When Bill Smith Monroe of Rosine, Kentucky, at the age of eight decided to play an instrument like many in his musical family did, nobody imagined he would forever change country music. As singer and instrumentalist he not only revolutionized mandolin playing as he could play the instrument faster than anybody else: he was the […]
Critical Essays on Twin Peaks: The Return by Antonio Sanna (2019)
Finally, while a huge fan community worldwide was hoping for more than two decades for a continuation of the tales of Agent Dale Copper in the Twin Peaks universe, in 2017 Showtime aired the series‘ third season. Twin Peaks The Return, with all episodes co-written by Mark Frost and David Lynch, did not disappoint audiences. […]
The Northern Soul Scene by Sarah E. Raine et al. (eds.) (2019)
Only a few recent local dance scenes gained enough influence on a global scale, so they could be called some sort of movement; with powerful and addictive rhythms, strong horn sections, strings, highly emotional (shouted) lyrics, an overall richly decorated studio sound, a positive outlook (in the lyrics), a genre of late-1960s soul music, played […]
Weird Fiction in Britain 1880 – 1939 by James Machin (2018)
Author James Machin, visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art, London, introduces the first study on how weird fiction was developed in England by blending Victorian supernatural literature and Gothic horror tales. Instead of a complete survey of the genre, he concentrates on some key writers and certain rather unknown authors who, contrary to […]
The Star Wars Archives: 1977–1983 by Paul Duncan (2018)
The Star Wars universe, presented in nine movies and several spin-offs so far, animated TV series, comic books, novels and other media is a fantastic location. What the first three episodes, Episode IV: A New Hope, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, and Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (that are still held in high […]
America Goes Hawaiian. The Influence of Pacific Island Culture on the Mainland by Geoff Alexander (2...
What began on the American mainland in the 1850s, when the first hula dancers were presented to the public and what was promoted by Hawaiian music only a few years later – the promise of paradise on earth, an Eden in endless summer – the Hawaiian way of life, for the vast majority of Americans […]
The Road to Wicked: The Marketing and Consumption of Oz … by K. Drummond, S. Aronstein, T. L. Ritten
If the phrase “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore” sounds very familiar to you, it could be you are one of the many millions of fans and admirers of either the books by L. Frank Baum or the many products that continued the tales of Oz. For nearly 120 years, the world […]
James Ellroy and Voyeur Fiction by Nathan Ashman (2018)
In his masterpiece The Black Dahlia, in the first L.A. Quartet novel, James Ellroy presents a detective very much devoted to the murder of Elisabeth Short. Both Ellroy and Detective Bucky Bleichert become obsessed with the violent crime; Bleichert finally turns almost insane reconstructing both the case and the victim’s body. Ellroy in an interview […]
From Flappers to Rappers: The Origins, Evolution, and Demise of Youth Culture by Marcel Danesi (2018...
Even if there already are some titles informing about this “feature” of modernity (youth cultures), the title at hand by Marcel Danesi convinces with a solid introduction of what “the youth,” (“a youth,” “a teenager,” or a person in its “adolescence”) actually is and how the “species” was first, well, discovered by sociologists and how, […]