Reading Time: 5 minutes Only a tiny fraction of the ideas, art, and music ever created has survived. And the shredder of history doesn’t only preserve the best.
Music
Exploring the world of music from a secular perspective.
Posted inArts
The priceless gift of attention
Reading Time: 4 minutes We writers aren’t just competing with our peers, but with all the greatest masterpieces of the ages. How’s a reader to choose?
Posted inMusic
The irrational love of music
Reading Time: 2 minutes Some of us crave classical music with a raptured obsession that defies logical explanation.
Posted inDeath & Dying
‘Skeleton Tree’ and ‘Ghosteen’: Grieving with Nick Cave
Reading Time: 6 minutes Since losing my son Josh in 2021, I look for a handful of traits in art that helps me grieve. Pressured to pretend my life is back to normal, I want words, images, and music that bear witness, that affirm my loss is bottomless, that yes, it is as bad as it feels. At the […]
Posted inIdentity
(Literally) finding my voice as a trans woman
Reading Time: 6 minutes I had a complicated relationship with my voice even before I figured out I was trans. When I was small I loved singing, but then my voice broke. That’s what we call it in the UK when testosterone makes a voice change at puberty—we say your voice “breaks.” As a trans woman, I find that term especially apt. Because my voice was still unpredictable, the choir teacher put me in the bass section where no one would hear me. Singing became something I was afraid to do.
Posted inMusic
The Christians behind that ‘Eye of the Tiger’ cover know you think it’s cringy
Reading Time: 4 minutes Despite all the drama occurring on Capitol Hill right now, the new year has also reminded us that some things will never change, like Christians rewriting old songs like “Eye of the Tiger” to spread the Gospel message: That’s the sort of “Christianized” song you might hear in a lot of modern evangelical services. Or […]
Posted inMusic
THE great secular Christmas song: ‘White Wine in the Sun’
Reading Time: < 1 minute There’s no better expression of the secular spirit of Christmas than Tim Minchin’s “White Wine in the Sun.” Enjoy.
Posted inMusic
Christian bigots condemn Amy Grant for extending Jesus’ love to gay people
Reading Time: 2 minutes When Christian evangelist Franklin Graham and hate-group leader Tony Perkins are calling you a sinner, it’s probably because you made the mistake of being kind. That’s what happened with singer Amy Grant, who received harsh condemnation from the bigots for an act of Jesus-like generosity. Grant was recently awarded the Kennedy Center Honors, an award […]
Posted inMusic
The top 10 psychedelic albums of all time
Reading Time: 8 minutes For several heady years in the late 1960s, an entire genre of popular music was devoted to echoing, capturing, or inspiring an altered state of consciousness resulting from the ingestion of potent drugs. Whatever one might think of the unhealthiness or nihilism of such a peculiar love affair between melody and mind melting, the fact […]
Posted inReligion
Getting through the night without religion
Reading Time: 2 minutes Together, we can make it through the night without supernatural help.