pop music

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  2/2/2023
  

  The Case for Blondie as the Sound of the 70s

  by Kevin Dettmar

  While the decade's pop scene was undeniably eclectic, there's an argument to be made that the New York group was at the center of the most lasting trends of the 1970s. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/27/2022
  

  Stevie Wonder's "Talking Book" at 50

  Musical collaborators and artists later influenced by Stevie Wonder's declaration of musical independence explain the album's creation and impact. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Bulwark
  10/4/2022
  

  What Lizzo Can Teach the Right about History

  Commentator Mona Charen writes that Lizzo's embrace of an artifact of the founding generation should be welcomed by conservatives, who claim to stand for a history shared by all Americans without regard for identity. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  2/10/2021
  

  The Beatles Ignited a Culture War and Changed the World

  by Randall J. Stephens

  While Peter Jackson's "Get Back" documentary focuses on the last phases of the band's work together, it's important to think about how the group's emergence changed American culture, especially around sex and gender. 

• 
• 10/3/2021
  

  At 82, Dion Offers a Rock and Roll Light in the Darkness

  by Richard Aquila

  Dion's new recording isn't just a work of Baby Boomer nostalgia; it reaches to the past to understand the present, says a historian of rock in American culture.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/14/2021
  

  The Culture Warped Pop Music – For Good

  Partly due to the way streaming service users listen, the structures of pop music songs have changed in recent years; although today's hits are built differently than those of the 1960s, it's part of a long pattern of change in pop. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  2/11/2021
  

  The Lady Gaga Anthem That Previewed a Decade of Culture Wars

  Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" was embraced as an anthem by some LGBTQ fans, but immediately raised questions about identity and cultural authority that are at the center of online culture wars today. 

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  7/28/2020
  

  A New Book Traces The History Of Boy Bands, The Pop Phenomenon 'Larger Than Life'

  For reasons that she explores in her new book, "Larger Than Life: A History Of Boy Bands From NKOTB To BTS", Maria Sherman says boy bands don't get the same respect as other music acts, especially their rock peers.

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• 11-18-13
  

  Review of Linda Ronstadt's "Simple Dreams"

  by Jim Cullen

  A musical memoir with a few too many silent notes.

• SOURCE: The Root
  3-10-13
  

  Tamara Palmer: How the 'Billie Jean' Video Changed MTV

  Tamara Palmer is a San Francisco-based freelance writer and the author of Country Fried Soul: Adventures in Dirty South Hip-Hop. Follow her on Twitter. (The Root) -- "Billie Jean," who was not Michael Jackson's lover, is turning 30 -- or at least her video is, and it's an important anniversary in the evolution of both black music's visual expression and America's iconic music network. On March 10, 1983, MTV played "Billie Jean" for the first time and forever changed the course of its music programming in the process.