Traditionalism often enables quiet triumphs. Or loud triumphs, if you turn the volume up.
Author Archives: Lucas Fagen
Lucas Fagen's favorite artform is popular music, and that means popular music—bland corporate trash and faceless functional product in addition to critically respectable touchstones and obscure dregs of arcana. He writes reviews for Hyperallergic arguing this preference.
Posted inMusic
Turning Inward with Robyn, Gazelle Twin, Rosalia, and Low
Four introspective new albums depict the outside world in microcosm.
Posted inMusic
Bhad Bhabie’s Fear of Fame
Bhad Bhabie is our era’s perfect musical antihero: a teenager forced into the spotlight, learning to rap as a survival mechanism.
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Janelle Monáe’s Political Sex
Monáe’s Dirty Computer is an ambitious, politically outspoken, all-encompassing pop-R&B statement album.
Posted inMusic
The Pistol Annies, Alone and Together
Miranda Lambert, Ashley Monroe, and Angaleena Presley are so consistent and prolific, independently and in their supertrio, they elicit hyperbole.
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A Compilation of Commercial Christmas Jingles
Enjoy these Christmas recordings while you can, for humming these tunes is forbidden after the new year.
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The Protest Music We’ve Been Waiting For
New albums from Superchunk, Noname, Blood Orange, and Tune-Yards strike a blow for the resistance.
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How Much Dylan Do We Need?
The Bootleg series once served a useful function, but it has long since tipped over into decadence.
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The Latin Invasion in Pop
Thanks to the growing popularity of Latin trap music, Latin pop is having a heyday in the United States.
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How to Construct a K-Pop Thrill
With the exception of Psy’s “Gangnam Style,” the American market has been tough for Korean record labels to crack, until now.
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Four Takes on the Cover Album
Cover albums reveal something about the evolution of shared taste and cultural memory.
Posted inMusic
Mitski’s Eclectic Emo
The New York folk-punk singer writes short, scary songs with holes and twists and choruses that never repeat, and unexpected endings.