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A musician wearing a Moog hat and playing a Moog synthesizer in a recording studio

The Sounds of Science

The Moog synthesizer was one of the most influential inventions in 20th-century sound. With the recent sale of the Asheville-based company, a new era begins.
by Reanna Cruz via The Bitter Southerner on October 31, 2023
Bruce Springsteen performing live onstage during the Born In the U.S.A. tour.

Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska and Born in the U.S.A. Captured Two Sides of Reagan’s America

Springsteen's albums offer a tragic-romantic view of the working class in Reagan-era America.
by William Harris via Jacobin on October 10, 2023
Jewish characters in television and film

The Long History of Jewface

Bradley Cooper’s prosthetic nose is the latest example of the struggles around Jewish representation on the stage and screen.
by Jody Rosen via The New Yorker on October 7, 2023
Musical notation and a drawing of a barbed wire fence.

The Musical Legacy of a Mississippi Prison Farm

The new album “Some Mississippi Sunday Morning” collects gospel songs recorded inside a notorious penitentiary.
by Hanif Abdurraqib via The New Yorker on October 2, 2023
Performers at the 1963 Renaissance Pleasure Faire. Ron Patterson, a co-founder of the event, appears in orange at the far right.

The Surprisingly Radical Roots of the Renaissance Fair

The first of these festivals debuted in the early 1960s, serving as a prime example of the United States' burgeoning counterculture.
by Gillian Bagwell via Smithsonian on September 28, 2023
Prisoners at Parchman Farm march to work on cotton fields

‘It’s a Charged Place’: Parchman Farm, the Mississippi Prison with a Remarkable Musical History

Inmates at this bucolic but brutal prison have long been singing the blues to sustain themselves, and a new compilation of gospel songs continues the legacy.
by Sheldon Pearce via The Guardian on September 20, 2023
A photograph of Pharaoh Sanders.

Feel-Ins, Know-Ins, Be-Ins

The most hypnotic piece of music released so far in 2023 was recorded forty-seven years ago in a barely adequate studio in Rockland County, New York.
by Adam Shatz via New York Review of Books on September 19, 2023
Sly Stone performing at a concert.

The Undoing of a Great American Band

Sly and the Family Stone suggested new possibilities in music and life—until it all fell apart.
by James Parker via The Atlantic on September 16, 2023
Mother-daughter opera singers Givonna Joseph and Aria Mason.

The Black Composers of New Orleans Opera Are Finally Getting Their Due

And it's all thanks to this mother-daughter dream team.
by Shoshi Parks via Atlas Obscura on September 13, 2023
Lady Columbia drawing from 1890.

Before Lady Liberty, There Was Lady Columbia, America's First National Mascot

The forgotten figure symbolized the hopes—and myths—of the early United States.
by Cari Shane via Smithsonian on August 30, 2023
The Sugarhill Gang's Wonder Mike, Master Gee and Hen Dogg in November 2019.

The Unlikely Origins of ‘Rapper’s Delight,’ Hip-Hop’s First Mainstream Hit

The Sugarhill Gang song remains one of rap's most beloved. But it took serendipity, a book of rhymes, and an agreement to settle a lawsuit for it to survive.
by Kim Bellware via Retropolis on August 8, 2023
Cover of "Playing for the Man at the Door" album.

Smithsonian Releases an Unheard Treasure Trove of Blues Music

A Smithsonian curator John Troutman and a blues musician discuss a new folk album, "Playing for the Man at the Door," from late chronicler Mack McCormick's collection.
by Dom Flemons, John Troutman, Scott Detrow via NPR on August 5, 2023
The cover of a book, titled "Biography of a Phantom: A Robert Johnson Blues Odyssey", written by Robert "Mack" McCormick.

Delta Force

A look at "Biography Of A Phantom", Robert McCormick's book about blues legend Robert Johnson.
by Dominic Green via The Washington Free Beacon on July 30, 2023
Man spinning record player with woman in the background

Making Music Male

How did record collecting and stereophile culture come to exclude women as consumers and experts?
by Ashawnta Jackson, Roy Shuker, Keir Keightley via JSTOR Daily on July 24, 2023

Tony Bennett Saw Racism and Horror in World War II. It Changed Him.

He marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Ala., after he witnessed atrocities while liberating Nazi death camps.
by Dave Kindy via Retropolis on July 21, 2023
The sixty-four hexagrams from the King Wen sequence of the I Ching.

The I Ching in America

Europeans translated the "Chinese Book of Changes" in the nineteenth century, but the philosophy really took off in the West after 1924.
by Livia Gershon, Richard J. Smith via JSTOR Daily on May 4, 2023
Painting called "Hudibras’ Discomfiture at the Hands of the Skimmington," by Francis Le Piper, seventeenth century.

American Charivari

The history and context of the made-up aesthetics of the early Ku Klux Klan.
by Devin Thomas O’Shea via Lapham’s Quarterly on April 24, 2023
Connie Converse playing a guitar

The Lost Music of Connie Converse

A writer of haunting, uncategorizable songs, she once seemed poised for runaway fame. But only decades after she disappeared has her music found an audience.
by Jeremy Lybarger via The New Republic on April 24, 2023
Albert Ayler (right) and his brother Donald Ayler, Harlem, 1966.

Escaping from Notes to Sounds

The saxophonist Albert Ayler revolutionized the avant-garde jazz scene, drastically altering notions of what noises qualified as music.
by Andrew Katzenstein via New York Review of Books on April 20, 2023
Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King.

The Night James Brown Saved Boston

The city might have gone up in flames after MLK's assassination, if not for the quick actions of a DJ, a city councilor, and The Hardest Working Man In Show Business.
by Dart Adams via Medium on April 5, 2023
Production of Oklahoma! where actors in brightly colored clothing dance a square dance in front of a set of rural architecture and farmland.

Behind 'Oklahoma!' Lies the Remarkable Story of a Gay Cherokee Playwright

Lynn Riggs wrote the play that served as the basis of the hit 1943 musical.
by Jennie Rothenburg Gritz via Smithsonian on March 30, 2023
Google's word occurences tool shows the word "teenager" appear around 1940, with an exponential increase in occurences up through the 2000s.

Teenagers Didn't Always Exist

So where were those angsty kids?
by Chris Dalla Riva via Can't Get Much Higher on March 16, 2023
Four characters from "Dazed and Confused."

The “Dazed and Confused” Generation

People my age are described as baby boomers, but our experiences call for a different label altogether.
by Bruce Handy via The New Yorker on March 2, 2023
Early phonograph.

How the Phonograph Created the 3-Minute Pop Song

And how streaming is changing it again.
by Clive Thompson via Medium on February 25, 2023
Looney Tunes "That's all Folks" on a TV screen.

HBO Max’s Great Looney Tunes Purge

Hundreds of classic cartoons vanished without warning. How can you raise your kids on favorites you can’t access anymore?
by Sam Thielman via Slate on January 11, 2023
Illustration of Guitar, a Gun and Roses by Eric Hanson

The Bully in the Ballad

Was Mississippi John Hurt really the first person to sing the tragic tale of Louis Collins?
by Eric McHenry via The American Scholar on December 15, 2022
A portrait of Joe Hill.

Joe Hill Was Killed for Singing Labor’s Song

The labor troubadour Joe Hill was executed by a Utah firing squad for a crime he almost certainly didn’t commit.
by Cal Winslow via Jacobin on November 19, 2022
A still from "Ulitza Sezam" with the cast and puppet characters sitting around a table.

When the Muppets Moved to Moscow

A new book details the tangled tale of "Ulitsa Sezam," a "Sesame Street" spinoff that aired until visions of Russia's democratic future faltered.
by Brigit Katz via Smithsonian on October 14, 2022
Alcorn State University's Origional Golden Girls.

Sass And Shimmer: The Dazzling History Of Black Majorettes And Dance Lines

Beginning in the 1960s, young Black majorettes and dance troupes created a fascinating culture. This is the story of how they did it.
by Alecia Taylor, Brooklyn White via Essence on October 10, 2022
Drawing of onomatopoetic words, exclamation points, and objects used to make noises.

The Weird, Analog Delights of Foley Sound Effects

E.T. was jello in a T-shirt. The Mummy was scratchy potpourri. For Foley artists, deception is an essential part of the enterprise.
by Anna Wiener via The New Yorker on June 23, 2022
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