‘This Is Spinal Tap’ Turns the Volume All the Way Up to 40
The 1984 rockumentary, or mockumentary, This Is Spinal Tap is a prophetic parody where one can laugh about, laugh at, and be laughed at all at the same time.
Jesse Kavadlo
Jesse Kavadlo was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and is happily settled in suburban St. Louis. He has been fascinated with angsty novels, monster movies, alienated superheroes, ironic dystopias, and heavy metal for a few decades. He has a Ph.D. in English from Fordham University, is a professor at Maryville University, and gigs as the guitarist and singer for an 80s hard rock cover band. He has published several dozen essays in academic journals and book collections as well as three books, most recently American Popular Culture in the Era of Terror: Falling Skies, Dark Knights Rising, and Collapsing Cultures (Praeger, 2015).
Van Halen’s ‘1984’ Represents the Past, Present, and Future
The era of hard rock and metal Van Halen ushered peaked and fell when the 1980s ended, but comes back again as classic rock for today’s 13-year-olds.
Jane Campion’s ‘The Piano’ Is a Product of the 1990s, Not the 1890s
The Piano is a ’90s-era postmodern stew of sensuality and death, realism and fantasy, stories within stories, feminism and psychology, and postcolonial imagery.
The Doors’ Well-Told Story Still Contains a Lot of History and Mystery
In the shadow of the “Happy Together” decade, Bob Batchelor’s the Doors’ biography Roadhouse Blues explores the dark and gloomy side of Jim Morrison and the band.
Louise Erdrich’s ‘The Sentence’ Is a Ghost Story and Epitaph for the Covid Shutdown
Louise Erdrich’s The Sentence becomes a way to acknowledge the surrealism that has always pulsated just beneath the surface of American life.
Van Halen Debuted in the 1970s But Represented the Best of the 1980s
The 1980s began on 10 February 1978, with the release of Van Halen’s self-titled debut album, now celebrating its 45th anniversary.
Don DeLillo’s ‘White Noise’ Remains Unfilmable
Noah Baumbach’s adaptation of Don DeLillo’s White Noise shows what a movie can do, but mainly what fiction still does better.
Rage, Rage, Against the Dying of Rage Against the Machine
How were Rage Against the Machine so far ahead of their time, not just as political bellwethers but with a sound reaching past genres to create something entirely new?
Soul Asylum’s ‘Grave Dancers Union’ at 30
Could the cynicism associated with grunge, Gen X, and early 1990s rock have instead been replaced with sincerity if Soul Asylum’s Grave Dancers Union had been the hit rather than Nirvana’s Nevermind?
Ian Winwood’s ‘Bodies’ Laments Rock ‘n’ Roll’s Contractual Terms
In Bodies: Life and Death in Music, critic Ian Winwood chronicles the wreckage of a reckless industry and wonders if there is another way.
Dare You Enter Jennifer Egan’s Mind Palace ‘The Candy House’?
Jennifer Egan’s The Candy House is an EDM concert, a prestige drama, a mind palace – and a warning.
Is Noah Hawley’s ‘Anthem’ the First Great American Pandemic Novel?
Like Philip Roth and Kurt Vonnegut before him, Noah Hawley hopes his novel, Anthem, can compete with reality.