Unpopular Culture

Stereolab’s Revolutionary Horizon

Gavin Mueller April 9, 2015

Stereolab is an intellectual’s dream, equal parts vintage synth manual, obscure bossa nova record, and communist tract. Their fetish for odd keyboard and odd jazz is well discussed, but their lyrics, often deeply Marxist, far less so.

The Empty Jukebox: Johnny Paycheck and the Return of the Repressed in Country Music

Shuja Haider March 10, 2015

A country song names something that has gone missing. Your first love, your only home, your last dollar. The singer is left to reckon with empty space, in words that inevitably fall short. If the lack produces desire, it also produces speech.