Imaginary Worlds: Music of a Forbidden Planet
In the 1950s, the avant-garde music scene in New York and the movie studios of Los Angeles might have seemed like opposite ends of a cultural spectrum. But they came…
I Was a Teenage Zombie (1987)
I Was a Teenage Zombie is a 1987 American comedy horror film. The film begins with teens looking to purchase some marijuana. The film plays with comedy horror conventions, when…
Song Exploder: A-ha “Take On Me”
“Take On Me” by A-ha is an iconic hit of the 1980s. It came out in October 1985 with an equally iconic music video that helped define the age of…
Tinker Taylor
LITTLE WALTER’S “Blues with a Feeling” is a majestic song whose title is kind of redundant. Blues is a feeling, whether filtered through Hank Williams’s full-moon howling or channeled through…
Dance Dance Revolution
Bookforum talks with Emily Witt about dancing, drugs, and breakdown
Operating System [7″] (Catherine, 1987)
Vintage Obscura Radio
Key Change: Shirley Manson “Drop Dead/Celebration” by Siouxsie and the Banshees
My guest today is Shirley Manson. Since 1994, she’s been the lead singer of the band Garbage, and she is a bona fide rock icon. The two of us worked…
The Quiet Storm
How a radio show born at a small college station in DC and dedicated to smooth, romantic love songs transformed black radio and reshaped love lives across the country.
The Deaf Composer: How Beethoven wrote music he couldn’t hear
What happens when one of history’s greatest composers begins to lose the very sense he relies on most? In this episode, we explore how Ludwig van Beethoven continued to create…
Super Mario Bros: Koji Kondo’s 8-Bit Masterpiece
From the springy jump sound to the iconic Overworld Theme, the sound of Super Mario Bros. is instantly recognizable. With just five lo-fi audio channels and 40 kilobytes of space,…