2 Tone: Race, Music, and Pop Culture in Thatcher’s UK
2 Tone found a sweet spot between punk anger and pop sensibility that mirrored the myriad poles they were trying to bridge in their band members and audiences.
Books
Alice Munro’s Men
The late author Alice Munro’s work is criticized for its portrayal of men. But radically, not all her rejected male characters are mediocrities.
Kathleen Hanna, Riot Grrrl, and Punk
Riot Grrrl’s activism and grass-roots activity showed the movement was more concerned with breaking the rules and conventions than breaking through in punk.
War Fever in Norman Lock’s ‘The Caricaturist’
In Norman Lock’s The Caricaturist, the characters find themselves in a fraught time of war fever just as one century dies and a new one is born.
When Silence Roars: Rock Widows on When the Music Stops
The interviews of rock widows in I Can’t Remember If I Cried reveal life for these women when their husbands exit the stage, the music stops, and the silence roars
A Freewheeling Questlove Drops a New Hit with ‘Hip-Hop Is History’
With its deft layering of words, its samples, and how it articulates sound, Questlove’s Hip-Hop Is History is like De La Soul’s excellent album 3 Feet High and Rising.
‘Grief Is for People’ Is a Loving Model for Sudden Loss
Grief Is for People is a loving portrait of a dear friend and an offering of shared wisdom for the bereaved rooted in emotional chaos and its subsequent clarity.
The Magnificent Dance of ‘The Swans of Harlem’
In her dance history book The Swans of Harlem, author Karen Valby structures a magnificent, wide-ranging, complex narrative that’s both engaging and emotional.
‘Beware the Cat’: The First English Horror Novel
In the first English horror novel, Beware the Cat, William Baldwin satirizes and mocks the Catholic Church’s naïve superstitions and alleged pagan practices.
‘Too Much Too Young, the 2 Tone Records Story: The Beat. UB40. Tears of a Clown’ (excerpt)
This excerpt from Daniel Rachel’s history of 2 Tone Records shows the formation of the Beat and the best version of the band-defining “Tears of a Clown” ever.
‘1967’ and Robyn Hitchcock’s Quest to Stay High for Eternity
Robyn Hitchcock’s memoir 1967 taps into the music high that untethered the restraints of boarding school and shaped his life and music for eternity.
Feminine Discontents in ‘Back from the Dead’ and ‘The Other One’
Catherine Turney, a top-drawer writer of classic films about strong women, adapts her supernatural novel The Other One for Back from the Dead.