Behind the Songs

There is a hotel on the cover of the Eagles’ album Hotel California, and it is a real place — just not the place most listeners imagine. The photograph shows the Beverly Hills Hotel, its palm trees lit up against the dusk. It is a picture of glamour, not of menace, and that contrast is … Read more

If you were watching television on a spring night in 1983, you probably remember exactly where you were. The occasion was a TV special celebrating twenty-five years of Motown, and the stage was full of legends. Then a twenty-four-year-old Michael Jackson walked out alone, dressed in a black sequined jacket, a single white glove, and … Read more