From Buzz Bin to Dust Bin: Nuclear Anxiety in Belfegore’s ‘All That I Wanted’
As far as innovative 1980s music videos go, probably none is more immediately visceral and less popularly remembered than Belfegore’s “All That I Wanted.”
Spirit of the Age: The Science Fiction Aesthetic of Hawkwind
By Joe Banks
Hawkwind are an indelible part of the UK’s underground culture. It’s been over 50 years since they formed in the seedy cradle of London’s Ladbroke Grove, but they still enjoy a fanatical cult following both in Britain and around the world. They may never have scaled the commercial heights of Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin, but the influence they’ve exerted on modern music is profound…
The Thrill Is Worth the Pain: Hell and Survival in Dio’s ‘The Last in Line’
The first music videos to air on MTV and broadcast television were chaotic blurts of arty nonsense defined by pastel colors, cheesy dance party theatrics, and avant-garde visual effects…
All Tomorrow’s Spaceships: Future World Orchestra’s ‘Mission Completed’
Sometimes it’s in ephemeral fragments of the culture that time travel lurks. We learn to tune out the looming monoliths of the zeitgeist the same way we learn to tune out the sky: its ubiquitousness would otherwise be oppressive…
Cottage Cosmos: Alan Jefferson’s ‘Galactic Nightmare’
Bear with me, because this might get a bit rambling: the way I see it, in a healthy world, not only would we have in hand the levers of the factories, we’d also have the tools for our own artistic fulfillment…
“Splendid Sparkling”: Donatella Rettore’s Posthuman Pop Song
“Splendido Splendente” is a post-human song before post-human was even a thing. Through the metaphor of plastic surgery, Rettore imagines a future humanity with perfect features and “pelle trasparente come un uovo di serpente” (“skin as transparent as a serpent’s egg”)…
“Twenty Years of Crawling”: Kenny Rogers’ ‘Coward of the County’ and the Vietnam Syndrome
By Jesse Walker
I can tell you the day the so-called Vietnam syndrome started to die. On November 12, 1979, four and a half years after the last American troops fled Saigon, a new single was shipped to record stores and radio stations, a ballad by the fellow who’d had a smash hit a year before with “The Gambler.”
‘You Don’t Have to Get Pregnant’: Miseducation in the Age of Sexual Revolution
In the early 1970s, scores of liberated, fertile women were eager to join the sexual revolution. Along with the diaphragm and IUD, the recently available birth control pill gave women the autonomy to decide when and if they would have children. With so many options and the pill so new, where could a woman turn to get reliable advice and information about contraception?
The Unexpectedly Sharp Teeth of Summer: Giuni Russo’s ‘Un’Estate al Mare’
For any Italian, the Summer of 1982 means one thing: the country’s victory at that year’s FIFA World Cup final. The faded images of the nation’s president, 86-year-old Sandro Pertini—a socialist partisan who had fought against Nazi-Fascism during World War II—practically beside himself with joy when Alessandro Altobelli scored the third goal against Germany…
From the Jukebox to the Joystick: ‘Cash Box’ Magazine, 1980
Cash Box magazine was a music industry monthly that was in print from 1942 to 1996. Like its industry counterpart Billboard, Cash Box contained multiple weekly music charts based on music genres, from Pop to R&B to Jazz to Classical…
