Tag: music and history

  • “Help Me, Rhonda”: The Beach Boys and the Labouring of Popular Music

    “Help Me, Rhonda”: The Beach Boys and the Labouring of Popular Music

    By Grant Wong (@wongpopscholar) The Beach Boys’ 1965 album Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) looks and sounds like your typical early Beach Boys record. Its tracks, hits like “California Girls” and “Help Me Rhonda,” celebrate the simple joys of being a teenager in postwar America. Its album sleeve beams with summer fun, depicting the Beach…

  • 3. A French Christmas Carol

    3. A French Christmas Carol

    By Tiéphaine Thomason If you were to stroll through the chilly streets of late seventeenth-century Paris, you would be sure to hear singing. This singing would be set to tunes ranging from the solemn, almost melancholic ‘Or nous dites Marie’ (But tell us Mary) to the decidedly jolly ‘Laissez paître vos bêtes’ (Leave your beasts…