Anniversaries
Why Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Album Is Still as Critical as Ever a Decade Later
“My mama told me when I was young/ We are all born superstars.” The familiar opening line of “Born This Way,” the title track from a certain seminal album, carries just a little weight for Lady Gaga, who was born Stefani Germanotta, and who by her own volition became a classically-trained, boundary-pushing social provocateur with a vital presence in the pop zeitgeist. It takes a certain caliber of artist to become mononymous: Prince. Madonna. Gaga. Lady Gaga and pop culture both looked quite different in 2011 during Born This Way’s initial release, and reviewing Gaga’s boldness from that time — both in her melodramatic public persona and innovative production choices — serves as a reminder for how much has changed in the decade that has passed since. Gay marriage had not yet been legalized...
Computer World at 40: How Kraftwerk Predicted Our Techno-Utopian Fate
<span class="localtime" data-ltformat="F j, Y | g:ia" data-lttime="2021-05-10T16:42:08+00:00“>May 10, 2021 | 12:42pm ET Memory is subject to corruption, but some of us can still recall a very primitive era for personal computers. In the late seventies, early prototypes included the Apple II, Commodore PET and the TRS-80. Programmed with obtuse software, their joys and intrigues remained esoteric, elusive. Beyond the hardware, the Internet was an unknown realm; email and social media were not yet invented, and video chats were simply science fiction. Despite all of these limitations, the rich geography of a Computer World was envisioned by German electronic pioneers Kraftwerk. Released on May 10th in 1981, Kraftwerk’s eighth studio album was informed by ...
20 Years Ago, Opeth Unleashed the Progressive Death Metal Masterpiece Blackwater Park
Despite being an exceptional concept album, Opeth’s fourth album, 1999’s Still Life, failed to garner enough industry attention to fully reward the amount of hard work and hope they’d been put into it. Even so, their recent signing with Peaceville Records and increased touring opportunities meant that mastermind Mikael Åkerfeldt and company still felt hopeful that their big break was just over the horizon. Luckily, that turned out to be true, as 2001’s Blackwater Park was not just a major steppingstone for the Swedish troupe, but also a huge leap forward for extreme metal as a whole. Part of the reason for why was that Opeth was forced to leave Peaceville and move to Music for Nations / Koch, resulting in an expansion of distribution and promotional prospects. At first, Åkerfeldt was unhap...
Iggy and the Stooges’ Raw Power Still Thrives on Chaos and Unyielding Fury
When rock and roll evolved from the harmonious sludge of ditties about loving a gal from down the street or how kids wanted to rebel against their parents, The Beatles and Stones pushed our consciousness. Those bands dared us to see the emotional and sonic boundaries via large, orchestrated movements with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band or the smooth but malicious undertones of Let It Bleed. These two bands broke the mold. They accelerated what the culture and artform were, but even as the Stones dipped their toes in dark water, it was still palatable to the masses, selling millions. But soon, new bands pushed harder. They came at the culture like a brick to the teeth: Jimi Hendrix took us to a different plane of existence, Black Sabbath dared us to see the devil and dance with him, ...
