Category: Criticism
-
I think even the most devoted Swifities knew that one day Taylor Swift was going to put out an album that truly tested her fandom. But never did I want to have some very strong negative feelings about one of her records, and worst yet, critics and fans alike have already voiced almost my exact…
-
When Taylor Swift dropped 1989 in 2014, she was pivoting the entire pop landscape. That record captured a generational shift: the country girl had fully transformed into a pop architect, and the world adjusted to her new rules. Ten years later, a similar moment may be unfolding—not in the stadiums of the most powerful artist…
-
Coming across an article in the New Yorker called “How music criticism lost its edge” (behind paywall), it got me thinking: Has criticism gone shallow in its quest for safety? And what does that mean for cultural honesty? What passes for “criticism” right now often feels like risk-managed copywriting wrapped in pseudo-thoughtful language. It’s less…
-
Jonathan Leland begins his 2010 paper “The hunt for a descriptive theory of choice under risk—A view from the road not taken” for the Journal of Socio-Economics.with a confession: his life’s path could have turned on trivial choices. A missed concert or an elective taken on a whim, and suddenly he’s not writing about decision…
-
You may not have heard of “spaced repetition learning,” but quite likely you’ve been the unwitting victim of it. It’s the educational equivalent of being force-fed the same soggy cereal every morning until you can recite the ingredients list in your sleep. For those unfamiliar with how this insidious method is structured, I’ll break it…
-
“Cultural Moneyballism, in this light, sacrifices exuberance for the sake of formulaic symmetry. It sacrifices diversity for the sake of familiarity. It solves finite games at the expense of infinite games. Its genius dulls the rough edges of entertainment. I think that’s worth caring about. It is definitely worth asking the question: In a world…
-
Written October 3, 2022 Today’s piece by Ted Gioia, “The Nostalgic Turn in Music Writing,” gave me pause – actually several pauses. There are three points from this article that I want to examine. The first is the dearth of coverage for new music artists, the second is dominant streaming platforms “rewarding technocrats at the…
-
Labubu isn’t just the next blind box toy collectible. It serves as a perfect specimen of a broken economy — where the only game most people can play is speculation, and everything is for sale. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky figured out the psychology behind why people do such bizarre things with their money decades…
-
“It is well to have some water in your neighborhood, to give buoyancy to and float the earth. One value of even the smallest well is, that when you look into it, you see that the earth is not continent, but insular.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden At the time I noted this quote in…
-
I’ve been going through my reading notes about a book written by Rob Sheffield called “On Bowie.” So, I came to this chapter about this movie called ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth’ from the 70s. Before I even read the chapter, I came to the conclusion that Emily and I needed to sit down…