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Category Archives: Lists

10 Songs to Prepare You for the LGBTQ+ Emo Scholars Panel

July 11, 2025 - 11:53 am

On July 22 at 12 PM CST, the CPM is hosting a virtual LGBTQ+ Emo Scholars panel on Zoom. You can RSVP for the panel by emailing logan.dalton@mtsu.edu or at this link.

The panelists are poet and storyteller Mikayla Elias (they/them), University of Virginia Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality professor Isabel Felix Gonzales (they/them), and Center for Popular Music head librarian Logan Dalton (they/them).

You can find out more about Mikayla, Isabel, and Logan in this blog post, which will also feature three My Chemical Romance and/or Fall Out Boy songs personally selected by them that are relevant to their upcoming presentations.

Scroll down to the bottom for a special playlist with all 10 songs!

Mikayla’s Picks

Mikayla Elias is a poet and storyteller, who recently earned an MA in Creative Writing from Queen Mary University of London. Their work leans into processing trauma and pressing toward intersectional equity and can be found in publications across the digital and physical world, including Querencia Press, Waxing and Waning Journal, and Lez Spread the Word. Mikayla’s debut poetry collection bending toward the light was released in 2022.

1. “7 Minutes in Heaven (Atavan Halen)” by Fall Out Boy from From Under the Cork Tree (2005)

The root of my upcoming ekphrastic collection [icon]ography lies in understanding one’s own youth and the legacy thereof. “7 Minutes in Heaven (Atavan Halen)” perfectly encapsulates the follies of youth as a mentally ill person. Inspired by Pete Wentz’ suicide attempt, this song is a voyeuristic, self-isolated account of outsider-ness. It returns the subject to a place where isolation is all-consuming, and the self is rejected as a frightening affect of being known.

2. “G.I.N.A.S.F.S” by Fall Out Boy from Infinity on High (2007)

Conversely, “G.I.N.A.S.F.S.” is a song born out of the necessity and urgency of queerness in the 2000s. Here, the self is an essential life-force, a subversive way of protesting heteronormativity. Coming from a band that was subject to scrutiny of their gender and sexualities (During this period especially.), the individual is given permission on a public scale to buck supposition.

3. “Baby Annihilation” by Fall Out Boy from So Much (For) Stardust (2023)

“Baby Annihilation” departs from the questions of youth and dips into questioning the self with the space of age and time. Yet, it keeps us rooted in the cycles of despair, self-deprecation, and grappling with success. As part of [icon]ography’s call to action, this song invites the subject back into a morally questionable world tinged by rose-colored glasses.

Isabel’s Picks

Isabel Felix Gonzales is a Rising Scholars Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at the University of Virginia and a New City Arts Fellow. Their visual and written work is interested in the visual and political cultures of the 21st century and how queer, trans, and nonbinary people of color engage in forms of illegibility, unruliness, kin-making, escape, and refusal. Their work has been published in The Palgrave Handbook of Fashion and Politics, Terrorism in Youth Popular Culture, and SWARM: Answering the Call (A My Chemical Romance Fanzine)

Isabel received a PhD in Political Science from the University of California, Irvine and is currently working on their book, ALL THE BELOVED I COULDN’T DESCRIBE: Queer Illegibility and 21st Century Crisis of Identity.

4-5. “The End.”/”Dead!” by My Chemical Romance from The Black Parade (2006)

Though technically two songs, “The End.” and “Dead!” function as a unit, simultaneously opening The Black Parade and overturing comfortable understandings of what the album—and what My Chemical Romance—could or would be. A slow, deliberate dirge that transforms (transitions, even) into an explosion of bombastic rock guitar, the dyad of “The End.” and “Dead!” problematizes tidy, linear narratives of progress and becoming through starting at the end, starting through death, and embracing transformation, movement, and evasiveness, but also ugliness, anger, friction, and uncanniness, thus generating a form of queer possibility. While “Mama” is most often taken as the band’s queerest song, it is a line in “The End.” that most embodies The Black Parade’s frictive queer horizon of transformation without fixity or destination: “When I grow up, I want to be nothing at all.”

6. “The Foundations of Decay” by My Chemical Romance (2025)

My Chemical Romance’s first single since their initial breakup in 2013, “The Foundations of Decay,” is an explosive statement of intent. Sonically, lyrically, and compositionally different from anything the band has produced before, “Foundations” is a reflection on legacy without nostalgia. Like the dyad of “The End.” and “Dead!”, this song embraces decay, rot, vermin, and the frictive feelings that are seen as stifling, disgusting, improper, unproductive, or that which must be heavily policed and managed. When surrounded by ascendant authoritarianism, climate catastrophe, and extreme economic inequality, surrendering to the comfortable, the familiar, and the nostalgic is a form of self-soothing, a clinging to the impossible promise of return. Against this, My Chemical Romance’s aggressive embrace of the disgusting, the uncomfortable, and the relentlessly angry offers an alternative mode of optimism, one that demands to “GET UP, COWARD” in the face of extermination.

7. “The Kintsugi Kid (10 Years)” by Fall Out Boy from So Much (For) Stardust (2023)

While My Chemical Romance embodies a kind of acerbic optimism, Fall Out Boy has long functioned as their equal and opposite, serving up unflinching pessimism against poppy, danceable melodies. Like “The Foundations of Decay” So Much (for) Stardust is also a reflection on legacy, an attempt to account for one’s life while anticipating an uncertain, potentially apocalyptic future. All the while, situated in a kind of extended (fall out) boyhood, the band embodies a kind of failure of normative masculinity. This is most explicit in “The Kintsugi Kid (10 Years),” Fall Out Boy’s riff on Don Henley’s “The Boys of Summer.” While Henley’s narrator luxuriates in the golden-tinged nostalgia of a boyhood he outgrew to achieve manhood, which is to say, full reproductive citizenship, Fall Out Boy’s narrator longs for the “Ten years, ten years in a bit of chemical haze” where they felt “Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.” Against fifteen years of “It Gets Better,” this yearning for a worse version of oneself complicates conversations around wellness, agency, and survival, which, in the process, makes space for other kinds of being in the world.

Logan’s Picks

Logan Dalton is the head librarian at the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University. Prior to joining the CPM, they worked as a cataloging librarian for Ingram Content Group and as the systems and technical services librarian at the University of Lynchburg. In addition to being a librarian, Logan has been a freelance pop culture writer and reviewer since 2013, mainly focusing on television, film, and comics, and the connection between these mediums as well as literature, music, and progressive politics. Some outlets they’ve written for include Graphic Policy, Booklist, and The Mary Sue. They recently did a presentation on My Chemical Romance and violent black and white independent comics at the 2025 Popular Culture Association national conference.

8. “You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison” by My Chemical Romance from Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge (2004)

When I think of queerness and gender in the songs of My Chemical Romance, “You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison” immediately pops into my head. In an interview with Kerrang! journalist Tom Bryant, frontperson Gerard Way mentioned that this song is about “lost masculinity” and uses the metaphor of prison for life on the road in the tour bus. Lyrics like “They make me do pushups in drag” and the on-stage homoerotic tension (They would kiss on stage and sometimes share a bunk on tour buses.) between Way and the track’s featured vocalist Bert McCracken of The Used play with gender norms in a cheeky way that harks back to 1970s glam rock. Later, My Chemical Romance and The Used would even cover “Under Pressure” setting up Gerard Way and McCracken as the early 21st century, third wave emo heirs of bisexual gender rebels, Freddie Mercury and David Bowie. Coupled with MCR’s outspoken stance against homophobia and stereotypical rock’n’roll “groupie culture” at that time, “Prison” was an early salvo for transgressing gender binaries and against heteronormativity.

9. “Vampires Will Never Hurt You” by My Chemical Romance from I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love (2002)

Before becoming the frontperson of a successful rock band, Gerard Way was a comic book writer and artist earning a BFA at New York’s School of the Visual Arts, interning for DC Comics, and designing action figures for Marvel. As a teenager, he also scripted a short-lived black and white vigilante comic called On Raven’s Wings for the underground publisher Boneyard Press, which was most famous for its unauthorized graphic novel biography of Jeffrey Dahmer. Way’s love of horror fiction, such as films like Dawn of the Dead and music by fellow New Jersey punk rockers The Misfits, and dark anti-hero comics like James O’Barr’s The Crow and David Quinn and Tim Vigil’s Faust comes out in his lyrics on My Chemical Romance’s early records. In the band’s debut single “Vampires Will Never Hurt You”, My Chemical Romance begins their tradition of using genre fiction elements, like vampires, zombies, Western gun fighters, superheroes, and dystopian freedom fighters to name a few, as metaphors for real life problems like struggles with addiction or romantic relationships. The music video featured the band in corpse makeup with black eyeliner and clothing taken straight from Bela Lugosi’s dressing room hinting at how costumes and visuals would be an important part of the band’s appeal going forward as Gerard Way transformed his sketches, comics scripts, and short stories into songs and albums.

10. “I Never Told You What I Do for a Living” by My Chemical Romance from Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge (2004)

Revenge and extreme violence are cornerstones of the lyrical and visual iconography of the first two My Chemical Romance albums I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love and Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge is even a loose concept album about a man who must kill 1,000 evil men and bring their souls to the devil so he can be reunited with his lost love. “I Never Told You What I Do for a Living” concludes this storyline in blood-splattered, guilt-ridden fashion as the protagonist realizes that he’s the 1000th soul. There is real anguish in Gerard Way’s vocal performance as he spins the yarn of an irredeemable soul while guitarists Ray Toro and Frank Iero unite for a chaotic, yet melodic punk rock breakdown. The lyric “Another knife in my hands, a stain that never comes off the sheets/Clean me off, I’m so dirty babe” reminds me of the relationship between the aforementioned comic Faust‘s protagonist John Jaspers and his therapist/lover Jade DeCamp, who still yearns for him while he’s covered in the blood of the men he’s killed with his claws (He makes Wolverine look like a Disney Junior cartoon.) and taunted by the demons in his head. However, unlike Faust, My Chemical Romance found mainstream success by offsetting the violent visions of tracks like “I Never Told You What I Do for a Living” with vulnerable, emotional ones like “Helena”, which is an homage to Gerard and Mikey Way’s relationship with their recently deceased grandmother that encouraged them to pursue art and music and even helped pay for the band’s first tour bus. However, in keeping with the classic quote “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves”, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge goes out in a hail of bullets.

-Mikayla Elias, Isabel Felix Gonzales, Logan Dalton

The views expressed in this blog are the staff members‘ own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Center for Popular Music and Middle Tennessee State University.

9 Country Music Collections to Check Out At the CPM

May 22, 2025 - 2:54 pm

Hi folks! I’m Olivia Beaudry, the archivist at the Center for Popular Music.

As we prepare for the International Country Music Conference (ICMC), I figured I would take a walk in the stacks and shine a light on some of the country music collections here at the Center for Popular Music. I first attended ICMC in 2014, and over the last ten years, it has been something I look forward to each year. While it is wonderful to learn from each other during presentations and panels and learn about the new scholarship in the field, it is the people that make ICMC so special. My graduate school mentor and MTSU professor, Dr Kristine McCusker, was the one who first told me about ICMC. and at my first ICMC. she was sure to introduce me to folks who have since become dear friends and folks I know I can always send researchers and students to when they want to learn more about their scholarship. This is why I became so invested in the conference and officially became a Conference Committee member in 2022. I want this conference to continue so the next generation can enjoy this community, which Dr. James Akenson created 42 years ago.

Now, back to the collection! Due to our geographic location, it is filled with Middle Tennessee roots and country music. Let’s look at just a sampling in somewhat of a chronological pattern. Of course, this is a highlight reel. Please, as always, search the CPM catalog and ask your local archivist. We always know of things that don’t always pop up in the catalog.

1. David C. Morton Collection

If you are familiar with the name, it’s because Mr. Morton wrote the book on DeFord Bailey, the Harmonica Wizard, and one of the first performers on the Grand Ole Opry. This collection is filled with oral histories where we can hear Bailey talk about music and his life in his own words and even give some impromptu performances.

2. Uncle Dave Macon Collection

A Rutherford County native is still here in the archive. Dr. Michael Doubler wrote the book on his great-grandfather, Uncle Dave Macon, who was another one of the first Grand Ole Opry members. Much of this collection is the research Dr Doubler conducted and collected from the family. If you want to learn anything about Uncle Dave, the Opry at that time, and see his date book from 1947, come check out this collection.

3. Jesse Austin Morris Collection

Jesse Austin Morris wrote his own Western Swing Journal and was very well known in the Western Swing collector and fan worlds. Don’t let the size of this large collection intimidate you because Morris was very well organized, and ephemera and photos related to Western Swing, Bob Wills, and Johnny Wills can be found in these boxes. Fun things like this Bob Wills Playboy Bread bag are just icing on the cake of this collection.

4. Charles K. Wolfe Audio Collection

Charles K. Wolfe attended the very first ICMC and has been a major influence on the conferencee ever since. I am currently processing the massive series of papers in his collection, but his audio tapes of oral histories have been processed and are open for use. There are great interviews with Grandpa Jones, Kirk McGee, and countless others. Search our catalog, and we can get these to you remotely if needed, too!

5. Sonny James Collection

The Sonny James Collection contains everything James and his family ever collected, documenting his Hall of Fame career.  There are many unique items in this collection, including James’ wife’s cookbook and fan-created scrapbooks. The collection covers the singer’s entire career from his younger years in the family band right up to a copy of his speech given at his Country Music Hall of Fame induction in 2007. The Sonny James biography is waiting to be written, and this is the collection to do the research on it.

6. George Hamilton IV Collection

George Hamilton is known for his international success, and his archival collection shows this from scripts of his television show on Canadian TV or the tour itineraries of relentless European tours with Hamilton’s own little notes on the margins of how well the show went or if he did not want to return to a certain venue. The posters and programs in this collection are in so many languages that it was sometimes hard to figure out what country the show was in.

7. Glen Thompson Collection of Country Music

Glen Thompson was the president of the Grand Ole Opry Fan Club for many years. He collected most of the well-known Barn Dance materials like WLS Barn Dance, the Wheeling Jamboree, and, of course, the Opry. He also collected some of the members’ newsletters, like Bill Anderson. This collection is a must-see for anyone looking into Barn Dance radio shows and fan club culture.

8. Travis Stimeling Collection

Travis was a dear friend and champion of ICMC and is missed at ICMC each year following their passing. However, because Travis loved archives and knew how important it was to save things, all the oral histories Travis conducted for the award-winning Nashville Cats book are housed here at the CPM. They are open for research, and I am currently working to get them up online in our catalog so anyone, anywhere, can listen to them.

9. Alan L. Mayor Collection

If you’re looking for 1990s and early 2000s photographs of an artist or a number one party, the Alan L. Mayor collection is the place to go. Alan was an independent photographer and worked closely with Music Row Magazine and Country Weekly. His date books and backstage passes tell their own story, too. This collection is still in process due to its massive size, but I am willing to help you find anyone from Ruby Falls to Shania Twain.

There are so many more collections I could list here, but it would go on too long. Please reach out to the CPM if you are interested in looking at any of these or finding something more in our catalog. I love nothing more than to help folks find the thing that proves their thesis or answers all their questions in their research. It’s why I became an archivist!

You can also connect with us on our Facebook, Instagram, and Blue Sky pages!

-Olivia Beaudry

The views expressed in this blog are the staff member’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Center for Popular Music and Middle Tennessee State University.

The 6 Best Lucy Dacus Songs

March 26, 2025 - 1:56 pm 4

With an angelic, yet approachable voice and lyrics that cut to the core of topics like interpersonal relationships, queer desire, faith, and creativity, Lucy Dacus is one of the best current American singer-songwriters. She released her debut album No Burden in 2016 on Richmond, Virginia’s EggHunt label, and it was later re-released on indie giant Matador along with her subsequent two records Historian (2018 ; my personal favorite of Dacus’ discography) and Home Video (2021). In addition to her solo work, Lucy Dacus is a member of the supergroup Boygenius along with Phoebe Bridgers and MTSU alumna Julien Baker and won three Grammys in 2024 for her work with the group.

Dacus’ fourth album (and major label debut) Forever Is a Feeling comes out on Friday, March 28, 2025, so it’s as good a time as any to polish some gems from her back catalog.

In chronological order by release, here are the best six Lucy Dacus songs from the first decade of her career along with a companion playlist for your listening pleasure and images of Dacus from various periodicals in the CPM archive.

1. “Strange Torpedo”(2016 ; No Burden)

Lucy Dacus made quite the critical impression with her debut album No Burden, which was named the best album of 2016 by Philadelphia’s Magnet magazine beating out contemporary classics like Blackstar by David Bowie. “Strange Torpedo” is the standout track on the record. It features driving rhythm guitars and vocal runs from Dacus paired with lyrics that are a little gonzo while still having a memorable hook. Written from both first and second person POVs, the song explores Dacus’ relationship with someone who has made a lot of mistakes in their life potentially involving alcohol or substances. Despite these red flags, she’s inevitably drawn to them and the beautiful chaos they bring into her life. One of Lucy Dacus’ strengths as a songwriter is her use of interesting metaphors, and this track has that in spades.

2. “Night Shift” (2018 ; Historian)

A six-and-a-half-minute epic, “Night Shift” is arguably Lucy Dacus’ signature track and one of the best breakup songs of the past decade. It’s a slow burn of an album opener with solo electric guitar and a visceral first line, “The first time I tasted somebody else’s spit, I had a coughing fit” before burrowing into the tense postmortem of a romantic relationship. Dacus and her partner’s lives were so intertwined that she had to completely rearrange her schedule to avoid them. This is relatable to anyone who must avoid certain places because it reminds them too much of their ex. The build-up of the song from quiet and thoughtful to loud and wailing reflects the fight for closure in the lyrics culminating in the wry couplet, “In five years, I hope the songs feel like covers/Dedicated to new lovers”. This line shows that although romantic relationships might not last forever, powerful songs about one’s personal past have staying power and can even take on new meanings and contexts as an artist’s career progresses. Mirroring the slow build of the song itself, “Night Shift” didn’t get a music video until 2023. However, it was well worth the wait as I Saw the TV Glow helmer Jane Schoenbrun directed a Lynchian ode to queerness through the lens of Wizard of Oz with an appearance from Yellowjackets’ Jasmin Savoy Brown.

3. “Timefighter” (2018 ; Historian)

In addition to her vocal and lyrical chops, Lucy Dacus is a talented guitar player and was even recognized by Rolling Stone in 2023 as one of the 250 greatest guitarists of all time. Beginning with a plodding drum and bass intro, “Timefighter” transforms into a showcase of Dacus and her co-producer/live guitarist Jacob Blizard skillfully trading bluesy licks between verses and vocal lines. Towards the end of the track, they punch up the volume and the fuzz levels for an epic outro that feels like Lucy Dacus has put on some boxing gloves and is in a no holds barred tussle with the undefeated heavyweight champion of the world: death.

4. “VBS” (2021 ; Home Video)

Based on its title, visuals (The album art was photographed at the Byrd Theater in Lucy Dacus’ hometown of Richmond, Virginia.), and subject matter, Home Video is an album about Dacus’ youth and childhood that focuses on friendships, faith, compulsory heterosexuality, and trips to the local repertory movie theater. “VBS” clearly portrays Lucy Dacus’ Evangelical upbringing, and how seriously she took the lessons she learned about God and Jesus, Heaven and Hell while camping in the woods with T-shirt clad youth pastors and pre-teen boys. She wanted to “save” her boyfriend from the evils of snorting nutmeg at camp while he was dealing with much more serious personal issues at home and had to listen to high-volume heavy metal music to drown out his anxieties. (Dacus and Jacob Blizard really shred after that Slayer mention.) “VBS” looks at the pros and cons of religious faith from a very specific lens, and the drone of its guitars and continuous organ riff evoke late night existential crises about your purpose in the world.

5. “Thumbs” (2021 ; Home Video)

Initially an unreleased live song that Lucy Dacus begged audiences to not record, “Thumbs” is the bleeding heart of Home Video with lines like “I imagine my thumbs on the irises/Pressing in until they burst”. It describes a time when Dacus accompanied a friend to meet the friend’s absentee father, and in a 2021 Pitchfork interview, she said that writing the song made her “… feel weird, almost sick”. “Thumbs” has minimal instrumentation (Just keyboards played by Jacob Blizard.) to help you better process Lucy Dacus’ pleading lyrics about possibly killing her friend’s dad. However, this funeral dirge/revenge song about terrible fathers has a cathartic conclusion with Dacus filling verses with how much she admires her friend’s brilliance and resilience. In the end, “Thumbs” is a hymn to found family, a concept that resonates with many LGBTQ+ folks.

6. “Kissing Lessons” (2022 ; Non-album single)

“Kissing Lessons” is a sugary, short n’ sweet power pop song released as a single by Lucy Dacus between Home Video and her upcoming album Forever is a Feeling. The track is the story of the grade school friendship between Dacus and her crush/first kiss, Rachel. Its urgent pace captures those first butterflies in your stomach when you have romantic feelings for someone, but you don’t know why. By the end of its hummingbird life span, “Kissing Lessons” ends up being the proverbial young queer experience of liking someone but not knowing if they like you or your gender. However, it’s more sweet than sour and shows off Lucy Dacus’ rarely seen pop punk side.

Honorable Mentions:

“I Don’t Wanna Be Funny Anymore”, “My Mother and I”, “Pillar of Truth”, “Christine”

If you’re interested in learning more about Dacus’ work, we have information about her in various periodicals found in the CPM archive, including Magnet, Billboard, American Songwriter, and Rolling Stone. Also, her yearn-inducing March 17 interview with Amanda Petrusich of the New Yorker is one of the beautiful things I’ve read in 2025 so far.

What’s your favorite Lucy Dacus song? (Either solo or with Boygenius.) Feel free to chime in on our Facebook, Instagram, or Blue Sky pages.

-Logan Dalton

The views expressed in this blog are the staff member’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Center for Popular Music and Middle Tennessee State University.

7 Popular Songs Inspired by the Life of Martin Luther King Jr.

January 15, 2025 - 10:30 am

Many schools and places of business observe the federal holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday on the third Monday in January, but his actual birthday is today, January 15. King would be 96 today and had an immeasurable influence on the world through his writings, speeches, and actions advocating for marginalized and disenfranchised people around the world, especially African Americans, as he fought against racial discrimination, Jim Crow laws, and segregation during the 1950s and 1960s.

King’s influence is still felt today through popular music in a variety of genres. There are countless songs that quote, mention, or even sample Martin Luther King Jr., but here are seven tracks that celebrate the work and life of Martin Luther King Jr. or are in conversation with him in some way and personally resonate with me. One was released during his lifetime, and the rest grapple with or are inspired by his legacy of fighting for civil rights and social justice.

1. “A Change Is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke (1964)

Although it opens with a lush flourish of strings and a horn section courtesy of Brill Building producers Hugo & Luigi, 1964’s “A Change is Gonna Come” is actually a protest song from singer-songwriter and “King of Soul” Sam Cooke. Its lyrics were influenced by Cooke’s own experiences of being turned away from a Holiday Inn in Shreveport, Louisiana because he was Black, along with “Blowin’ in the Wind” by Bob Dylan and Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech that was delivered the year before the song was released. Sam Cooke also met King at the Atlanta airport and promised to dedicate a song to him. “A Change Is Gonna Come” acknowledges the difficulties that Cooke has faced because of the color of his skin, such as Jim Crow laws not allowing him to go to certain restaurants or movie theaters. Sam Cooke was even unjustly arrested for disturbing the peace when the horn on his Maserati malfunctioned one night. By releasing “A Change Is Gonna Come,” he also risked alienating his white fans, who enjoyed his R&B love songs but weren’t ready for more personal songs about the Black experience. However, with its powerful lyrics, timeless sound, and hopeful message, “A Change is Gonna Come” became one of Cooke’s most important songs and has been covered or sampled by a variety of artists, including Otis Redding, Beyoncé, and Lil’ Wayne. Its lyrics are also on the walls of the Contemplative Court at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

2. “Happy Birthday” by Stevie Wonder (1980)

Without Stevie Wonder’s 1980 single “Happy Birthday” from his 19th album studio, Hotter Than July, Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday may not have become a national holiday. Wonder took a four-year hiatus from recording albums to campaign for a federally recognized holiday to commemorate King’s life and work. He worked closely with King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, organizing concerts and rallies and even attending Congressional hearings about the topic. He faced opposition from critics (Including then-president Ronald Reagan), who cited Martin Luther King’s personal character, political views, and even the cost of lost earnings as reasons why he shouldn’t get his own federal holiday. However, a bill making Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday a federal holiday passed through both houses of Congress and was signed into law by President Reagan on November 2, 1983. In 1986, Stevie Wonder performed “Happy Birthday” at “An All-Star Celebration Honoring Martin Luther King Jr.” which celebrated the passing of the bill. Musically, the track is a joyful synth-driven anthem composed and played by Wonder on a Fairlight CMI with female backing vocals that evoke a gospel choir. It’s a plea to honor a man who laid down his life for racial equality in the United States and directly opposes the detractors of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

3. “Pride (In the Name of Love)” by U2 (1984)

Martin Luther King’s life and work crossed oceans and influenced international artists like Dublin, Ireland’s U2, who included not one, but two songs about him on their 1984 multi-platinum album The Unforgettable Fire. “Pride (In the Name of Love)” was the lead single from that record, and in its third verse, U2 frontman Bono sings about the day King was assassinated at a Memphis motel. (He was in town to support a sanitation workers’ strike.) Bono’s lyrics and emotive vocals, combined with The Edge’s signature guitar sound, paint a picture of a man who was fighting for peace but was killed violently. Because they grew up and released their early albums during “The Troubles” in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, many of U2’s songs are about wars, conflicts, and the fight for civil rights, including “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and more recently, “Walk On” about imprisoned Burmese politician Aung San Suu Kyi. “Pride” is no exception and is a celebration of Martin Luther King’s selfless, turn-the-cheek love for his fellow human beings

4. “They Killed Him” by Kris Kristofferson (1986)

Kris Kristofferson’s 1986 single “They Killed Him” from the album Repossessed is a country rock hymn to martyrdom, specifically focusing on Mahatma Gandhi, Jesus Christ, John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and, of course, Martin Luther King. Each verse lists off the good things each man did for humanity before closing with the powerful refrain, “They killed him!” According to rock critic Randall Beach, Kristofferson wrote the song after watching the 1984 Best Picture-winning biographical film Gandhi and making connections between the Indian civil rights activist and American activists, who were murdered in the prime of their lives. “They Killed Him” was also recorded by Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan and covered live by the country supergroup The Highwaymen, which consisted of Kristofferson, Cash, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings. “They Killed Him’s” subject matter definitely fits the outlaw country genre and provokes reflection about the senseless deaths of good men across the ages, but especially in the 1960s in the United States.

5. “My President” by Jeezy ft. Nas (2008)

“My President” by Jeezy and Nas preemptively celebrates the election of the first Black president of the United States, Barack Obama. It was recorded in June 2008 for Jeezy’s album The Recession when Obama became the Democratic nominee but wasn’t released as a single until after he won the presidential election in November. Featuring the memorable hook “My president is Black, my Lambo’s blue,” the song argues that Barack Obama becoming president is the culmination of Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream because a Black man now holds the highest office in the land. In the second verse, Jeezy talks about how Obama’s campaign has made him feel hopeful for once after experiencing and learning about so many tragedies in the world, like Hurricane Katrina (Jeezy opened his Atlanta home to Katrina survivors.), the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, and the deaths of Southern rappers Soulja Slim and Pimp C. Nas’ guest verse is hopeful as well, but after mentioning that many Black men can’t vote because of felonies, he charges Barack Obama to “never lose your integrity” hinting at the corrupting nature of power. All in all, “My President” brings Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Had a Dream” speech into the 21st century with pulsating beats from Tha Bizness and a swagger-filled message of hope, change, Lamborghinis, and spinach dip to the dark days of the Great Recession. It was also on my 2008-2009 high school basketball warm-up CD, to the delight of some and the displeasure of others, depending on their political leanings.

6. “Backseat Freestyle” by Kendrick Lamar (2012)

Kendrick Lamar opens the song “Backseat Freestyle” from his 2012 major label debut album Good Kid, M.A.A.D City with the line “Martin had a dream.” However, what follows in the track isn’t a rhymed close reading of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Had a Dream” speech but a pointed critique of a younger Kendrick Lamar, who solely cared about hedonism and not social justice like the current-day Lamar. Immediately after name-dropping King, the Compton, California, rapper starts discussing his sexual prowess, sports cars, drugs, and violence in a very graphic manner. Legendarily recorded in only two takes, Kendrick Lamar’s nimble flow transports the listener back in time to his teenage psyche and desire for “money and power,” which is the exact opposite of the “riches of freedom and security of justice” that Martin Luther King mentioned in his famous speech. “Backseat Freestyle” is a flashback to chapter one of K-Dot’s journey as an artist that truly blossomed in his next album, To Pimp a Butterfly, which was heavily influenced by the history of African-American music. Butterfly also featured the track “Alright,” which became an anthem for the Black Lives Matter movement, ringing out during many anti-racist and anti-police brutality protests in the late 2010s and early 2020s as “Martin’s dream” became “Kendrick’s dream.”

7. “Thieves! (Screamed the Ghost)” by Run the Jewels ft. Tunde Adebimpe (2016)

Numerous songs have alluded to or sampled Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech. However, hip-hop duo Run the Jewels, consisting of Atlanta rapper Killer Mike and New York rapper/producer El-P, chose to sample his “The Other America” speech instead in the outro of their track “Thieves! (Screamed the Ghost)” from the 2016 album Run the Jewels 3. This 1967 speech addresses racial and economic inequality in the United States and contains the famous line “… a riot is the language of the unheard”. Using the framing narrative of a ghost story, El-P and Killer Mike document the 2014 Ferguson unrest that happened after police officer Darren Wilson fatally shot Michael Brown and dig into the systemic reasons for the riots and protests in a similar manner to what King did in his “The Other America Speech.” For example, American prison workers produce $11 billion in goods and services while being paid virtually nothing, so Killer Mike argues that there’s a profit motive for sending people of color to prison for non-violent offenses. The inclusion of and allusions to a Martin Luther King Jr. speech in “Thieves!” also shows the cyclical nature of history because anti-Black racism and police brutality continue to be major issues in the United States decades after King’s death. With the assistance of metaphors from horror and science fiction stories in a similar manner to the films of Jordan Peele and the classic Twilight Zone television show, Run the Jewels applies Martin Luther King Jr’s speeches and ideology to current events and beyond taking aim at systemic racism and the American penal system with a ripple righteous anger offset by TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe’s pleading guest vocals in “Thieves'” bridge.

Thank you for reading this blog post, and have a restful MLK Day! Feel free to share your thoughts on the article and comment with what you’ll be listening to on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday on our Facebook, Instagram, or X posts.

-Logan Dalton

The views expressed in this blog are the staff member’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Center for Popular Music and Middle Tennessee State University.

The 5 Best Popular Music Biopics

December 18, 2024 - 8:15 pm

Welcome to the Center for Popular Music (CPM) blog! This blog is edited by CPM librarian and popular culture critic, Logan Dalton. It will showcase items and collections in our Archive and Reading Room and connect them to current happenings in the world of popular music through list, feature, interview, and review articles. This blog will be more in-depth than our social media posts, less in-depth than an academic article, and often have a companion playlist on the CPM Spotify account.

Best Popular Music Biopics Playlist

In honor of the upcoming Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, starring Timothée Chalamet as the legendary singer-songwriter, our first blog article breaks down the five best popular music biopics. (Unfortunately, the CGI-chimp starring Robbie Williams biopic Better Man is being released in January and didn’t make the cut for consideration despite getting surprisingly good advance reviews.)

5. Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022)

Sadly, Dewey Cox isn’t an actual person, so the 2007 rock biopic spoof Walk Hard wasn’t eligible for inclusion on this list. However, despite flights of fancy featuring Madonna (An unhinged Evan Rachel Wood) and Pablo Escobar, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story does have biographical information about the master of popular music parody and is eligible. “Weird Al” Yankovic himself co-wrote the film, and it stars Daniel Radcliffe, who continues to choose roles that are the polar opposite of Harry Potter. Weird explores actual elements of Yankovic’s life and influences like his love for polka music, his relationship with the eccentric radio host Dr. Demento, and even the idea of the “Yankovic bump” where if “Weird Al” Yankovic parodied a song, it would get a sales and airplay boost. But it turns these real-life incidents, like Yankovic getting his first accordion from a door-to-door salesman and Madonna asking him to parody “Like A Virgin”, up to eleven for maximum comedy gold. By the time Weird reaches an action-packed climax, Radcliffe loses himself in rock’n’roll excess and sheer silliness as classic “Weird Al” Yankovic cuts like “Eat It” and “Amish Paradise” find new life in the heightened reality of the film.

4. Straight Outta Compton (2015)

Although it hews a little too closely to hagiography because of Dr. Dre and Ice Cube’s involvement as producers, Straight Outta Compton captures the limitless energy of West Coast gangster rap in the 1980s and 1990s and chronicles the birth, death, and resurrection of hip hop group N.W.A. and its key members Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, and Eazy-E. Director F. Gary Gray’s action chop on films like Set It Off and The Negotiator serve him well in building tension in sequences like the opening police raid on Eazy-E’s stash house to any time Death Row Records co-founder Suge Knight (A menacing R. Marcos Taylor) appears in the frame. The standout performance in Straight Outta Compton is O’Shea Jackson Jr. as his father, Ice Cube. Jackson channels the seemingly contradictory rage, creativity, and humor of the artist responsible for the anti-Semitism and homophobia of “No Vaseline” but also the soulful vignettes of “It Was A Good Day” and the raucous comedy of the Friday screenplay. Because some of its events coincide with the 1992 Los Angeles riots, Straight Outta Compton has a lot of social commentary about police brutality and systemic racism. However, the film is at its most effective when it shows the power of music to escape one’s circumstances, like an early scene where Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins) sprawls out on the floor at his mother’s apartment, listens to Roy Ayers records, and mentally starts to put the funk into the G-funk subgenre of hip hop.

3. 24 Hour Party People (2002)

The 2002 British film 24 Hour Party People isn’t just a biopic of a single figure, but surveys the entire indie/rock/dance music scene in Manchester from 1976 to the late 1990s centered around Factory Records founder Tony Wilson (Steve Coogan) and the Hacienda night club, which was co-owned by the members of New Order. At times, the movie resembles a documentary, like a sequence with early concert footage of the Sex Pistols playing at Lesser Free Trade Hall. However, it occasionally plays fast and loose with the facts, like a cheeky scene where Buzzcocks frontman Howard Devoto (Played by Coronation Street actor Martin Hancock) is having an affair with Wilson’s first wife, and the actual Devoto turns to the camera and states that this actually never happened. Director Michael Winterbotham juggles a whole range of tones in 24 Hour Party People, from solemn after Ian Curtis (A heartbreaking Sean Harris) dies by suicide to frenetic and stressful as the Happy Mondays use the last of Factory Records’ cash to record a missing-the-vocal-tracks stinker of a record in Barbados. The film is a showcase for a generation of British character actors, like Simon Pegg, Paddy Considine, and, of course, Coogan, to pay homage to their guitar, rave, and synth heroes and a rare time and place when art for art’s sake and not just commercial gain had the upper hand for once. (Of course, the Hacienda is luxury apartments now.)

2. Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980)

Featuring an Academy Award-winning acting and singing performance from Sissy Spacek, Coal Miner’s Daughter is the gold standard for traditional popular music biopics. It follows the rise of “The First Lady of Country Music” from an impoverished upbringing as one of eight children in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky, to marrying hard-drinking, fast-driving former military man Doolittle “Mooney” Lynn (Tommy Lee Jones) at 15 and finally finding fame as a country singer-songwriter and one of the Grand Ole Opry’s brightest stars. Spacek brings a naivete and vulnerability to the role of Lynn without making her the butt of the joke, and her warm chemistry with Beverly D’Angelo’s Patsy Cline is easily one of the highlights of the film and provides a counterbalance to Lynn’s turbulent relationship with Mooney. Coal Miner’s Daughter spends most of its runtime in Appalachia and rural Washington, establishing a wellspring of authenticity from which Loretta Lynn’s songs bubble up and reach the masses as the story progresses. The cherry on top of this biopic is getting a glimpse of pre-tourist-destination Nashville, including cameos from Ernest Tubb, Roy Acuff, and Minnie Pearl as themselves.

1. I’m Not There (2007)

Director Todd Haynes already explored fame and musicians in his 1987 directorial debut Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story and the 1998 glam rock fever dream Velvet Goldmine, but I’m Not There is basically his doctoral dissertation on the subject matter featuring six actors of different genders, races, and ages representing and playing aspects of Bob Dylan’s personality, body of work, and influences. There’s the precociously brilliant Marcus Carl Franklin embodying Dylan’s Depression-era blues and folk roots as he rides the rails hoping to catch a glimpse of his hero and namesake Woody Guthrie, and Ben Whishaw’s Arthur Rimbaud providing poetic insights in stark black and white film stock. Then, there’s Jack Rollins (Christian Bale), whose “finger-pointing” songs take the folk scene by storm and lead to a biopic within a biopic starring Robbie Clark (Heath Ledger), who epitomizes the rebelliousness (and male chauvinism) of the actors in New Hollywood films like Easy Rider. There is also the aging outlaw charms of Billy the Kid (Richard Gere), whose story is a slice-of-life Western about urbanization destroying the simple life on the frontier. However, a chameleon-like Cate Blanchett’s Jude Quinn is the most compelling character in the film and brings in a burst of life and controversy when he “sells out” and “goes electric” with fans, critics, and “friends” fighting for a piece of his identity and projecting themselves on him. I’m Not There transcends the biopic genre, uses the iconic figure of Bob Dylan to provide insightful commentary on the history of American popular music, and also acts as a visually fragmented portrait of the man himself, even though his name is never spoken in the film.

Honorable mentions: Runaways, Sid and Nancy, Elvis (1979), La Bamba, Ray, Selena, 8-Mile, Walk the Line, The Doors, Get On Up, Cadillac Records, Bird, Control

We hope you enjoyed this first CPM blog post. Feel free to comment with your thoughts or your own personal favorite popular music biographical film on our Facebook, Instagram, or X posts.

-Logan Dalton

The views expressed in this blog are the staff member’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Center for Popular Music and Middle Tennessee State University.