Music

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[Fri, 26.Jun.09]
Wilco: Wilco (The Album)

While Wilco (The Album) has its strong moments, it does not have many innovative ones. For a band whose reputation was built on being sonic pioneers, this can only be perceived as something of a letdown.

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Regina Spektor: Far

Regina Spektor returns with a new album that's darker than Begin to Hope, but just as poppy.

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Bob Dylan: New Morning / The Basement Tapes / Before the Flood / Dylan & the Dead

This set of CD reissues is welcome for The Basement Tapes alone where it now possesses a clarity that belies its humble and informal origins.

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R.E.M.: Reckoning (Deluxe Edition)

Reckoning was a clear-eyed document of a young band energized by the road and each other.

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Warbringer: Waking Into Nightmares

Warbringer's second album might seem like the same old thrash, but they continue to improve by leaps and bounds.

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Weinland: Breaks in the Sun

This Portland indie band's second album proves they can wing it in the studio and walk away with an album on par with their more calculated material.

Short Takes
[Fri, 26.Jun.09]
:. Alan Wilkis: Pink and Purple
:. Hermit Thrushes: Slight Fountain
:. Spring Creek: Way Up on a Mountain
:. Cocktail Slippers: Saint Valentine's Day Massacre

Events

Mixed Media

POPWIRE
FEATURES
The Edge of Change: The Most Memorable Albums of 1999
By PopMatters Staff
[29.Jun.09] :. PopMatters is on our one-week summer publishing break, except for film and blogs. We return to our full publishing schedule on Monday, July 6. Meanwhile, explore the music of 1999 as we celebrate our 10th anniversary. [Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5]

2009 Silverdocs Documentary Festival
By Chris Barsanti
[29.Jun.09] :. Silverdocs 2009 was a rewarding and refreshing event, offering classic and independent documentaries and previewing several that will crop up over the next year or two on TV and art house screens.

COLUMNS
Pickin' Down the Line: Five Days in March: Uncle Tupelo’s Quiet Revolution
By Bob Proehl
[26.Jun.09] :. Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy may have left country behind, but in 1992, he helped redefine the sound of alt-country.

Pop Past: Black Hollywood: Blaxploitation and Advancing an Independent Black Cinema
By Thomas Britt
[25.Jun.09] :. In recent history, the myriad commercial and social reactions to so-called Blaxploitation films made feasible the rise of a robust, intelligent, and independent black cinema in the US.

Books

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[Fri, 26.Jun.09]
:.
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

This maddening new novel is cinematic, set in New York City in the midst of its slide into near-complete dysfunction.

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Gods and Soldiers: The Penguin Anthology of Contemporary African Writing

Perhaps the strongest theme here is that there’s no singular “voice of Africa”, no overarching cosmology to unify the continent’s literature -- and that’s a great thing.

Multimedia / Comics

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Multimedia

[Fri, 26.Jun.09]
:.
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2

Through its gameplay, Devil Summoner 2 seems to represent a strange drama about the relationship between religion and the political world, exposing gaps that may exist between ethical systems and the political causes that they intend to inform.

Comics

[Thu, 25.Jun.09]
:.
Ghost Rider

Corporate compromise or faulty execution the tale of a Ghost Rider addict cannot be told.

Film / TV

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Film

[Fri, 3.Jul.09]
:.
Lion's Den (Leonera)

Pablo Trapero's film slows down following the splattery whirlwind of plot pieces that gets Julia inside prison.

Television

[Fri, 3.Jul.09]
:.
Global Voices: Estilo Hip Hop

In Estilo Hip Hop, Guerrillero explains, "Rap has become my political weapon of choice."

DVDS

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[Fri, 26.Jun.09]
:.
Dominick Dunne: After the Party

Dominick Dunne’s own story has all the requisite tragic-romantic elements of any personality he’s written about.

:.
Une Femme Mariee

An erudite, somewhat autobiographical, handsome and twisted examination of female infidelity.
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