Compulsive Reader

My reconsideration of Ross and Stolen Moments has been not only aesthetic and intellectual. In a time of personal trouble, I found she was one of the few singers I could listen to, and that the joy in her work gave me comfort. Pleasure is usually circumstantial and momentary, but joy is usually rooted in something deeper—a sense of self, great belief, a tested system of thought, love, and even trusted and proven community. Is there anything wiser than joy?

Read more →

Conversational, direct, lively, rhythmic, with an intelligent deployment of varied tones: that is Sinatra in Cole Porter’s “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” (What is it about Porter that liberates? The sophistication? The sexiness? Everything?)

Read more →

The fact is that there’s not much consistently intelligent political comment in popular music, and I do like much of what I hear in her work. She remembers things that others forget, even though those things are very important. She reads her own poetry, which contain significant perceptions and well-known politically progressive ideas, and she also reads the poetry of Judy Grahn.

Read more →

Corinne Bailey Rae’s songs have an infectious romanticism. One recognizes the romanticism—the dreamy lack of realism—and still feels seduced by Rae’s hopeful emotions and evocative situations.

Read more →

There’s a calculated roughness to “Rooftops and Invitations.” It’s interesting that the first songs on the album are fast and loud, and the later songs begin to be slower, more quiet, as if a point was being made with the first songs (the point?—the proof of masculinity).

Read more →

Steven Patrick Morrissey is now middle-age. In a culture that does not worship youth so much as pander to it—with all the contempt and desperation and envy that suggests—it is interesting to observe people who are aging well: still feeling, still thinking, still creating, still growing.

Read more →