Retrospective Review: Sinead O’Connor’s “Black Boys on Mopeds” Illuminates the Dark Corners of our Culture
It’s March, 1990, and the world is spinning at full speed. Mikhail Gorbachav has just been elected the first president of the Soviet Union. Boston’s Gardner Museum has been subjected to an early-morning heist which sees multiple Vermeer, Rembrandt, and other masterworks vanish. And elsewhere in the art world, tremors of an earthquake have begun. […]
Retrospective Review: Hozier’s “Cherry Wine”
It’s February 14, 2016, and millions of people worldwide are waking with typical expectations that Valentine’s Day has implanted within most in the Western world; some will expect gifts. Some will expect acts of revelatory romanticism. Most will hope – perhaps fantastically – to be surprised by somebody in some movie-worthy capacity. For fans of […]
Retrospective Review: On “Deep Six Textbook”, Let’s Eat Grandma Toss The Rulebook Overboard
It’s October 18, 2016. Later…with Jools Holland is set to air its weekly mix of live performances by both iconic and up-and-comers on the international music scene. Tonight, squeezed between KT Tunstall and The Temptations (of “My Girl” and “Papa was a Rolling Stone” fame,) it seems that somebody left the back door open and […]
Retrospective Review: Ben Howard’s “The End of the Affair”
It’s 2013 and Ben Howard is bathing in light. Not necessarily the sunlight that falls like a warm blanket over his seaside town of Devon, England, but in light nonetheless. His first full-length offering, Every Kingdom (Island Records, 2011), has exceeded expectations across the industry, delighting critics, his label, awards panels, and most importantly, Howard […]
Retrospective Review: Tool’s “Not All Therapists Wear Suits”
20th-century psychoanalyst Carl Jung was the first to explore the ‘inner child’ theory and its impact on the development of the adult psyche. While some of his work remains controversial, there exists almost a century of support of his inner child theory within the world of psychoanalysis. According to Jung, every thought, action, and reaction […]
Retrospective Review: Perfume Genius’ “Run Me Through” is an Exercise in Embracing Your Shadow
What does an artist do when they find themselves instinctively and primally attracted to the same toxic masculinity that their culture is so passionately rallying against? Well, if you’re Mike Hadreas, aka. Perfume Genius, you embrace it and write a song about it. Carl Jung pioneered the theory of the ‘shadow self’, claiming that no […]
