Category Archives: Music History

Album Review: Word Of Mouth

Posted on September 2, 2026 by nathanalbright

Word of Mouth, by Mike & The Mechanics This album, released in 1991, was the third album released by Mike & The Mechanics, and its official AllMusic review suggested that the album’s presence in remainder bins may have been due … Continue reading →

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Word of Mouth: Reputation, Report, and the Selective Regulation of Informal Speech: A white paper on a single phrase and the two problems it holds

Posted on August 27, 2026 by nathanalbright

Abstract One phrase does two kinds of work. In music criticism, “word of mouth” names an unmeasured cause invoked to explain a measured outcome; in institutional life, it names a good that organizations purchase eagerly in one direction and punish … Continue reading →

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Three Offices, One Prescription: Notes toward disentangling the opioid question

Posted on August 21, 2026 by nathanalbright

I. The compound noun We speak of “the opioid crisis” as though it were one thing. It is at least four, and the habit of naming them with a single phrase has cost us more than any individual policy error … Continue reading →

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Rented and Owned: Male Crisis, Sincerity, and the Price of Admission in Cinema and the Adult Contemporary Ballad: A White Paper on Frame Devices, Instrumentality, and the Asymmetric Reception of Male Emotional Exposure

Posted on August 20, 2026 by nathanalbright

Abstract American popular culture maintains two large archives of the same subject: the man whose competence does not reach his predicament. One archive is cinematic and is exemplified with unusual clarity by the filmography of Ryan Gosling, whose roles constitute … Continue reading →

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Two Grudges in Search of a Category: Resentment Attributed to Howard Jones and Resentment Attributed to His Reviewers, Toward a General Typology

Posted on August 11, 2026 by nathanalbright

Abstract Two accusations circulate around the mid-1980s reception of Howard Jones, and each is an accusation of resentment. The first is made by reviewers about the music: beneath the synthesizer optimism sits a scolding, aggrieved posture toward audiences, institutions, and … Continue reading →

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The Rhinestone and the Reed: Reputation, Craft, and the Unwritten Session History of Kenneth Gorelick: A White Paper on the Gap Between Kenny G’s Popular Image and His Documented Standing as an R&B Sideman, With a Proposed Program for a Complete Session History

Posted on July 6, 2026 by nathanalbright

Abstract Few American instrumentalists occupy a stranger position in public memory than Kenneth Bruce Gorelick, known since the early 1980s as Kenny G. To the general listener and to a large part of the critical establishment, the name functions as … Continue reading →

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The Afterlife of a Lingua Franca: Tracing the Survival of Mobilian Jargon in Later Languages and Cultural Artifacts

Posted on June 14, 2026 by nathanalbright

Introduction When a contact language falls silent, it rarely vanishes without remainder. The question of “survival” is more delicate than the binary of living versus dead language suggests, because a pidgin can perish as a functioning medium of communication while … Continue reading →

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Living In Danger: A White Paper on Ace of Base’s 1994 Single and Its Interpretive Field

Posted on June 9, 2026 by nathanalbright

1. The text and its provenance “Living in Danger” was written by Jonas Berggren and Ulf Ekberg and released in October 1994 as the final single from the group’s debut album (issued in North America as The Sign). It peaked … Continue reading →

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Rodeo Culture in Country and Western Music: The Tension Between Cautionary Tale and Cultural Allure

Posted on May 6, 2026 by nathanalbright

Introduction Country music has carried rodeo as one of its central narrative subjects for nearly a century, and the relationship is genuinely complex. On one hand, country songs about rodeo have repeatedly functioned as cautionary tales — warning against the … Continue reading →

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Feeling Everything in Public: Gender, Emotional Vulnerability, and the Asymmetric Costs of Sincerity in Contemporary Pop: A White Paper on the Female Confessional Tradition, Its Male Absence, and the Risks of Arrested Emotional Development

Posted on April 17, 2026 by nathanalbright

Abstract The contemporary pop landscape is dominated, at the level of both commercial achievement and cultural conversation, by a cohort of female artists whose defining characteristic is the public performance of emotional vulnerability without ironic qualification. Taylor Swift, Adele, Olivia … Continue reading →

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