A Jigsaw Falling into Place: How Fan Theories Help Market Radiohead’s Music
Masters of mystery, Radiohead’s modus operandi manifests in various fan theories – particularly the Binary Theory – which becomes brilliant music marketing.
Features
Features, interviews, and commentary about popular culture related topics, including music, film, TV, books, games, and more.
Roman Polanski’s ‘Chinatown’ Presses the Limits of Knowledge
If the detective story assumes that exposure brings understanding, and understanding brings justice, it mirrors the liberal belief in open information and discourse. In Chinatown, however, the truth is often already visible.
Gen X and the Changing Meaning of the Velvet Underground’s “Stephanie Says”
Heard amid aging, caregiving, and family violence, the Velvet Underground’s “Stephanie Says” captures how solitude confines Gen X women.
It’s a Wonderful Life’s Bell Is Still Ringing
Every Time a Bell Rings: The Legacy of It’s a Wonderful Life, America’s Most Beloved Holiday Film, reminds us what we need in our times.
Dawn Moraga of Cor de Lux Faces the Future with a Beautiful Blind Smile
North Carolina band Cor de Lux released one of the year’s essential indie rock records, and they did it their way. Dawn Moraga discusses their work.
Inside H. R. Giger’s Alien: The Biomechanical Horror That Changed Film, Art and Design
In creating his xenomorph, H. R. Giger fused anatomy, machinery, architecture, sexuality, and death into a coherent biomechanical grammar, designing a visual system that outlived 1979’s ‘Alien’ and himself.
Iggy Pop’s Noise Became My Chemical Romance’s Language in Detroit
At Comerica Park, Detroit’s original punk provocateur Iggy Pop turned a supporting slot into a confrontation between rock’s past and its future.
Proust’s ‘In Search of Lost Time’ Is the Epic of Social Climbing
Proust’s In Search of Lost Time ends with a bourgeois hostess pouring tea as a princess, and only readers who finish all seven volumes know whom she once called a bore.
Sylvie Vartan’s ‘La Reine de Saba’ Is a Gift to Fans Old and New
In 1974, French pop singer Sylvie Vartan released an album specifically for Japanese fans. This collection now stands as a love letter to vintage French pop culture.
An Old ‘Kingdom Hearts’ Save File Stirs More Than Nostalgia
Most games begin by teaching mechanics. Kingdom Hearts begins with an introspection that has followed me for decades.
Can Comedy Be an Antidote to Authoritarianism’s Poison?
Politically, the opposite of authoritarianism is democracy; cognitively, it is humor. Comedy may indeed be the best medicine for our seriously unwell era.
Jazz Saxophonist David S. Ware Never Played It Twice
Years after his untimely departure, David S. Ware remains one of free jazz’s most versatile tenor saxophonists. We delve into his career by revisiting one of his last interviews.
