successor to Shock and Awe whose feed no longer seems to be working properly - original blog + archive remains here: http://shockandawesimonreynolds.blogspot.com/ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ the blog of the Simon Reynolds book about glam and artpop of the 1970s and its aftershocks and reflections to this day
Live Last read · last published · next check
"The scriptwriters obviously decided to introduce Natalie Harp to spice things up in season three of 'Trump.' Viewers were getting bored by Vance, Miller, Hegseth, Blanche et al. The question: Is this mini-plot just a temporary diversion in the story? Or a major inflection point?" - Bill Kristol "Mr. Trump seems to have a real fear of boredom. Even at his age he is restless; when there’s peace and…
As powerful - and as political - as Spacemen 3's "Revolution" (Don't be too quick to understand that sentence) The Monkees perplex - when the results are as a pleasing and potent as the "real thing", does intent / content / context matter? And how "real" is the real thing anyway? "Street Fighting Man" had completely different words up until almost the last minute, you know.
Strangely no mention of the Blondely Ambitious one in this piece about ambition in pop and "a certain monstrousness" of the popstar personality. Published in the winter 2009 edition of GQ Style, it's a Madonna-free zone, Also absent is her inheritor Lady Gaga. With the long lead times with a quarterly magazine, I must have written it the late summer. I hadn't heard The Fame , was barely aware of…
Here's an entry from The Biographical Dictionary of Film in which David Thomson rehearses some of the concerns about "movie" addressed in the new book A Sudden Flicker of Light : Fortuitously - but purely accidentally - timed for the tenacious Madonna's return to visibility with an alleged return-to-form album. But what if the form being returned to is of no concern or interest to you? Or even…
David Thomson has a new book out, A Sudden Flicker of Light: A Revisionist History of Movies, in which he convinces himself that the artform to which he has dedicated his entire life is actually corrupting civilisation and profoundly responsible for the current political hellscape. In a New York Times profile titled "Did Movies Ruin Everything?," A.O. Scott , himself a distinguished film critic,…
What tarts! Gene Loves Jezebel must have seen Love and Rockets enjoying Stateside sucksess with the T. Rexy "So Alive" and they thought " we'll ave summathat, eh boyo? " That said, I do really enjoy "Motion of Love" as sound + vision in all its effrontery and fakery The phasing on the backing vocals... It's less "going glam" in the '70s T. Rexy sense and more glam as in glam metal, hair metal... I…
Some of this 1984-85 iD i magery is genuinely cool, really chic e.g. this one below Or just fun But some of it is a hot mess ' And some edges into Nathan Barley territory iD always had this thing of pushing style to a sort of jolie laide point - and then beyond into outright unpleasing to the eye That's what makes it interesting as a magazine and why I would dearly love to have the complete run of…
Ever the performer, President Trump has lately been putting on a show of indifference. …..Beneath all that bluster and makeup, he’s sweating. - Frank Bruni The NYT sees itself not as a defender of journalistic principles or a champion of democratic values, but rather a theater critic for political actors. There are no real-world consequences here, no pain or suffering for the common people who…
Is that bended knee meant to suggest an enormous deformed erection? Not a good look - in both the clothing/coiffure sense and the steely gaze he's giving us, like some kind of cruel-eyed Dutch hardman. Both photos are eyebrow-less
Hauteur Theory #1: Unfamiliarity breeds Contempt I thought I had heard everything - but the munificence of all the vintage Top of the Pops episodes on YouTube supplied surprise Here, in 1977, savagely behind the times, a group I never even heard of: a late glam / artpop outfit called Contempt . I suspect the influence palette includes Queen, Sparks, Roxy, possibly 10cc, possibly Cockney Rebel,…
