Just a little bit of follow up on my post about the black and queer roots of House music. In that post, I really wanted to talk about more of the individual people, but there are too many to discuss, especially when I'm working from the assumption that a lot of readers barely even know... Continue Reading →
Squeaking in just before the end of Black History Month, I'd like to write a little bit about the origins of House music. I get the impression that many people think of techno as a very white genre. Sure, it's huge in Europe, and white European artists, such as Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder, are central... Continue Reading →
Hello, dear readers. I set blogging aside for a while for two reasons: I had an injury that made it physically impossible to sit and write for several months; and with how much that injury held up my dissertation work, since then, I've put 100% of writing effort into finishing in-progress chapters. I'm happy to... Continue Reading →
I recently completed a small case study concerning the Beatles in the charts, and I found some really interesting things about the top records of the '60s. It has been quite educational about the uses and pitfalls of using chart rankings, especially journalistic summaries. Today I'm going to tell you about a few of my... Continue Reading →
Well, I've gotten through a hectic semester end and I'm blissfully avoiding my summer writing goals, so let's get back to posting. I recently started doing a little work for Academic Rights Press, writing case studies to help demonstrate the usefulness of their analytic tools, and I've been finding some really interesting material. I'll tell... Continue Reading →
After spending the past two days researching the Christmas carol "Gaudete," two things are clear: 1) This is a really popular carol, and 2) Everyone thinks it's medieval. Well, I Kathryn of Jersey, First of My Name, Mother of Hound Dogs, Burster of Bubbles, am here to disappoint you. "Gaudete" is solidly Early Modern. Many... Continue Reading →
I wanted to work on something relevant to my dissertation, but somehow I've gotten sidetracked by Revolting Cocks. So let's just go where the monkey mind wants us to go and start a new series: song stories! Many classic songs have some interesting cross-sections. Today's is a simple one. We all know the Rod Stewart... Continue Reading →
As a medievalist, watching the fire at Notre Dame was gutting. I'm incredibly relieved that the damage was not worse. The remaining original 13th century glass survives! We all know about the cathedral's importance as an architectural marvel, but you might not know about its importance in music history. It holds a very special place.... Continue Reading →
Recently I started reading Into the Mystic, by Christopher Hill, which is fairly new (2017). I'm only a few chapters in, but so far it's fantastic. It's a look at how the '60s became a "detonator" to "explode visionary music into the mainstream" (from the back cover). It's a nice counterpart to Rob Young's comprehensive... Continue Reading →
When I started my last post, "Where are the great black guitarists?" I kinda thought it would go, "What, are you dumb? Look at all these black guitarists!" But 2000 words later, it had become...more. So I decided to separate into two halves, one ideological and historical, the other "check out all this majesty." If... Continue Reading →
Katarina von Sporken
Violent Brain Fever 