Devon Powers
Devon Powers is Associate Professor in the Department of Advertising in the Klein College of Media and Communication at Temple University. Her research focuses on consumer culture, cultural intermediation/circulation, popular music, and promotional culture. She is the author of On Trend: The Business of Forecasting the Future (2019), Writing the Record: The Village Voice and the Birth of Rock Criticism (2013), and the editor of Blowing Up the Brand: Critical Perspectives on Promotional Culture (2010, with Melissa Aronczyk). Her work has appeared in New Media & Society, Critical Studies in Media Communication, Popular Communication, and Journal of Consumer Culture, among other venues.
98 articles
List of articles in the library
Color Me Badd: The Best of Color Me Badd
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 2000
IT SPEAKS VOLUMES that, at this historical moment, viable cred can come the title "Original Boy Band". Throughout The Best of Color Me Badd, you ...
Lil' Kim: The Notorious K.I.M.
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 2000
MS. KIMBERLY "Lil' Kim" Jones, here's your most telling lyric: "You can never be me. You can only resemble." ...
Samantha Mumba: Gotta Tell You
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 2000
FOLLOW THE ANALOGY: Britney is to McDonald's as Christina is to Burger King, as Jessica is to Wendy's as Mandy is to Dunkin' Donuts or ...
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 19 June 2000
IT'S BEEN SO long since I've listened to something and truly felt it was new. Something so daring, so confusing, you want to swear by ...
Nada Surf: The Proximity Effect
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 28 August 2000
SO, I'M STRANDED on a desert island. No, worse: I'm stranded in nothing town in AnyState, where a McDonald's, a WalMart, and a tired bar ...
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 11 September 2000
THE FIRST TIME I turned on the radio and heard 'St. Theresa', (the opening track off Osborne's 1995 release, Relish) I felt branded for life. ...
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 11 September 2000
I'M CONVINCED that there's something about Veni Vidi Vicious, that elicits borderline personality. One minute I'm singing its praises to everyone I know (including an ...
The Softies: Holiday in Rhode Island
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 11 September 2000
SIGH. THE SOFTIES. Sometimes it's so great to know exactly what you're getting in a band. Take the Butthole Surfers, or the Beastie Boys. Names ...
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 3 October 2000
TO LIVE THROUGH October 2000, when music's critical landscape has eaten, slept, and breathed Radiohead. To watch the drama unfold: It Band, shaken by Internet ...
Elastica: Bowery Ballroom, New York
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 4 October 2000
I WENT WITH my friend Shannon, who almost didn't get in. We were both lax in terms of buying our tickets, and it seemed that ...
Squirrel Nut Zippers: Bedlam Ballroom
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 16 October 2000
THERE ONCE WAS a year called 1996. Hit songs came from bands like La Bouche. Humanity, near the brink of ruin, tottered, desperate for salvation. ...
Guide by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 18 December 2000
FOR A MUSIC whore like myself, even a good album can be a little like a one-night stand. There's that lovely moment of courting, checking ...
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 2001
"No, I won't feel ashamed": Embrace-ing Emo-Pop ...
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 2001
TO SOME, they were the band that would have been king. Just over a year ago, the now-defunct British music magazine Select boldly went where ...
The Embarrassment: Blister Pop
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 2001
BLISTER POP opens with an edited assembly of The Embarrassment trying to characterize themselves for local radio programs. They bounce back and forth between categorizations—rock, ...
Whitesnake: Various Artists: Heart of Metal 2
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, January 2001
THAT HEAVY METAL and its hair – in all seriousness – had such tremendous clout during the 1980s is one of the greatest, and most ...
Doves: Bowery Ballroom, New York City
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 26 February 2001
TONIGHT, IT'S obvious that Doves don't yet think of themselves as proper English rock stars. ...
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 19 March 2001
YOU DON'T REALLY hear what all the fuss is about until you're well into Odyssey Number Five's third track, 'The Metre'. ...
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 16 April 2001
THE YEAR WAS 1995 when Spacehog hit the world with their silver-bullet hit, 'In the Meantime'. It was the era when Oasis was gonna live ...
The Ramones: Joey Ramone 1951-2001
Comment by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 26 April 2001
SINCE JOEY Ramone’s death, countless journalists have commented, with varying mixtures of pessimism and solace, that punk is dead, literally. ...
Ocean Colour Scene: Mechanical Wonder
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 30 April 2001
WHERE WERE we again? Oh yeah: we were discussing what country and western music from a modern English rock band would sound like. ...
Badly Drawn Boy: Irving Plaza, NYC
Book Excerpt by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 1 May 2001
YOU COULD CALL Damon Gough, aka Badly Drawn Boy, the British indie equivalent of the Little Engine That Could. ...
Cousteau: Village Underground, New York
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 23 May 2001
IN THIS ERA of the cult-status rockstar who can elicit bewilderment and terror just with facsimiles of his/her likeness, there's something to be said for ...
PJ Harvey: Hammerstein Ballroom, New York
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 3 September 2001
APPARENTLY I'D HEARD correctly — and the critic was the gangling boy behind me, piping up shortly after lead singer Polly Jean Harvey joined her ...
Björk: Radio City Music Hall, NYC
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 5 October 2001
IT'S RARE WHEN a pop star is also a prophet. The awesomeness possessed by those few who transcend celebrity to enter the echelons of cult ...
The Soundtrack of Our Lives: Welcome to the Infant Freebase
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 8 October 2001
FIRST, I'D LIKE to devote a little time to talking about schizophrenia. There are those who toss the word around often, especially those whachamacalit academic ...
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 5 November 2001
EVEN THOUGH he won the UK's prestigious Mercury Music Prize, Damon Gough, a.k.a Badly Drawn Boy, isn't much for hubris. In fact, he seems to ...
Elvis Costello: Beacon Theater, NYC
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 7 November 2001
THIS WAS NOT a show for the half-hearted. Even the nosebleed seats in the Beacon Theater that night ran a hefty $35. For prime position, ...
Dusty Springfield: The Ultimate Collection
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 3 December 2001
OH, POP MUSIC! One minute, it pushes the envelope wide-wide open, then the next seals it up tight as can be! Such a force it ...
Starsailor: Bowery Ballroom, NYC
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 10 December 2001
WAIT — DID HE drop the guitar on purpose? The song continued, but James Walsh quit playing in the midst of the action, visibly overwhelmed ...
Guide by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 17 December 2001
IN THESE DAYS of crusades, jihads, and God-Bless-This-Lands, I've been wondering why so much music writing is riddled with religious imagery. ...
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, January 2002
BEFORE THE Q magazine awards, a rally of sold out headlining tours, and industry buzz that promised the next Coldplay or Travis, Starsailor was simply ...
Liars: Brownie's, New York City
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 17 January 2002
BY THE night's end, it seemed everything had been destroyed — including the band. ...
Richard Hawley: Late Night Final
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 21 January 2002
WARNING: WHAT you are about to experience contains not a hint of irony or pessimism, skepticism or half-truths, denial or doubt. ...
Charlatans, The (UK), Starsailor: The Charlatans/Starsailor: Irving Plaza, New York
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 29 January 2002
What it feels like for a boy: The Charlatans, Starsailor, and musings on transatlantic masculinities. ...
Stereophonics: Irving Plaza, New York
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 6 February 2002
WHAT COMES AFTER Britpop? Or, the Stereophonics take your American hype and shove it ...
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 25 February 2002
IT CERTAINLY FEELS as if things are starting to shift, right? Britney Spears launches an (ahem) acting career, Ryan Adams making a (relative) splash at ...
Clinic: Bowery Ballroom, New York City
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 6 April 2002
IN 39 MINUTES, the world is going to end. We are all waiting for that end to begin. There's a sickness in the air, like ...
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 30 April 2002
RICHARD HELL can walk down the street in New York City's East Village without being recognized. ...
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 8 May 2002
The Drunk and the Junkie: A Concert Review in Two Parts ...
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 8 May 2002
THERE'S A popular mythology out there that says that certain things–like pop divas and Fortune 500 companies–never die. ...
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 15 May 2002
THE OTHER DAY, for the umpteenth time, I saw a VH1 special on the '90s. Given that the network prides itself on repackaging pop culture ...
Ed Harcourt: Bowery Ballroom, NYC
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 29 May 2002
AFTER TAKING A healthy swig from what appeared to be a bottle of cheap red wine, Ed Harcourt became possessed. It was the culmination of ...
Gary Wilson: The Cult Of Personality
Profile by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 3 June 2002
IN THE LATE 1970s, Gary Wilson was 24 years old and living in the basement of his parents' house in Endicott, NY. ...
Eileen Rose: Bowery Ballroom, New York
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 5 June 2002
INSIDE THAT tiny red dress is a tinier woman, and she's standing before the tiniest crowd I've ever seen at the Bowery Ballroom. ...
The Electric Soft Parade: Electric Soft Parade: Holes in the Wall
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 12 June 2002
ANOTHER SIBLING duo with the surname White have come to breathe life into a dying musical genre. While Meg and Jack White (of the White ...
The Psychedelic Furs: The Psychedelic Furs/Talk Talk Talk/Forever Now
Retrospective by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 12 July 2002
I see the future and it will be the Psychedelic Furs. ...
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 23 July 2002
CALL ME SHALLOW, but the cover art of Loss almost kept me from buying the thing. Nevermind the obsequious musings from the British press prominently ...
Liars: They Threw Us All In A Trench And Stuck A Monument On Top
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 19 August 2002
THESE DAYS, there's been a lot of talk about the resurrection of punk/post-punk by New York City bands. ...
Interpol: Turn on the Bright Lights
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 30 August 2002
I FIND SOMETHING terribly tragic about Interpol. It's more than Paul Banks' elegiac vocals, which stir my gut every time I hear them, so much ...
Interpol: Bowery Ballroom, New York
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 11 September 2002
YOU'D NEVER guess from the pre-show mania that New York rockers Interpol are not yet superstars. ...
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 25 September 2002
WHEN I first heard Gene, it was 1995, and I was a senior in high school. ...
Badly Drawn Boy: Have You Fed the Fish?
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 1 November 2002
BOTH OF Badly Drawn Boy's full-length albums begin the same way. There's the rush of esotericism right away, the musical equivalent to gibberish, which lasts ...
Guide by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 16 December 2002
...
Erase Errata: At Crystal Palace
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 8 January 2003
THERE'S A MOMENT in 'Ca. Viewing' — the second song off the second record from the first band to give women a meaningful place in ...
Elvis Costello & The Imposters: Cruel Smile
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 10 January 2003
ELVIS COSTELLO is one of those artists that people love. Not just listen to and like, not just appreciate and admire, but actually wholly love, ...
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 17 January 2003
IT TAKES BALLS to begin an album as pompously as The Coral begin their eponymous debut. The opening bars of country wrangle swagger into a ...
Richard Ashcroft: Human Conditions
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 24 January 2003
PUT ON A Richard Ashcroft record, and suddenly, everything changes. ...
Music, The : The Music: The Music
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 7 February 2003
I HAD A dream about The Music. No: I had a memory. ...
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 14 February 2003
Portrait of the Artist as a Sex-Crazed Eccentric ...
John Doe: Dim Stars, Bright Sky
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 3 March 2003
JOHN DOE IS on a mission, albeit an undefined one. He tells us as much in 'Magic', a song that comes two thirds of the ...
Ladytron: Bowery Ballroom, New York
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 5 March 2003
JUST ONE DAY after I saw the Ladytron concert, I experienced its antithesis. ...
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 14 March 2003
THE RAVEONETTES are sneaky little devils, aren't they? How dare these wily Danes cause such a stir with their debut Whip It On, just over ...
The Coral: Bowery Ballroom, New York
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 19 March 2003
SURE, THE CORAL are just a few yards in front of me, but they're not really here. ...
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 26 March 2003
ED HARCOURT has always been a solo artist, but tonight, he seems even more alone, maybe even lonely. ...
Retrospective by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 31 March 2003
JEOPARDY IS the album missing from your music collection. ...
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 9 May 2003
IT'S finally happened: Blur have become one of those bands. ...
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 10 June 2003
EVERYBODY KEEPS talking about Detroit. Detroit – New Rock City. Car exhaust and downtown decay. Stooges resurrected. Blah blah blah. ...
Sondre Lerche: Bowery Ballroom, New York
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 24 June 2003
SONDRE LERCHE is a tease. He'll pause dramatically in the midst of a song to give the audience a mischievous wink, inciting us to squeal ...
Northern State: Dying in Stereo EP
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 1 July 2003
THE FIRST THAT you'll read about Northern State in just about any review are their stats – these are three 20-something women who are from ...
Turin Brakes: Bowery Ballroom, New York
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 1 July 2003
THEY'VE DEDICATED 'The Road', the second to last number of the night, to Jean. Jean is the slight, wide-eyed woman with her hands in prayer ...
Robin Thicke : Robin Thicke: A Beautiful World
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 7 August 2003
Impressions of sound: the thinness of Thicke. ...
Lupine Howl: The Bar at the End of the World
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 14 August 2003
LUPINE HOWL are over the top. Their moniker is peculiar, severe; their album titles, obscure and potentially off-putting (The Carnivorous Lunar Activities of Lupine Howl, ...
The Clientele: The Violet Hour
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 19 August 2003
YOU HAVE TO turn up the volume to hear the Clientele, and it's still quiet. Alasdair Maclean sings in a breathless whisper; their music itself ...
(British) Sea Power: British Sea Power: Northsix, New York
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 26 August 2003
NORTHSIX IS JUST a cinderblock box with cold metal pillars that reach from floor to ceiling, obstructing the view in what would otherwise be ideal ...
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 5 September 2003
PULP HAVE a greatest hits record, and it’s about goddamned time. The enigmatic group, fronted by the inimitable Jarvis Cocker, are by far the oldest ...
The Decemberists: Her Majesty the Decemberists
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 15 September 2003
AN IMPORTANT DETAIL about Her Majesty the Decemberists—and one I'm venturing you won't read about in many other reviews of the album—is that there's a ...
The Shins: Bowery Ballroom, New York
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 23 September 2003
THE SHINS are fantastic. When I say fantastic, I'm not speaking of their musical ability or creative chops — fantastic here is not a synonym ...
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 1 October 2003
I THINK SOMETIMES as music reviewers we don't think about how hard it is to be in a band. You have to find similarly-minded, dedicated ...
The Fiery Furnaces: Gallowbird's Bark
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 16 October 2003
IT'S A HIGH-FALUTIN' seaside carnival from another time, where maidens don pinstripe stockings and pantaloons, click buckled shoes as they jitterbug with spry sailor gentleman ...
The Killers/Menlo Park/The Prosaics: Don Hill's, New York City
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 23 October 2003
IT'S 10:15PM, the venue is already behind schedule with the showcase, and nobody cares. Instead, more and more bodies cram their way into downtown venue ...
Travis: CMJ Music Marathon, NYC
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 23 October 2003
TONIGHT, LUCK WOULD have it that I've landed tickets to see Travis, a band I've liked throughout their career and one of the few Britpop ...
The Red Hot Chili Peppers: Red Hot Chili Peppers: Blood Sugar Sex Magik
Retrospective by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 3 December 2003
TRUTH BE TOLD, Blood Sugar Sex Magik is not my all-time favorite album, no matter how you slice it. ...
Profile by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 18 December 2003
THE ONLY thing that tops hearing 'Succexy' — the shit-kicking superpop social commentary that is an instant calling card for Metric's debut Old World Underground, ...
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 26 January 2004
THIS TIME around, Starsailor have created an album that's the musical equivalent of wearing a "Kick Me" sign through a crowded high school hallway. ...
Comment by Devon Powers, PopMatters, February 2004
POSTMODERNISM HAS jacked it all up. In its wake, the cultural zeitgeist of irony has become so prevalent and requisite that plain old earnestness ceases ...
The Beatles, Danger Mouse: More Than Words: Musings on Music Journalism — Life Goes On
Comment by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 10 March 2004
FEBRUARY 24 WAS a banner day for the Copy Left, a loose network of computer activists, intellectuals, forward-thinking musicians and zealous fans who continue to ...
Liars: They Were Wrong, So We Drowned
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 15 March 2004
THE MYTH of the Ugly Duckling is prevalent in our culture; equally important, though with less prominence, is that of the Deteriorating Swan. Let me ...
Sondre Lerche: Two Way Monologue
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 26 March 2004
I'M LISTENING to Sondre Lerche and drinking tea on an unseasonably cold spring evening. It's been a rather shit season so far. A few pretty ...
Phantom Planet: Phantom Planet
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 7 April 2004
I'LL CUT RIGHT to the point: I like Phantom Planet, and I like this eponymous new record. Here's why: ...
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 20 April 2004
ONE OF THE REASONS we listen to music is because it provides a vehicle for expressing feelings that would otherwise go unexpressed. Rage, passion, fear, ...
The Coral: Magic and Medicine/Nightfreak and the Sons of Becker
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 10 May 2004
WHEN IT COMES TO new music, we rock critics are not unlike 15-year-old straight boys who have finally pilfered a copy of Jugs from the ...
Comment by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 30 June 2004
IF EVER there was a time when writing about music felt utterly pointless, that time is now. ...
The Streets: Irving Plaza, New York City
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 30 June 2004
LISTENING TO The Streets, one gets a clear indication that Mike Skinner is a punk. He's the kind of guy who'd borrow your car and ...
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 23 August 2004
CALL IT WHAT you will—consistency versus predictability, innovation versus identity abandonment: whatever the name, this is the most serious quandary that bands face as they ...
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 6 May 2006
WHAT A MOUTHFUL is: too much stuff crammed in, can't get enough, taking in the world by taste. An experience so overwhelming it's worth sacrificing ...
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 5 March 2009
TODAY IS lead singer Guy Garvey's birthday, and he's in a gaming mood. "How old do you think I am?" he asks the crowd, early ...
The Village Voice and the Birth of Rock Criticism: Two Excerpts from Writing the Record
Book Excerpt by Devon Powers, University of Massachusetts Press, 2013
1) From the Introduction: "Village" ...
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