Trick Bag is the Substack of music journalist and critic Martin Douglas, combining personal essays, music criticism and a reader mailbag. Readers get first-person writing that ties songs and artists to memory and place, with a focus on hip-hop, jazz and Black music.
Website: https://trickbag.substack.com
Greil Marcus publishes a recurring Real Life Rock Top 10 of music, video and cultural oddities, plus an Ask Greil column answering reader questions about music and culture. Each issue is a personal, essayistic take on concerts, songs and found objects.
Nelson George writes about Black music, film and culture, mixing interview-based profiles, remembrances and behind-the-scenes accounts of his own projects. Readers get first-person reporting and personal context from a veteran music and culture journalist and filmmaker.
Personal essays and cultural criticism on philosophy, the arts and poetry, drawing on memories of record collecting, Dylan's religious turn, poems about Nazi atrocities, and pop-chart history. The writer mixes anecdote with close reading and historical research to explore what art and evil reveal about people.
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