President Obama may have given up the store on tax cuts this week, but at least he coined a useful metaphor in the process. Still, is it the GOP holding the recovery hostage, or is it their corporate sponsors?
Jon Cummings
246 Articles
Jeff Giles and Jason Hare
3 Min Read
On the sixth day of Mellowmas, the cast of Glee take Jason’s favorite holiday song and wrap it in sheets of Auto-Tune.
Jon Cummings
5 Min Read
One of America’s greatest singer/songwriters gets the jukebox-musical treatment in L.A., bringing to life his brilliantly drawn characters and showcasing his caustic wit.
Jon Cummings
1 Min Read
Chastened by Jon Stewart, if not the midterm election results, Jon Cummings invites Popdose readers to Be Their Own Pundits and pontificate on our new politics.
Jon Cummings
8 Min Read
As a disastrous new show stumbles toward Broadway and “Glee” rebounds from its worst episode, can issues of religious belief inspire decent musical theatre? Jon Cummings has his doubts.
Jon Cummings
2 Min Read
John Lennon’s traumatic teens, and the birth of the Beatles, get the little-British-art-film treatment. But can it work both as cinema and as Beatleography?
Popdose Staff
2 Min Read
John Lennon would have been 70 years old tomorrow. The Popdose staff has gathered to pay tribute.
Jon Cummings
1 Min Read
Katy Perry’s aborted Sesame Street appearance launched a short-lived kerfuffle, but offers a neat allegory for explaining the idiocy of the current political climate. Jon Cummings considers the merits of Katy’s cleavage and other assorted boobs.
Jon Cummings
1 Min Read
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…
Jason Hare
3 Min Read
Eric Carmen goes heavy on the Aqua Net, Jane Wiedlin makes googly-eyes at Jason Hare and Jeff Giles loses $20 — it’s all part of the latest edition of CHART ATTACK!
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…
Dw. Dunphy
1 Min Read
All rise. The rules of this courtroom are simple. You will be presented with two songs, one by the plaintiff and one by the defendant. It is your task to…
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…
Dw. Dunphy
1 Min Read
We ’80s kids don’t have a lot to hang on to, so far as social achievements go. It was a difficult decade to grab a hold of. We had pop…
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?
Jason Hare
1 Min Read
In his latest edition of Adventures Through the Mines of Mellow Gold, Jason Hare explores the phenomena of “gentle rocking,” brought to us by a Lebanese Canadian hunk in 1974.
Matt Wardlaw
3 Min Read
Alright, let me get something off my chest right away: I’m lying when I tell you that this show took place in Bermuda. The truth is, that no one 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.