A French glamor model does English poetry right — An Italian-French fashion model turned folk singer decides to write her own music to English canonical poetry on her way to becoming France’s first lady. This is the kind of thing I will check out for the sheer oddness of it, certain of getting something interesting even if unlistenable. …

Sometimes the artist is as good as the author — In the Seventies, Bantam Books published a paperback edition of works by German-Swiss author Hermann Hesse (1877–1962). The promotional blurbs are effusive in their praise, yet anyone who enjoys the Nobel Prize-winning writer’s work might find they fall short. As great as Hesse is, the cover art on the major…

The masters never said it would be easy — On February 7, 2005, The New Yorker ran a striking cover. The black-and-white drawing shows a crowd of people, with red lines indicating each person’s line of sight, and many of the people are looking at someone who is looking at someone else who is looking at someone else and…

A few words and 8 links — Artists and thinkers hold society together. That goes for kindergarteners finger-painting and philosophers redefining how we’ll see the world tomorrow. I play my own modest part through what I write on Medium. Below are links to posts in key areas of interest. Music For a couple years, I ran a small…

The Wreckers wanted to do more than ‘Stand Still, Look Pretty’ In the first years of the new millennium, everyone knew Michelle Branch. “Everywhere” and “All You Wanted” off The Spirit Room were inescapable pop-rock hits in 2001, and the Latin rock tune “The Game of Love” with Santana was…

Anywhere I Lay My Head arrived on the eve of superstardom “You used to be much more…muchier. You’ve lost your muchness.” — from the film Alice in Wonderland (2010) The album Anywhere I Lay My Head is the result of a fuzzy concept that definitely should work: vocals by Scarlett…

It’s a fine list but one with limitations — The second Pazz & Jop Critics Poll appeared in the January 20, 1975 issue of The Village Voice. Music critic Robert Christgau had polled 24 critics on their favorite American-release albums of 1974 and tabulated the top 30. It’s an interesting reflection of the music scene in the early to…

Living Colour’s drummer is also a progressive force in jazz — “We were a tiny speck,” Living Colour vocalist Corey Glover told The Ringer about the band’s early days touring with The Rolling Stones. I can confirm that, because I watched the band from the nosebleed seats in 1989. Fans of the band’s early albums may associate it solely with the…

Scuzz music from Finland — The first time I heard the phrase “priapic posturing” was in an article about Whitesnake’s 2008 release Good to Be Bad. The feminist in me knows enough to look at this characteristic of much hard rock with suspicion, my libido just enjoys it, and somewhere in between is a music…