Swinging Modern Sounds #102: Ten Influential Albums
Music columnist Rick Moody writes on ten albums that influenced him through his life.
...moreBecome a Rumpus Member
Join NOW!Music columnist Rick Moody writes on ten albums that influenced him through his life.
...moreI was a lonely, dreamy, occasionally silly girl.
...moreThis is fault-line music, dangerous in an unassuming way.
...morePhotos carry our memories, and in their own unique way our cameras do, too.
...moreI kept listening over and over again, and eventually I realized this album was challenging my idea of what punk is.
...moreThere really is not a day that doesn’t go by that I don’t stop at some moment and think about George Harrison.
...moreEvery year, The Rumpus celebrates National Poetry Month by running new poems from poets we admire. We feature a different poet each day, and aim to illustrate the variety in voices and styles of poetry being written today.
...moreToday, the so-called British Invasion of the ’60s is remembered primarily for its flagship band, The Beatles. Another English group called The Animals—widely known for their international hit version of the folk song “House of the Rising Sun”—are unfortunately obscured by the long shadow of the former, but their screaming fans knew and loved The Animals’s gritty rock. Their […]
...more[T]he thing about receiving music from other people is this: there is always some grace associated with the transaction.
...moreAllyson McCabe talks with Mark Alan Stamaty, a Society of Illustrators four-time medalist, and the author-illustrator of ten books.
...moreThe radio personality has put together a tribute to his favorite Beatles album, featuring a wide array of artists covering Revolver’s track list. According to Rolling Stone, the episode features: Cheap Trick tackling “She Said She Said,” James Taylor performing “Here, There and Everywhere” and Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats covering “Got to Get You Into My Life”….[also performing are] Dinosaur Jr.’s J. Mascis […]
...moreIt’s not hyperbole to say that everyone is losing their minds over Frank Ocean’s release of Endless, Blonde, and Boys Don’t Cry Magazine. After a four-year wait between albums, this outpouring offers a lot of incredible material to unpack. Blonde’s credit list alone makes perfect fodder for music writers, listing David Bowie, Brian Eno, Kanye West, Jamie xx, Kendrick Lamar, Elliott Smith, Beyoncé, the Beatles, André 3000, and Pharrell, among others. Add in Ocean’s […]
...moreRich Cohen discusses his new book The Sun & the Moon & the Rolling Stones, writing book proposals, and interviewing rock stars.
...moreWilco’s long career, beginning all the way back in 1994, has taken a lot of twists and turns. The band’s identity has morphed at least a few times along the way, but the first single from their eponymous seventh studio album reached number one on the Billboard Triple A chart in 2009. The single, titled “You Never […]
...moreWhen people asked what I was going to do after high school, I said, “Leave town.” I wasn’t kidding. I hadn’t applied to a single college.
...moreA friend once showed me his dad’s copy of the Beatles’s White Album and said you could find secret messages hidden in the lyrics. I tried to look for the same things in Odelay, but it resisted.
...moreIt just felt so comfortable to slide back into singing, “She Loves You,” and know for that moment, everything was the same.
...moreRenaissance women Elisa Ambrogio and Naomi Yang discuss stop motion music videos, the female mythology of rock-n-roll, and giving ourselves permission to be creative, make music, and explore art in an intuitive way.
...moreMusic-obsessive activity, in general, appears to be about music. You could, on the surface, mistake it for being about music. But in fact what it is about is memory and love.
...moreWhatever your spiritual orientation, the implicit message of George Harrison’s 1971 single “My Sweet Lord” is undeniably uplifting. The track was allegedly written as a paean in opposition to religious sectarianism. Blending the words “Hallelujah” and “Hare Krishna,” the song urges union and inter-religious harmony (much like some other singles by a little group called The […]
...more“Cellar door” isn’t the only euphonious phrase in the English language. For Printers Row, the Chicago Tribune‘s literary journal, Michael Robbins catalogs some of the “perfectly strung-together words” that have the power to “delight the ear.” And though he starts with a passage from William Gaddis’s The Recognitions, it’s not just books he’s talking about. He describes himself […]
...moreTaylor’s arms are around me and I haven’t yet realized that the first boy I’ve ever loved is teaching me how to hate.
...morePronouns are really in right now—probably the most popular figure of speech at the moment. And they deserve all the attention because of their linguistic functionality, their significance in unveiling our true social psyche, and their ubiquity in Beatles lyrics. What with lyrics like, “I am he as you are he as you are me […]
...moreJacket Copy has scrounged up an old op-ed written by the rock critic Lester Bangs, published six days after John Lennon was killed. “Look: I don’t think I’m insensitive or a curmudgeon. In 1965 John Lennon was one of the most important people in the world. It’s just that today I feel deeply alienated from […]
...more