Word: popped
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Have we all been here before? Yes, and in this lifetime too. America flirted with Buddhism in the 1950s and again in the '70s; vestiges of those dalliances still waft, pleasant yet amorphous, through the pop atmosphere. Chicago Bulls coach Phil Jackson applies Zen to the art of Michael maintenance, and Tina Turner and Herbie Hancock chant Buddhist mantras. Terms such as Nirvana and koan are in common usage, if seldom understood...
...Lichtenstein, who died at 73 last week of complications arising from pneumonia, was not quite the most famous of the American Pop artists. That honor belonged to Andy Warhol, who made it somewhat dubious. Lichtenstein was always lower-key as a person, reserved, wryly courteous and not a great believer in the virtues of publicity. He neither sought nor avoided the limelight...
Unfortunately, a little less innovation on the technical side and more musical craft would go a long way. In fact, any number of improvements would--less inane lyrics, for example. Knox not only commits the traditional (and acceptable) pop crime of writing terrible, trite lyrics, he structures his songs (all 14 of them) such as to place special emphasis on his meager voice and lyrics. The spare arrangements simply highlight the artist's severe limitations as a vocalist and lyricist...
...suffers from such overwhelming uniformity that any deviation from the mid-tempo indie-pop blueprint established early on in the album is at least a brief treat for the listener. The bizarre lullaby "Gold," for instance, breaks up the monotony, as does the mildly groovy "Engaged." After a few moments of Knox's self-important crooning, the sad truth becomes clear: the slow songs suck...
Towards the end of the album, things really begin to fall apart. The songs get longer and lose the one thing that made them at all compelling in the first place: pop song structure. Without verse-cho-rus-verse (or, in some cases on YES!!, chorus-chorus-chorus), Knox is completely lost. The final 18-minute track is a masturbatory opus of noise, static and tape and synth-looped sound effects...