Few people today can pinpoint with much accuracy when it was decided that “baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie” were the holy trinity of that which is most American. Still, the cement dried on the […]

There is very little love lost between the Baby Boomer generation and the one that followed it, Generation X. According to the Boomers, they gave the world Woodstock, social transformation, and political activism that dismantled […]

Even in the pre-internet days, it was easy for a baseless rumor about a given musician to gain traction. Indeed, artists spanning the musical spectrum from Rod Stewart to Frank Zappa to Stevie Nicks have […]

The period known as the 1960s is regularly invoked as one in which pop music reached its highest peak. A look at the sales charts from that period will show that a lot of great […]

It’s a sad state of affairs, but it’s true and bears repeating — a lot of popular music is terrible, and a lot of great music never gets popular. We would love to pretend it […]

Happy National Cheeseburger Day! Folks across the country will be able to snag some tasty deals from many of their favorite burger joints today, including McDonald’s, where customers will be able to get a double cheeseburger […]

Despite having a long and proud history of helping found it (see Sister Rosetta Tharpe, for example), rock and roll remains a boys’ club where women are not welcome. To many men, a woman’s place […]

Musical taste is subjective, and there are no right or wrong answers when discussing it. Those who enjoy listening to ‘The Ethel Merman Disco Album’ have as much right to their opinion as those who […]

While many great philosophical quotes have been uttered extolling the virtues of extending an olive branch, we don’t all lie awake at three o’clock in the morning dwelling on the people we’d like to forgive. […]

Cancel culture isn’t a new thing. Just ask Galileo or any other famous personality who ran afoul of contemporary social mores – their careers were all destroyed with no chance of rehabilitation, and sometimes they […]

During a period spanning many decades, rock and roll has established itself as the music of young ne’er-do-wells, people who wanted to live fast and die young. The lyric “Hope I die before I get […]

Some musicians are able to express high-minded concepts with expressive language. They draw us into their lyrics, even when the ideas are a little esoteric. They’re also able to convey musical ideas with  guitars, drums […]

Since their emergence from Liverpool in 1962, the Beatles created the template for rock bands that’s still in place today, from the guitar-bass-drums instrumentation to the bitter feuding between band members. For a band that […]

Ever since he first burst onto the scene, Tom Hanks has built a career as a good-natured everyman, a man with basic decency who is impossible to dislike. He’s relatable, and he’s been able to […]

For those of us who lived through it, it’s hard to believe it’s been 22 years since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. There’s no getting around the fact that it was a traumatic […]

It takes money to make money, and if you want to create a piece of music that reaches a broad audience, some capital investment is needed to make that happen. It doesn’t have to be […]

Making great music is like playing baseball; nobody bats 1000, no matter how good they are. Sure, a few artists have managed the neat trick of never making a bad album, but those artists are, […]

Most professional musicians would have you believe they’re artists first and only sully themselves with commerce because they must. However, rent must be paid, and the electric company does not recognize integrity as legal tender. […]

For the most part, television commercials are not watched so much as endured. People of a certain age will remember the unpleasant sensation of watching some show or another, then jumping up to go to […]

Ah, the ’90s! Remember those days? Communism took a nosedive, flannel was somehow cool, your mailbox was constantly cluttered by AOL discs, and people were actually concerned about Y2K turning their computers into expensive bricks. Fax machines […]

Craving a getaway? Let’s take a musical journey through time that stretches waaaaaaay back to the days of joyful summer tunes. Ever wondered what the sizzling summer radio hits were in the year you were […]

Pixar Animation Studios, known for its high-quality animated films, released its first film, the critically-acclaimed box office sensation “Toy Story,” in 1995. Since then, Pixar has consistently created movies that captivate children of all ages. […]

Many country music fans recognize that songs about jail are a recurring theme within the genre. In fact, several country music albums focus solely on the experience of being incarcerated, moving beyond typical themes like […]

In rock and roll, “great singing” is subjective. Mick Jagger cannot be said to have a particularly operatic voice, but what he does works within the context of the Rolling Stones. And besides, even the […]

In rock and roll, “great singing” is subjective. Mick Jagger cannot be said to have a particularly operatic voice, but what he does works within the context of the Rolling Stones. And besides, even the […]

There is perhaps no greater tragedy than that of a perfectly good song that gets overplayed. Classic songs like the Rolling Stones’ “Jumping Jack Flash” and the Who’s “Who Are You” may have been great […]

For film enthusiasts who view a two-hour cinematic experience as an educational journey rather than a mere popcorn-fueled diversion, the darkened theater becomes a classroom of sorts. These dedicated moviegoers seize every screening as a […]

Cover songs can help fledgling artists get a foot in the door with listeners who don’t know them yet. Early albums by such groups as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were hip deep in […]

Playing in a band is a tricky proposition. In addition to sounding good together, all the band members have to like each other, or at least be able to tolerate one another. Sadly, in the […]