Pop, in Service of the Good

There’s an ongoing push in some music circles to declare that the album is either dead or irrelevant, given the preference in consumers to absorb music by individual tracks versus by albums.  The argument, at least as its been trotted out lately, has been something to the effect of, “well, if the consumer absorbs music […]

The method for doing business as an independent musician has been shifting quite a bit over the past few years.  I’ve been trying very hard to diagnose the problem, and how to figure out a solution for it, but it’s a very complicated issue.  I think I’ve figured out one of the sources of problems, […]

The term fin du siècle (or “end of the century”) is, of course, an exaggeration because we are not at the end of the century at all. Nevertheless, it does feel like the end of a DIY era – though, as I will explain at the end of this essay, I would never say that […]

When I say “towards an Asian-American Music”, you may get the impression that I’m talking about a creative endeavor to create a new musical style or genre that is related in content-specific ways to Asian-American culture or history. That’s a natural reaction given American societal conceptions of music, I suppose. But there’s reason to suspect […]

There is a song that I released a few days with a reference to a Highway 80 in Kansas.  The lyric references the experience of trying to drive home over the holidays in a flashback of sorts, with the protagonist trying to make it home in time to enjoy Christmas with his parents.  Except, there […]

In academia, the minimum standard for publishing work is two-fold. An article must say something novel, and it must say something substantial. In other words, you have to say something new and that new thing had to be important enough to publish. The standard, which we will call “the academic standard” works as a kind […]

I was invited to give a lecture about my music videos at the University of Kentucky by the department of Musicology and Ethnomusicology, as part of the Year of Migration series.  Below are the notes from that lecture, entitled “The Return Home”. ///**// The Return Home: First of all, thank you for giving me the […]