Music
Dying to Be Loved: Lana del Rey’s Tragic Bleeding Heart
Death / Gender / Identity / Law / Music

Dying to Be Loved: Lana del Rey’s Tragic Bleeding Heart

by Mockingbird on May 23, 2013 • No Comments

Intern Thursday continues! This one comes to us courtesy of our other esteemed mockingintern this summer, Emily Hornsby, from all the way in Buenos Aires:

In her new song for The Great Gatsby soundtrack called “Young and Beautiful,” Lana del Rey sings about her two favorite topics—love and death.  In the music video, the ever-glamorous, ever-pouty del Rey asks the hypothetical guy she is singing to, “Will you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful?” These lyrics are classic Lana, but in the third verse things get interesting:

Dear Lord, when I get to heaven
Please let me bring my…

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Selling Out to Keep It Real: Indie Currency in the Decade(s) of Dysfunction
America / Art / Books / Celebrity / Identity / Money / Music / Radio

Selling Out to Keep It Real: Indie Currency in the Decade(s) of Dysfunction

by Ethan Richardson on May 21, 2013 • 2 Comments

n+1 has a new piece on the changing landscape of the “sellout,” and the assertions of authenticity that have been re-shaped in the relationship between art and commerce. Evan Kindley is writing a review on a few books in the topic, one of which is spotlighted, by Timothy Taylor, The Sounds of Capitalism: Advertising, Music, and the Conquest of Culture. Going back to the origin of music being used for advertising ends, the book archives the radio-days of musicians crafting Lucky Strike jingles, all the way to the  visual age of musicians having their own songs (and personas) implanted into…

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New Music: Vampire Weekend’s Modern Vampires of the City
Film/Music/TV / Music / Reviews

New Music: Vampire Weekend’s Modern Vampires of the City

by Carl Laamanen on May 20, 2013 • 3 Comments

Vampire Weekend has often been accused of making rather frivolous music that appeals mainly to hipsters, and, in many respects, that accusation is true of their first two albums, Vampire Weekend and Contra. Yet, I personally think that criticizing a band for writing about what they know, especially early in their career, has little merit. You never know when a band is going to take the next step and begin to touch on bigger ideas and struggles than, say, the use of the oxford comma or drinking horchata. On Modern Vampires of the City, the band retains its quirky, anything…

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PZ’s Podcast: Girl Can’t Help It and Old Man River
Film / Music / Religion

PZ’s Podcast: Girl Can’t Help It and Old Man River

by Mockingbird on May 20, 2013 • No Comments

Episode 142: Girl Can’t Help It

I’d like this one to be considered avant-garde. Like Journey.

It’s a pastoral meditation on realism and hope, geared a little from Eric Rohmer’s “political” movie of 1993, “The Tree, The Mayor, and The Mediatheque”.

This cast also gives me a chance to introduce ‘George’ to my listeners. He’s been with me since the 2nd of April. I christened him ‘George’ on the basis of a “Way Out” episode from long ago, entitled “Dissolve to Black”. My friend George, however, is nicer than the original ‘George’.

Anyway, I hope you like the music, hope you like the movie,…

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Another Week Ends: Abercrombie’s Hot People, The Neverending “Me Me Me” Era, George Jones’ “Choices,” Katharine Welby, New TV, and New Vampire Weekend
America / Celebrity / Children / Church / Everyday / Film / Identity / Money / Music / Religion / Suffering / TV

Another Week Ends: Abercrombie’s Hot People, The Neverending “Me Me Me” Era, George Jones’ “Choices,” Katharine Welby, New TV, and New Vampire Weekend

by Ethan Richardson on May 10, 2013 • No Comments

1) The Atlantic provided an insightful zinger to the finger-waggers of today’s adultescent. Looking at today’s young people, of whom I am one—blogging away, shoes off—the piece is a response to the recent cover article of Time magazine, “The Me Me Me Generation.” The Time piece is a backhanded spotlight on the millennials, a heat-ray at their unique and insipid self-absorption, their phones, their extended stays at home. Contrary to this, Elspeth Reeve writes that the Me, Me, Me Generation is every generation—that we’ve been locating (and writing about) the narcissism of youth since we’ve written. She then delineates a…

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Beck Brings Paper to Life (and Life to Paper)
Bible / Music / Religion

Beck Brings Paper to Life (and Life to Paper)

by Mockingbird on May 10, 2013 • No Comments

This one comes to us from Win Bassett:

Beck Hansen, better known as “Beck,” will forever be linked to the decade when MTV actually played music videos, kids lived for TGIF programming, and pogs were worth their weight in gold. Who in Generation Y doesn’t count Beck’s “Loser” as one of the first pieces of art to leave a permanent watermark on our young minds? Who isn’t brought back to afternoons of rollerblading and feeding our Tamagotchis every time we hear the low, throaty rumblings of what may have been our first introduction to the Spanish language? (“Soy un perdedor. I’m…

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Give Us Your Real (As Long As It’s Fake)
Identity / Law / Music / TV

Give Us Your Real (As Long As It’s Fake)

by David Zahl on May 7, 2013 • 1 Comment

I haven’t been watching American Idol this season, but that’s about to change. In Sunday’s NY Times Magazine, Heather Havrilesky made a very convincing case for the show’s relevance, claiming that the current season has turned into an authentic instance of our collective idolatry of authenticity (pun couldn’t possibly be more intended) being worked out in real time, on a national stage, via the conflict between judges Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj. Their dynamic makes for a petri-dish of cultural law par excellence, that is, in their back-and-forth we see the Should’s and Shouldn’ts of the pop landscape articulated with…

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New Music: Phoenix’s Bankrupt!
Music / Reviews

New Music: Phoenix’s Bankrupt!

by Carl Laamanen on May 3, 2013 • 4 Comments

French rock band Phoenix cemented their place in the indie scene in 2009 with the release of Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, a catchy, immediate record that is one of my favorites from that year. A skillful blend of pop, indie rock, and electronic cavorting, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix set the bar high for Bankrupt!, Phoenix’s newest album. On Bankrupt!, the band remains enamored with producing dance-ready, saccharine pop music, but pushes even further into the realms of synthesizers and moody electronic soundscapes. The result is an album that is less immediately striking than Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, but has more going on underneath…

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Music / Playlist

May Playlist

by David Zahl on May 2, 2013 • 2 Comments
  1. 114990261Yes – McAlmont & Butler
  2. Magical Spring – Ride
  3. Outdoor Miner – Wire
  4. Looking for Space – Evan Dando
  5. Clair – Gilbert O’Sullivan
  6. Deirdre – The Beach Boys
  7. Fallin’ in Love – American Spring
  8. Don’t Worry Baby – Bryan Ferry
  9. Who Did That To You – John Legend
  10. Just Beneath the Surface – Dawes
  11. Romeo’s Tune – Steve Forbert
  12. Topanga Canyon – John Phillips
  13. The Last Supper – Johnny Cash
  14. The Boy Who Never Cried – Steve Earle
  15. Foot of the Mountain – A-Ha
  16. Dresden – OMD
  17. Song for Zula – Phosphorescent
  18. Macarthur Park – Richard Harris

Another Week Ends: Fairness, The Life of Wiman, Motherly Love, Malick Sacraments, Karr Talks Saunders, Anderson Shoots Prada, and the Ke$ha Trump Card
Art / Books / Children / Death / Everyday / Film / Forgiveness / Music / Relationships / TV / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: Fairness, The Life of Wiman, Motherly Love, Malick Sacraments, Karr Talks Saunders, Anderson Shoots Prada, and the Ke$ha Trump Card

by Ethan Richardson on Apr 26, 2013 • 1 Comment

1) The Chronicle released a preview last month to Wiman’s newest piece of work, My Bright Abyss, which we’ve already pulled from a couple of times, here and here, and the life and the illness that spurred it. Jay Parini writes that poetry criticism and commentary began by pulling the fabric of a piece of work as closely as possible upon the tables of lived experience, but Parini also notes that contemporary criticism has become so po-mo-phobic of plainspeak that it winds up saying nothing at all. But Wiman, on the other hand, with sickness, has been voided of this…

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What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Music / Relationships / Theology

What’s Love Got To Do With It?

by Lynn MacDougall on Apr 25, 2013 • 1 Comment

“And I want love to change my friends to enemies, change My friends to enemies, and show me how its all my fault … And I won’t let love disrupt, corrupt, or interrupt me” – Jack White in “Love Interruption”

I’ve been struggling these past months, through and past Lent and into Eastertide, with what it means to love. There’s no hiddenness on the subject in Scripture–”By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” This among multiple other passages.

At the same time, we live with…

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Humor / Law / Music

The Chelsea Clintons Have Great Energy

by David Zahl on Apr 24, 2013 • No Comments

An ingenious prank from Jimmy Kimmel, in which the Law of Cool is exposed in all its hilarity and absurdity and severity. But lest we pick on hipsters unfairly, this dynamic plays out just as blatantly in Bar Harbor as it does in Marin County or Austin. When confronted with an attribute with which we’ve identified ourselves, we will lie before admitting ignorance. Reminds me of that ultra-cool Stephen Merritt song about “the books you read, and the books you said you read”:

Another Week Ends: Schismogenesis, Megachurch Funerals, Accidental Theology, Smartphone Shrinks, Mean Professors, Nocebos, Zooropa and Elysium
Books / Church / Death / Humor / Identity / Law / Music / Psychology / Religion / Social Science / Technology / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: Schismogenesis, Megachurch Funerals, Accidental Theology, Smartphone Shrinks, Mean Professors, Nocebos, Zooropa and Elysium

by David Zahl on Apr 12, 2013 • 2 Comments

1. The NY Times published a wise op-ed from sociologist Tanya Luhrmann this past week on the the subject of “How Skeptics and Believers Can Connect”. She begins the column by recounting a disconcerting experience she had promoting her terrific book, When God Talks Back, on a Christian radio station. Luhrmann does not self-identify as a Christian, which the host of the show apparently took as a cue to berate her into converting on air (rather than dig into a book that has quite a bit of sympathetic material to relate). Now, God only knows what exactly the motivation/justification at…

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The 80s: A ‘Me’ Decade of Law-Gospel-Love
Film / Music / Testimony / Theology / TV

The 80s: A ‘Me’ Decade of Law-Gospel-Love

by Mockingbird on Apr 12, 2013 • 8 Comments

This one comes to us from our good friend Jonathan Adams:

Minding my own business at the local Starbucks this morning, everyone’s favorite high brow publication, USA Today, grabbed my eye, specifically, an article entitled “We’d Zap Back To The 80’s, If We Could” written in conjunction with National Geographic’s new documentary “The ’80s: The Decade that Made Us” which airs this weekend. The headline alone had me turning on my Walk-man and singing “Take on Me” by A-ha (the best music video MTV ever put out!). I was instantly transported into my parachute pants and Nike Air Jordan’s, break-dancing on…

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It’s Been Building Up In Brian Wilson For Oh I Don’t Know How Long
Gender / Grace in Practice / Identity / Music / Psychology

It’s Been Building Up In Brian Wilson For Oh I Don’t Know How Long

by David Zahl on Apr 10, 2013 • 5 Comments

There is so much about The Beach Boys that is hard to believe. Toward the bottom of the list (but still on it) is the fact that “Don’t Worry Baby” was originally released as the B-side of “I Get Around”. Some of us consider “Don’t Worry Baby” to be the definition of a perfect record, as beautiful as anything “America’s band”, or any other, ever released, and to think of it playing second fiddle boggles the mind. What accounts for its greatness? First, and most obviously, “Don’t Worry Baby” boasts one of the most memorable opening couplets of all time,…

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