It’s midnight or so, and my friends and I are dancing in a hotel lobby in West Texas. It’s an idiosyncratic place any time of day—the kind of hotel that’ll put you up in a tent or Airstream trailer, the kind of lobby that’ll sell you sage bundles alongside fancy art books and $80 hoodies…
Dear friends, I could easily construct many years’ worth of New Masculinities Playlists drawing exclusively from the catalog of one artist: Prince. If you’re a regular reader of this website, or even a casual observer of masculinities in popular culture, you already know why. Prince’s incomparable discography, iconography, and public persona were the very sound…
It’s April! It’s springtime! Dear listeners, as you’re tucking away your sweaters for the season, planting some veggies in the garden, rolling down your car windows, and doing whatever else you do as the weather warms, I hope you’ll also turn up this month’s entry to the New Masculinities Playlist: “The Boy” by Shannon and…
Dear readers, as you probably know, there’s a radical, political showcase of Black excellence holding the zeitgeist right now: Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther film. Diving into the universe of this film has topped any other new masculinities experiences related to music that I’ve had in February. I encourage you to put any song from Black…
To turn the New Masculinities Playlist up to 11 in 2018, we had the idea to make it an actual playlist, in addition to a series of essays. So, to that end, we’ve got a couple goodies lined up for you today: First, here is a Spotify playlist of all the songs I mentioned in…
As music fans, critics, and collectors know well, the end of every year signals the return of list season, that holy (and wholly silly) time when we assign arbitrary numerical rankings to our favorite songs and albums. And I have to plead guilty: Even as I simultaneously scold myself about scarcity versus abundance, and as…
Little one don’t be a fool, I’m a wreck when I look mighty. In Euphoria I’m bruised, In confusion next I’m lightning. In complacence I am small, through oblivion I’m charged. – “Follow My Way” by Chris Cornell, 1999 ~~~ Title 18 of the United States Code, Section 1464, prohibits the utterance of any obscene,…
Aaaaaand, we’re back, here on KBWB 99.5, Bridges We Burn radio! Thank you for tuning in to this inaugural installment of the New Masculinities Playlist. My name is Brian, and I’ll be your DJ, bringing you all the hits—new and old—in the genre of radical masculine truths. Who am I? I’m a handful of things:…
