Updated 12/13/2025

I was asked by my old Beatles buddy, Tim Riley, to contribute something about Motown to his guest-edited special issue of American Music Perspectives , a scholarly journal. What I produced, which is accessible here , isn't overly scholarly; in fact, it might even strike you as readable. Focusing on the 1971 box set The Motown Story: The First Decade , which I've always been drawn to as an artifact, I realized that the story the box tells is also and inseparably the story of D

The new Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown , is a (surprisingly) compelling and convincing portrait of the artist as a young carnivore.

Greil Marcus's newest, and probably last, book about Dylan is his best in many years. This is why I thought so.

Here's what I thought of Bob Dylan's new book. Bottom line: don't go in the basement.

The Revolver Super Deluxe Box set enables us to hear the album as we always have, but differently. Here's what I wrote about it.

Speaking of Beatles, here's a conversation I had with author Tim Riley (Tell Me Why: A Beatles Commentary) late last year about the Get...

A nice write-up, from Religion News Service's Kathryn Post, about the 50th anniversary of Jesus Christ Superstar, for which I provided a...

My contribution to the annual summertime "Your Enthusiasm" series at Hilobrow. CARBONA YOUR ENTHUSIASM "is dedicated to punk songs of the...

Dusty in Memphis, one of the all-time greats, was released 50 years ago today. You know how you have first exposures that you always...

I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978), which is coming out from The Criterion Collection, was an altogether not-bad movie, as I recall, whose...