Jody Rosen

Out and Riding High in Nashville

nytimes.com — NASHVILLE - You can't beat Shane McAnally's commute. Mr. McAnally, one of the top songwriters in country music, lives in a spacious two-story house on leafy side street in East Nashville, a few miles and a quick jump across the Cumberland River from Music Row, the heart of the country industrial complex.

Everybody Loves Germany Now

nymag.com — In what has to be history's greatest public relations turnaround, a BBC poll finds Germany to be the most admired country in the world. There are still plenty of people alive who fought that huge war they started. Not to mention the huge war they started twenty years before that, or the comparatively smallish but still unpleasant war they started in 1870.

The FBI Investigated the Song ‘Louie Louie’ for Two Years

blogs.smithsonianmag.com — The song "Louie Louie" by the Kingsmen might not strike you as Federal Bureau of Investigation material. But the song was under investigation by the FBI for two whole years. The bureau's interest had to do with the lyrics of the song, which most listeners find either confusing or simply impossible to understand.

Impersonator | Album Reviews | Pitchfork

pitchfork.com — Imagine someone at your otherwise-mundane party has dropped ecstasy; he's the only there who has done so. Flushed, sweaty, intense, he stares everyone directly in the eyes and says things like "I see this light coming from behind and growing to enormous size. This is magic."