The annotated Dylan administration

A lot of protest music has been written over the last eight years: some good, some not so much.  (Neil, you know I love you, but “let’s impeach the President for lying” is just lazy.)  Amidst this, the old standards have also been dragged out for a walk around the block.  The master himself recently [...]

Read Full Post »

Pitch-perfect campaigning (with lots of hidden music videos)

As we recently discussed, the Obama team has perfected the zeitgeist campaign.  Some of it is intentional, (the text messages, the basketball,) while the rest (the internet memes) just sorta happens.  Music is another important element of this.  Everyone knows Republicans make poor DJs, and Senator Obama has collected an impressive variety of musical endorsements.
Democrats [...]

Read Full Post »

Fail’s epic win

Back in my day, “fail” was a verb.  We also had to walk to school in the snow, uphill both ways.  Oh, and the snow leopards…
But these are better times.  “Fail” is now a noun, and a ubiquitous one at that.  Slate magazine’s Christopher Beam traces its entry into the online zeitgeist back to a [...]

Read Full Post »

Watch your parkin meters

Radio Liberty today reported on demonstrations against Iranian rock star Mohsen Namjoo.  Namjoo, who blends traditional Persian music with rock, jazz, and blues, is under fire for including verses from the Koran in his lyrics.  Religious leaders call it an “insult:”
“When the Koran is being read, everyone should remain silent and listen,” [Islamic scholar Abbas] [...]

Read Full Post »

Dylan Rebuttal

To start, the quote “I can’t forgive him for his treatment of women. Everyone forgives him, but I can’t.” was actually meant for Woody Allen. I acknowledge that on the scale of things Allen’s sexism trumps Dylan’s with ease. I do believe that the first is hilarious and the second is a talented writer, but [...]

Read Full Post »

Bob Dylan is not sexist music

Had a discussion about this a while ago with the blog’s propriatrix (?)  I’m a huge proponent of Dylan, who I was raised on together with Phil Ochs and Joan Baez.  Mireille says of Dylan: “I can’t forgive him for his treatment of women. Everyone forgives him, but I can’t.”
I’d counter that, short of criminals [...]

Read Full Post »