Golden Age

New Yorkers miss the '70s. Even many nuevo New Yorkers, the post-Giulianis, the ones who have never seen a freshly graffitied subway train or gotten mugged, the ones born in the hinterlands, the ones from the '80s—they all miss the '70s. Specifically, they miss the myth and mystique of the blasted city that was—the war zone of boundless creativity where punk and disco were born kicking and screaming, covered in leather and glitter and glory. Many transplants came to the city to touch the hem of those garments, to grasp at and maybe one day understand or perhaps even capture the city's history of artful rebellion. These are possibly laudable intentions; at the least they are deeply felt ones. So it's worth asking: Why, in the context of popular music, does this passion for historical rebellion so often translate into a sort of time-warped generic straitjacket? And why does said straitjacket feel so right?

Read the rest of my totally non-autobiographical review of Hercules & Love Affair's awesome and troublesome debut over there.