Tag Archives: Aretha Franklin
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REWIND: Five Black artists improve white artists’ songs
Aretha Franklin. Courtesy: Wikicommons. So, look: I love Billy Porter. He’s amazing, he’s awesome, he’s a fashion icon. He’s an overall talented man. But… what in the world was that cover of “For What It’s Worth” from the Democratic National Convention? It’s like a skit from a second-tier Adult…
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Daniel J. Willis: The Worst of 2018 in Music
Editor Daniel J. Willis’ reaction to Smokepurpp at Outside Lands. Design: Roman Gokhman. We here at RIFF try to keep things positive. Music, like all art, should bring joy and understanding to the world. Even when music highlights society’s problems, it inspires us to understand and change the underlying…
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In memoriam: Eight artists we lost in 2018
L to R: Jóhann Jóhannsson, Roy Clark, Dolores O’Riordan, Scott Hutchison, Aretha Franklin, Dave Holland, Mark E. Smith and Mac Miller. All corners of the Western music world lost someone in 2018. Punk lost Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks; metal lost Vinnie Paul of Pantera, Jill Janus of Huntress,…
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RIFF Rewind—A time machine for your ears: 1967
Welcome to RIFF Rewind! Every week of 2018, we’ll highlight the top five songs of a different year as selected by our expert panel of tastemakers, by which, of course, I mean me (with help from my friends Robin St. Clare and Ash McGonigal, plus other contributors and RIFF…