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Dr. Dre.

The Complicated Truths of Dr. Dre’s ‘The Chronic’

No rap album has quite the mythology attached to it—as a game changer, a king maker, a genre expander. But legends aren’t exactly fact.
partner

Coronavirus Has a Playlist. Songs About Disease Go Way Back.

Coronavirus songwriting has gone as global as the pandemic itself, creating a new genre called pandemic pop. It’s a tradition with a long history.

‘Baby, It's Cold Outside' Was Controversial From the Beginning

Here’s what to know about consent in the 1940s, when the song was written.

William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock ‘n’ Roll

From Bob Dylan to David Bowie to The Beatles, the legendary Beat writer’s influence reached beyond literature into music in surprising ways.

Baby, Christmas Songs Have Always Been Controversial

Long before “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” holiday songs played a part in the War on Christmas.

The Most Important Album of 1968 Wasn’t The White Album. It Was Beggars Banquet.

It saved the Rolling Stones, altered the trajectory of music history, and turns 50 this week.

'I'm Feeling Bad About America'

The sick history of the U.S. campaign song.
Painting of the mouth of a cave.

Down in the Hole: Outlaw Country and Outlaw Culture

Country music has often stood, as it were, with one foot in and one foot out of the cave.
Colorful illustration of Larry Norman, haloed by yellow.

The Unlikely Endurance of Christian Rock

The genre has been disdained by the church and mocked by secular culture. That just reassured practitioners that they were rebels on a righteous path.
Two posters of the "We Can Do It!" posters with Rosie the Riveter hang on a wall.

Rosie the Riveter Isn’t Who You Think She Is

While the female factory worker is a pop icon now, the “We Can Do It!” poster was unknown to the American public in the 1940s.
The Dead Kennedys band.

America Needs a Definitive History of Dead Kennedys…And Here’s Why It Won’t Happen

"I pledge to laugh / At the Flag / Of the United States of America..."

John Wesley Harding at Fifty: WWDD?

Bob Dylan's confessional album resisted the political radicalism and activism of 1967.

The Historical Roots of Blues Music

The blues is not "slave music," but the music of freed African Americans.

Agriculture Wars

On country music as a lens through which to trace the corporatization of American farming.

A Hardworking Man Named Bob McDill

The steady hand behind more than 30 No. 1 country hits.

Wouldn’t You Love to Love Her?

A biography of Stevie Nicks does little to dispel the magic.

The Music I Love Is a Racial Minefield

How I learned to fiddle my way through America's deeply troubling history.

Here's What Benjamin Franklin Scholars Think About Lin-Manuel Miranda's Ode to the Inventor

Fact-checking the lyrics of Miranda's new song.
Otis Redding

Inside Otis Redding's Final Masterpiece '(Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay'

Co-writer Steve Cropper and other collaborators take a new look back at the legendary song, recorded just weeks before the singer’s tragic 1967 death.
family Thanksgiving meal

The Dark and Divisive History of America’s Thanksgiving Hymn

How a beloved song with origins in 16th-century Europe captures both a holiday's spirit of unity and a country's legacy of exclusion.

The Monitor: The Punk Album that Predicted Our Politics

How Titus Andronicus drew on Civil War lore to frame contemporary social divides.

Joni Mitchell: Fear of a Female Genius

One of the greatest living artists in popular music still isn’t properly recognized.

“Like Sonny Liston”: An Appreciation of Tom Petty

Patterson Hood argues that Tom Petty achieved perfection in his songwriting... time and time again.
Illustration of the folk hero, John Henry, face down with a hammer in his hand.

A History of American Protest Music: This Is the Hammer That Killed John Henry

How a folk hero inspired one of the most covered songs in American history.
Otis Redding

Five Magnificent Years

A recent Otis Redding biography examines what was and what could have been, 50 years after tragedy struck.

How "This Land Is Your Land" Went From Protest Song to Singalong

Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” has lost a bit of its protest oomph—in part because of a decades-long denial of its later verses.

All 213 Beatles Songs, Ranked From Worst to Best

We had to count them all.
Guitar Shorty sitting on a bench outside of a house, and playing guitar while smoking a cigar.

Put on my Clothes and Look Like Somebody Else

The life of Guitar Shorty was a mixture of facts, lies and fantasy. He was a blues musician who lived far outside mainstream society.

How The Hutchinson Family Singers Achieved Pop Stardom with an Anti-Slavery Anthem

"Get Off the Track!" borrowed the melody of a racist hit song and helped give a public voice to the abolitionist movement.
Bob Dylan and The Band performing on stage

The Brotherhood of Rock

The story of how The Band, in Robbie Robertson's words, "acted out an ideal of democracy and equality."

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