Cultural Resources
Music
Articles/Essays/Op-eds
AMANPOUR: And next, Rhiannon Giddens is currently carving out her own impressive legacy. She's the singer, songwriter, banjo player, fiddler, and actress who keeps adding strings to her bow. "You're the One" is her latest release and her first full album of original songs. She won the Pulitzer Prize in music for her opera "Omar," and she's been on a global tour with Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road ensemble. Now, she's joining Walter Isaacson to discuss her unstoppable career.
Drake: “Certified Lover Boy”, Sheldon Pearce.
"Drake has enjoyed an unprecedented run for a rapper in the pop arena, but the cracks in his armor begin to show on “Certified Lover Boy,” his agitated sixth album. No longer fuelled by proving exes wrong, he seems to release new music to reinforce his own hyperfixation with being on top. He has become so obsessed with data-driven proof of his dominance that he reels off his performance stats like a C.F.O. at a shareholders’ meeting, confusing quantifiable success with unimpeachable artistry. He is certainly the chart front-runner, but it feels like maintaining that lead is weighing on him, lyrically and sonically. Rarely has standing atop the podium sounded so undesirable. Everyone outside his echo chamber is painted as treacherous, disloyal, a potential threat, or a potential leech, and the music, in turn, is paranoid, disengaged, and unfriendly. Drake’s singsong formula remains the same, but his hooks and stanzas are encumbered by an increasingly isolated and obstinate perspective."
Songs of Justice, Songs of Power, Tom Morello.
"Harmonizing and hell-raising, rhythm and rebellion, poetry and politics, singing and striking. The Industrial Workers of the World — the shock troops of the early-20th-century labor movement — virtually invented the protest song for the modern age... The I.W.W.’s mighty music of equality, justice and freedom is a reminder of struggles won and lost, as well as the battle hymns of struggles to come. So get out there and start creating that new world. Maybe learn some of these world-changing jams. Then write some of your own. (read more)
Grammy Winning Bluegrass Artist Billy Strings Has A New Album
SCOTT SIMON, HOST: It's all in the name, Billy Strings. The bluegrass virtuoso has a new album out. It's called "Renewal." And on it, Billy Strings plays guitar, synth and a guitar banjo hybrid called the guitjo...
STRINGS: ...I've had a couple of psychedelic and very enlightening experiences that made me feel more like an animal here on Earth, not different from the trees and the deer and the fish and the breeze. And I think us, as humans in general, are maybe a little greedy and maybe, you know, we take and take and take and take. And I don't know how much more the planet can take. And I just don't think we're the leaders anymore or if we should be allowed to be.
The Education of a Part-Time Punk, Kelefa Sanneh.
"Learning to love music—and to hate it, too... I sometimes wonder whether the age of arguing about music—the age of purity tests and underground idealism and sneering at the mainstream—is coming to a close... Maybe, in a world where there’s so much to listen to, it makes more sense to celebrate what you love and ignore everything else... I sometimes wonder, too, whether political conviction is replacing musical conviction as the preëminent marker of subcultural identity... Still, the adolescent impulse that fuelled punk has not disappeared, and neither has the primacy of popular music. We still take music personally, because we still listen to it socially: with other people, or at least while thinking of other people. And, historically, the moments when everyone seems to be listening to the same songs are the moments when some people are brave and immature enough to say fuck this and fuck that and start something new, or halfway new. That will probably always sound like a good idea to me." (read more)
American Folk Music: Politics and Protest, Smithsonian Institution.
“As the civil rights movement gained momentum in the 1960s, folk music gave voice to a new generation longing for equality and justice. "We Shall Overcome" is particularly well-known as a civil rights anthem. Folk music also played an influential role in environmental political efforts and anti-war protests during the United States' engagement in Vietnam. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings playlists, Sounds of the Civil Rights Movement and Peace Songs of the 1960s, reveal the vibrancy of the genre.”
Bob Dylan at 80: in praise of a mighty and unbowed singer-songwriter, Edward Docx.
“…At its simplest: we’re listening to a highly intelligent artist with a rare sensibility address the subjects that most define and preoccupy human beings throughout this inexplicable celebration/catastrophe we call life….”
Video
The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash (Official Documentary).
“YouTube Originals presents The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash. Johnny Cash stands among the giants of 20th century American life. But his story remains tangled in mystery and myth. This documentary, created with the full cooperation of the Cash estate and rich in recently discovered archival materials, brings Cash the man out from behind the legend. Taking the remarkable Folsom Prison recording as a central motif and featuring interviews with family and celebrated collaborators, the film explores the artistic victories, the personal tragedies, the struggles with addiction, and the spiritual pursuits that colored Johnny Cash's life. The Original Score to the documentary is available now, featuring essential Johnny Cash recordings & original score by Mike McCready incorporating exclusive interview soundbites with Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash, and others. https://JohnnyCash.lnk.to/TheGiftOST
No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, Martin Scorcese.
This four-hour award-winning documentary presents the story of Nobel Prize-winning musician and songwriter Bob Dylan from his roots in Minnesota to pop stardom in 1966. Streaming on Netflix.