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The Safety Dance Was Stranger Than I Thought
A Montreal synth-pop band, Quebec language politics, and a very strange trip to a Neolithic stone circle
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Dead Kennedys in Bossa Nova (and Why It Works)
What happens when Joy Division, Bauhaus, and the Dead Kennedys are rebuilt as quiet café music?
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The Strangest Roundabout I’ve Ever Seen in France
Late-70s disco optimism meets a pastry-themed space roundabout decades later
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David Bowie in Berlin, in French, in the rain
The same Bowie song, three languages, and the strange way a place can get inside the music.
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How Persian Music Keeps Reappearing in Jazz
An old Iranian melody travels from Tehran to Paris to the algorithm
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When the Band, Song, and Album All Have the Same Name
The Catchy Hubris of the Triple Titled Band, Song, Album combo
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I’d Be Happy to Be Jackie, O
Jackie O, Human Sexual Response, Boston, 1980
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Bang Bang in Translation
On Sheila, Sonny Bono, and the international afterlife of one deceptively sad song.
culture
Cutting through the noise the few Substackers I started reading this week
And why I rarely hit the subscribe button
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Do French Cows Moo with an Accent? A Bar, a Playlist, and a Station from the Alps
A French bar, a language slip, and the best station you’ve never heard of.
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What the Fuck is Chanson, Anyway?
How France’s most poetic genre turns heartbreak into performance—and why it still sounds familiar if you grew up on soul and sad ballads.
Soundtrack
What the Fuck is Chanson, Anyway?
How France’s most poetic genre turns heartbreak into performance—and why it still sounds familiar if you grew up on soul and sad ballads.