creative methods for his graphic non-fiction novel about Miles Davis including gorgeous artwork to illustrate the jazz icon’s artistic quest.