Only for very short periods of time have yodeling and yodeling artists received critical attention and commercial success in the US. For most people, yodeling is not even close to singing; although the two forms of musical expression are very similar in a number of ways. And there are accounts of yodeling in (European) literature […]
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Category: B. R. PopCulture
Quadrophenia and Mod(ern) Culture by Pamela Thurschwell (ed.) (2018)
Now, this is probably the best book on Mod culture so far. If not, it is the one with the best academic approach to it and a real understanding of the subculture that goes beyond pure distanced sociological writing and simplifying banalities (that are used too often in other publications on the topic). The British […]
Invasion USA: Anti-Communist Movies of the 1950s and 1960s by David J. Hogan (2017)
With motion pictures as one of the most powerful instruments to display the enemies’ (i.e. the USSR’s) efforts to destroy the trust of the American people in their country in the mid-1950s, a number of movies by US studios were produced. The plots centered mostly around Soviet spies, communist agents or Americans, who had lost […]
Egyptomania Goes to the Movies: From Archaeology to … by Matthew Coniam (2017)
When in 1922 British archaeologist Howard Carter opened the sealed tomb of an Egyptian ruler – a comparatively unimportant king who reigned for nine years only – named Tutankhamen, Carter started a huge fad that lasts until today since what followed was an unequaled run that spread all over the Western world and started “Tutmania.” […]
Apocalypse Then: American and Japanese Atomic Cinema, 1951-1967 by Mike Bogue (2017)
„Both America and Japan produced a number of science fiction movies in the 1950s and 1960s directly or indirectly tied to the nuclear threat. … American […] films tended to suggest that it was possible to put the nuclear genie back in the bottle. However, the Japanese science fiction films of the same era were […]
Tony Soprano’s America: Gangsters, Guns, and Money by M. Keith Booker and Isra Daraiseh (2017)
The award-winning TV series The Sopranos (HBO) centered on the head of an American mafia family in New Jersey that ran between 1999 and 2007, is believed by many, many TV watchers to be the best series ever. It could draw from lots of talent in acting, writing, producing and was probably the most realistic […]
Tarzan, Jungle King of Popular Culture by David Lemmo (2017)
Some writers of fiction seemingly are blessed with a fathomless imaginative power, which is the basis for many science fiction and adventure stories. In the case of Tarzan (of the Apes), it is also owed to the very adventurous and at times fast-paced biography of the author of the Tarzan tales, Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875 […]
The Kinks: A Thoroughly English Phenomenon by Cary Fleiner (2017)
Apart from a few stylistic irritations (like some explorations in country rock in the early 1970s), the musical output of the Kinks always was famous for particularly one thing: it was English, very much so. And it enlarged on aspects of everyday life in Britain “…such as work play, buying a house, driving a car, […]
75 Years of DC Comics. The Art of Modern Mythmaking by Paul Levitz (2017)
Any superhero comic book fan will know about the previous three huge books celebrating the Golden Age, the Silver Age and the Bronze Age of DC Comics. Those three volumes, big as they are, were merely a small part of what the current new edition of 75 Years of DC Comics The Art of Modern […]