“Baby, It’s Cold Outside” controversy sparks much-needed conversation
The Pop Culture Experiment
by Christina Minnish
4y ago
As the holiday season winds down and the remnants of celebrations litter the coffee tables and countertops, perhaps one more conversation about the controversial “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” can lead us into the rest of winter with some new perspective. When the song was written by Frank Loesser in 1944, and, later, won the Oscar for best original song in the 1949 film, “Neptune’s Daughter,” listeners likely had quite a different take on the lyrics than they do today. Some reference the song as one of sexual liberation for women in an era when staying overnight at a man’s house would have been fr ..read more
Visit website
Recalling some of the best Super Nintendo games
The Pop Culture Experiment
by debbieolsen
4y ago
Fact is, we’ve come a long ways from yesteryear’s consoles, one of which was the much loved SNES. For our younger readers, over 20 years ago, the SNES gaming console was probably one of the best of its time. But for our older readers, the SNES was like the PS4 of that era, and a mention of it, along with some of its games is sure to bring back some nostalgia. That being said, let’s now take a look back at four of SNES’s best titles.  The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past Image credit: Pinterest Digital Trends notes that the entire series carries a reverence among gamers young and ..read more
Visit website
A primer on Scarlett Johansson and cisgender straight actors playing LGBTQ roles
The Pop Culture Experiment
by Patrick Garvin
4y ago
This week Scarlett Johansson dropped out of a movie where she would have played a transgender character. The movie was “Rub & Tug,” based on the true story of Dante “Tex” Gill, a transgender man who ran massage parlors in Pittsburgh. In the spirit of explaining LGBTQ+ issues as we have in the past with RuPaul’s transgender comments and Janelle Monáe’s reference to pansexuality. So why was there backlash against this movie? Transgender actors lamented that cisgender actors get to play trans roles, but transgender people don’t get to play cisgender roles. So that’s why Johanss ..read more
Visit website
“(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang”: Cover Songs Uncovered
The Pop Culture Experiment
by Patrick Garvin
4y ago
This is the 111th post in a weekly series. Read about it here and see the list of previous songs here. A new post about a different song is posted each Monday. You can listen to the songs in a Spotify playlist. Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh founded Human League in 1977 as an electronic band, but the addition Philip Oakey and Adrian Wright helped expand the vision of the band. After two albums, Ware, Marsh, Oakey, and Wright were divided on where to take that vision, so Ware and Marsh left in 1980, leaving Oakey and Wright in charge of Human League. Ware and Marsh then formed Britis ..read more
Visit website
“He’s Gonna Step on You Again”: Cover Songs Uncovered
The Pop Culture Experiment
by Patrick Garvin
4y ago
This is the 110th post in a weekly series. Read about it here and see the list of previous songs here. A new post about a different song is posted each Monday. You can listen to the songs in a Spotify playlist. In the early 1960s, musician John Kongos had a handful of songs on the charts in his home country of South Africa as leader of Johnny Kongos & the G-Men. In 1966, Kongos moved to England, where he formed the psychedelic band, Floribunda Rose. After a failed single, Floribunda Rose became the band Scrugg. When Scrugg broke up around the end of the decade, Kongos went solo ..read more
Visit website
“The Book of Love”: Cover Songs Uncovered
The Pop Culture Experiment
by Patrick Garvin
4y ago
This is the 109th post in a weekly series. Read about it here and see the list of previous songs here. A new post about a different song is posted each Monday. You can listen to the songs in a Spotify playlist. By the end of the 1990s, Stephin Merritt had already shown he was a versatile musician, tapping into several musical styles and traditions with numerous projects, chiefly The Magnetic Fields, The 6ths, The Gothic Archies, and Future Bible Heroes. At some point, Merritt later told The San Francisco Bay Guardian, he was in a gay piano bar in Manhattan, listening to a pianist pla ..read more
Visit website
“Cum On Feel the Noize”: Cover Songs Uncovered
The Pop Culture Experiment
by Patrick Garvin
4y ago
This is the 108th post in a weekly series. Read about it here and see the list of previous songs here. A new post about a different song is posted each Monday. You can listen to the songs in a Spotify playlist. British band Slade never became became as big in America as in the band’s native England, where there was a time the band was almost as big as The Beatles. That was in part because the band’s number of hit singles rivaled that of fab four. By 1972, Slade had a string of hits, including three that reached Number 1 in the UK: “Coz I Luv You,” “Take Me Bak ‘Ome,” and “Mama Weer A ..read more
Visit website
“Stop Your Sobbing”: Cover Songs Uncovered
The Pop Culture Experiment
by Patrick Garvin
4y ago
This is the 107th post in a weekly series. Read about it here and see the list of previous songs here. A new post about a different song is posted each Monday. You can listen to the songs in a Spotify playlist. Biographers seem unable to agree what specifically inspired Ray Davies to write “Stop Your Sobbing,” which appeared on The Kinks’ 1964 self-titled debut album. But there seems to be some agreement that it was an “old girlfriend,” at least according to Thomas Kitts, who wrote “Ray Davies: Not Like Everybody Else,” and Rob Jovanovic, who wrote “God Save The Kinks: A Biography ..read more
Visit website
“Spirit In The Sky”: Cover Songs Uncovered
The Pop Culture Experiment
by Patrick Garvin
4y ago
This is the 106th post in a weekly series. Read about it here and see the list of previous songs here. A new post about a different song is posted each Monday. You can listen to the songs in a Spotify playlist. Norman Greenbaum grew up in Malden, Mass., north of Boston. Like typical Jewish kids, Greenbaum went to Hebrew school and had a Bar Mitzvah. “My parents weren’t Hasidic, but they were almost Orthodox,” he told The New York Times in 2006. After dropping out of Boston University, Greenbaum moved to Los Angeles in 1965. There, he formed a psychedelic jug band called Dr. West’s Me ..read more
Visit website
A playlist of the Brett(e)s we don’t love as much as we love Brette Goldstein
The Pop Culture Experiment
by Patrick Garvin
4y ago
Over the last eight weeks, the “Love Letters” podcast explored the ways people try to get over their breakups. Meredith Goldstein masterfully wove her own experience in with the wisdom and anecdotes of others who struggled with breakups. I was honored to be on the episode about using music to cope, and made a playlist of songs for people going through a breakup. The last episode of this first season came out today. I won’t ruin any of it for you, in case you happen to be one of those fans who doesn’t listen to the podcast episodes within minutes of being posted. There were many things that I l ..read more
Visit website

Follow The Pop Culture Experiment on FeedSpot

Continue with Google
Continue with Apple
OR