Sometimes an artist and her fans need to just, like, move on already. Here, the author’s daughter (and her BFF) explain why the Party In The USA is so yesterday.
Jon Cummings
1 Min Read
Now is the summer of our discontent … arriving on the heels of a spring, winter, autumn and previous summer that roiled in similar fashion. Americans, it seems, have declared…
Jon Cummings
2 Min Read
Americans’ loathing for politicians has reached historic levels — and as Jon Cummings discovered, a squalid local race in one California county justifies their disdain.
Jon Cummings
2 Min Read
The kids from Glee take their show off the air and onto the road. It’s not for the uninitiated — but for Gleeks it’s a pleasure they needn’t feel guilty about. Yet.
Jon Cummings
2 Min Read
Bobby. Art. Dave. Sonny. Ike. J-’Stache. Curt. Paul (Humphreys, that is). Everly (no, not that one, the other one) … Of all the lesser halves of pop’s greatest duos, certainly…
Jon Cummings
2 Min Read
The astroPuppees frontwoman steps into the light with a sunny album depicting the range of female experience, with help from her pals Don Dixon and Marti Jones.
Jon Cummings
1 Min Read
Is the raging debate over the quality, value, and legitimacy of “democratized” music journalism merely the death rattle of the old-line cultural gatekeepers?
Jon Cummings
1 Min Read
Earth Day 1990 was a very big deal. Held on April 23, a Sunday, it marked the pinnacle of an upswing in green consumerism and a transition for the environmental…
Jon Cummings
2 Min Read
Happy Tax Day! A special shout-out to those of you who are operating under the delusion that your taxes have gone up this year — a belief shared by a…
Jon Cummings
1 Min Read
When the Lightning Seeds sprouted on modern rock radio in the spring of 1990, their songs felt (as much as anything on modern rock radio could feel) like a comfy…
Jon Cummings
1 Min Read
A couple of extraordinary things happened this past week. One was a big f’ing deal indeed, but the other was a bit more personal. As Sunday night’s Democratic victory on…
Jon Cummings
1 Min Read
The keeper of Elvis’ musical flame discusses the King’s misremembered Vegas comeback, as well as his own role in restoring rock’s most prodigious catalog.
Jon Cummings
7 Min Read
We’re supposedly just three days away from the final House votes on health care, and still nobody’s sure how it’s going to go. If you listen to Fox News, there’s…
Jon Cummings
1 Min Read
We soon learned that what she “hadn’t got” was her marbles. But do we have to ignore the crazy to remember what a great album this is?
Jon Cummings
6 Min Read
A favorite trope among the British Invasion bands of the ’60s was the notion that they took the R&B, country and early rock music that America had exported during the…
Jon Cummings
3 Min Read
The most thrilling, and also the most ridiculous, presidential speech of modern times came not from an actual president, but from a fake one. Michael Douglas’ off-the-cuff remarks at the…
Jon Cummings
2 Min Read
Just in time for last weekend’s National Tea Party convention — an event which will be remembered mostly for the way Sarah Palin had her devotees eating (and the rest…
Jon Cummings
2 Min Read
To celebrate Tuesday’s release of the new Patty Griffin album Downtown Church, Popdose looks back at the catalog of one of Americana’s brightest lights.
Jon Cummings
1 Min Read
Whether or not Democrats manage to salvage health care legislation, losing Ted Kennedy’s seat is just desserts for their substantive and strategic failures.
Jon Cummings
1 Min Read
Thanks for sticking with me after the first half of this monstrous column wrapping up our series on Ayn Rand and her overlong orgy of Objectivism, Atlas Shrugged. I realize…
Jon Cummings
1 Min Read
”We do not tell — we show.” So says the mentor of Atlas Shrugged‘s three key ”strikers,” philosopher Hugh Akston … on page 735 of a 1,168-page novel, in a…
Jon Cummings
1 Min Read
If you were watching music videos during the winter of 1990, you probably saw a lot of Taylor Dayne’s bustiers … watched Michael Bolton as he seemed to strain mightily…
Jon Cummings
1 Min Read
Singer/songwriter Freedy Johnston returns from an eight-year recording hiatus with a new album, Rain on the City, and a new outlook on the music business.
Jon Cummings
1 Min Read
I tried. I tried so hard. You’ve gotta believe me when I tell you how I tried and tried to finish Ayn Rand’s oversize chronicle of obsessive-compulsive capitalism, Atlas Shrugged,…
Jon Cummings
2 Min Read
I have to admit, I’m a bit conflicted this holiday season. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been going through the motions — spending lots of time at home with my…
Jon Cummings
1 Min Read
Here’s the thing about reading Ayn Rand: She forces you to think the way she does. Once you’ve immersed yourself in her black-and-white worldview — and once you’ve adjusted your…
Jon Cummings
1 Min Read
When I was a senior in college, instead of prepping for a career as a Rand-ian Master of the Universe with high-level courses in economics or engineering, I chose a…
Jon Cummings
1 Min Read
A homework pass to the first commenter who can identify what inspired this column’s headline — without resorting to the Google (honor system!) — and can tell us why The…
Jon Cummings
1 Min Read
Objectivism is back, baby! Don’t take my word for it — just check out this cover of the libertarian monthly Reason, which offers up a freaky old Audrey Hepburn-meets-the-wicked-witch photo…
Jon Cummings
1 Min Read
It was such a simpler time, that summer of 2001. Remember it? That last season of America’s (cyclical) innocence shimmers in the memory, sorta like those gauzy images of lovebirds…