As with my #Come30 presentation in August 2024, I've created a twenty-minute video presentation for the #Shhh30 virtual symposium happening this weekend. I am over the purple moon to be talking about The Gold Experience, the album and the era. These were my undergraduate years, fall 1992 - spring 1996, and yes, 0(+> taught me… Continue reading Three Epiphanies (sources annotated)
I'm presenting at the #Come30 online symposium tomorrow morning but won't have had a chance to add the Works Cited for my presentation before it's shown. Plus, there are a lot of sources to credit. So here we go. I'll list some in the traditional way where appropriate but also share the original sources for… Continue reading The Problem with Abundance (Sources Annotated)
NOTES ON THE SIGN O' THE TIMES BOXSET, PT. 1. It took me a while to listen to all of the Sign O' the Times outtakes from the boxset released in 2020. Maybe you've had this experience: you know a work of art is going to be so good that you want to hold off… Continue reading Soul Psychodelicide
Dispatches from the virtuality--Prince as superhero--Chris Rock https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0g9Qkrc8nE I was fortunate to participate in another online symposium produced by De Angela Duff, my hero, a.k.a., Polished Solid. <--If you are interested in what's happening in Prince scholarship, De Angela's channel should be your first stop. SexyMF30 celebrated and examined Prince's 1992 Love Symbol album, stylized… Continue reading SexyMF30 Prince Symposium
Recently I was interviewed for our local community paper's book column about my 2017 book, Nothing Has Been Done Before. Read it here! I enjoyed chatting with Mandy Shunnarah about the continuing relevance of "the new" in music culture, and we even took a related detour into musical genres. If you want to learn more… Continue reading Revisiting Nothing Has Been Done Before
In the category of "Did Not Know I Needed This," Built To Spill clocks in with a twenty-minute "Cortez The Killer," the Neil Young anti-colonialism song. My mother is now in a memory care facility. The last five minutes of BTS' performance, recorded live somewhere, gets at the feeling. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNOvqFISxIc
Recently I was thrilled to present at another Prince symposium organized by the incredible De Angela Duff and her team of Arthur Turnbull and Krysta Battersby. This was the second year that the symposium was virtual, and despite a few hiccups with the hosting platform, it was a smooth experience. The topics? Controversy at 40… Continue reading 1plus1plus1is3
April 2021 All-Neil Young Edition Since last fall, Neil Young has released the massive box set, Neil Young Archives, Vol. II (1972-1976), Way Down In The Rust Bucket (a live album with Crazy Horse, recorded in 1990), and Young Shakespeare (a solo live album recorded in 1971). Crazy Horse wins the day. I don't know… Continue reading This Week’s EP
The special issue of Black Magnolias dedicated to Prince is here, live and alive, and you should read it and buy it if you can. My essay, "How the Exodus Began: Prince and the Black Working Class Imagination," is ridiculously long and I'm grateful to editor C. Liegh McInnis for believing that all those words… Continue reading Black Magnolias, Prince, and the Black American Working Class
I moved from Cleveland to Columbus in 2002 for grad school...and to play music. I'd always felt more kinship to the musicians I knew down here, many of them transplants from nearby Delaware, than the folks I knew up north. The Cleveland "scene," for bands at least, was dominated by industrial and metal; down here,… Continue reading The Columbus Anthology
Robert Loss 