Backflipping Bros and Moody Teens

But critics and music historians hate sentimental love songs, so these artists and songs struggle to get a place in the history books. Transgressive rockers, in contrast, enjoy lasting fame . . . right now, electronic dance music probably outsells hip-hop. In my opinion, this is identical to the punk-versus-disco trade-off of the 1970s. My predicti

Meanwhile, a fixation on honesty continues to pervade popular arts discourse, music included. Indie scenesters have historically been the ones to agitate most over authenticity, but in the golden age of confessional pop music, the aesthetic concern with honesty isn’t limited to subculture anymore. Direct access to artists’ personal lives seems more

The distinctive characteristic of the country rock “Sun sound” was aggression, but curiously the target was enigmatically vague. The importance of the music, for the singers and for the audience, was that it effected a release of violent feelings, not that any particular group was attacked.