Once upon a time, musical artists sweated over their albums, arranging the tracks in just the right order, or using them to explore a single concept or theme. The chaotic, click-driven demands of streaming have put an end to all that. In The Free Press, River Page uses Lady Gaga’s latest release – covering every genre from techno-club pop to light rock to Taylor Swift parody – to lament albums’ loss of musical coherence. “It’s a mess,” Page explains.

Bad Mom? Bad Wife?
The Massachusetts trial of Lindsay Clancy for killing her three young children (recently declared a mistrial) became a litmus test for couples – with some publicly breaking off engagements due to disagreements over her culpability. Writing in The American Mind, Evie Solheim ponders the malign influence of social media on the marriage decision for younger generations. “When men and women treat existence as a zero-sum game, everyone loses,” she writes, pleading for greater understanding between the sexes. For more on marriage, see this C2C article.


