Earlier this week–April 27 to be precise–marked the 10-year anniversary of the release of “I Want It That Way.” Easily the Backstreet Boys’ greatest pop anthem, the song is an important marker to an era in popular American music. The release of the boy band’s second album marks a golden age in American pop (though some could date this to the January 1999 release of Britney Spear’s debut …Baby One More Time).
The period between May 1999 and May 2000 saw the height of the boy band and pop princess craze. Although the seeds of the pop phenomenon were planted much earlier, this was the explosion. Records were selling at unseen highs, Times Square was getting shut down when “N Sync visited and a nobody named Carson Daly on a show called Total Request Live was at the center of it all. Tiger Beat was cool again, and sugar-coated pop was it. Sure, this 12-month stretch is notable for And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out, Knock Knock and Summerteeth among other musical feats more deserving of our attention. But this was the sound of the times, and TRL told us so. Moreover, has there ever been a time when it was cool to have Christina, Eminem and Fred Durst on the same radio station?
Over the next year, the Playground will be revisiting this period, recounting the hits and sort-of-hits. Our bookends will be the releases of “I Want It That Way” and the two big releases of May 2000: Britney’s sophomore surge album Oops!… I Did It Again and Eminem’s great The Marshall Mathers LP. Along the way, we’ll encounter TLC, Mariah Carey, ‘N Sync (naturally), Korn and many more as we look at how the world was and how it has changed through pop music. It will be like Rob Gordon’s record collection, only less self-centered.
The series begins tomorrow and will then appear each Wednesday through May 2010. See you in 1999…
The Regulator Bookshop is hosting a slew of exciting readings in the coming weeks. Tonight, Wells Tower will read from his Michiko Kakutani-approved debut collection of short stories Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned. On Friday, May 1, Duke royalty Reynolds Price will do a reading from his new memoir Ardent Spirits. Michael Malone, based in Hillsborough, N.C. and currently a visiting professor of the practice at Duke, will read from his new novel May 18. In the distance, book aficionados can look forward to a reading from celebrated Netherland author Joseph O’Neill June 23. Click here for the bookshop’s full calendar of events.
In its seventh year, MOMart Show is taking place May 1 to 3 at Golden Belt, which is sponsoring the event. The charity art show and sale is also hosted by Just A Few Friends.
All net proceeds from the event will go toward helping the homeless through organization Genesis Home, which has been working since 1989 to end homelessness for families. The event kicks off Friday with an evening preview party from 7 to 10 p.m. Saturday is the actual open house. According to Golden Belt’s Web site:
Saturday’s all-day open house runs from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. and features art and crafts such as container gardens, birdhouses, plants, and garden art in addition to jewelry, paintings, photography, sculpture, stained glass, textiles, and pottery. If you can’t make it Friday or Saturday, come on out on Sunday from 12 – 4 p.m. and support this great cause and more than 100 local and regional artists!
Tickets are $25 at the door, $15 for students and those aged 12 and under get in free.
Finals cutting into your ability to visit this year’s Tribeca Film Festival? No worries. The downtown Manhattan festival is screening four of this year’s shorts on YouTube. You can see Wu (France), Section 44 (U.K.), The Confession (Ireland) and Kate Hudson’s directorial debut Cutlass starring Dakota Fanning, Chevy Chase (!!!) and her sort-of stepdad Kurt Russel. Information about the films is available here.
To check out the films, click here.
(Hat tip: Vulture)
Through This Lens gallery will be hosting an exhibition of works from Durham’s Club Boulevard Elementary School tonight from 5 to 8 p.m. The exhibition, featuring works from third, fourth and fifth graders, is the final result of a semester-long Literacy Through Photography project. A class (Full Disclosure: I am in the class) from Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies worked with the students to produce photographs and writing relating to various themes that include community, dreams and food. The show mixes digital and film photos.
The LTP method is what Jamara Knight used in her recently ended exhibition of photos from Tanzania Watoto Wanapiga Picha at Golden Belt.
The show is up for a limited time, ending this Saturday, May 2. You can get more info about the event and LTP here.
