Music

What do you learn from going through that gauntlet?

The music industry has a way of being done with you.

Lou Pearlman, that founded NSYNC and Backstreet Boys, he said he wanted the guys to look basically white but sound like us.

Mm.

Uh-

[laughs]

... you wanna talk art, faith, music, culture, uh, he's got range upon range.

Uh, we're talking about a Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, record producer.

So we'd talk about that.

And a lot of, you know, Music, PM Dawn, Metallica's Black Album, Cypress Hill's debut album, Brooks and Dunn's first big album, Mr. Bungle's Spin Doctors, Ten from Pearl Jam came out in August, Toad the Wet Sprocket.

I mean, a lot of really good albums came out.

They

That visualizer is every color of the rainbow.

Well into my college years, I'm dating myself, but well, well, well into my college years, you'd go to somebody's party, go to like an apartment, you know, some 20-something has an apartment, and they'd have music on in the background, and it's hooked up to their PlayStation on the TV.

You'd see that visualizer.

Truly, truly an iconic sight.

Oh.

But there's some fun.

Another, well, LL Cool J is another musical artist who's in H2O.

But what I was going to say, H2O, The mask is unfortunate.

You can subscribe to Where We Buy on the iPhone podcast app or on Spotify.com.

Wherever you get your podcasts, just search for Where We Buy, and you can find us on the web at wherewebuy.show. And our theme music is run in the night by the good lords under Creative Commons license.

All right, guys, that's a wrap.

We're

And five is Check On It by Beyonce featuring Slim Thug.

And the most popular album from this week is from this week, from this week.

Week, yeah, is High School Musical soundtrack.

Oh.

Yeah, this year.

Wow.

Sorry, not this week, the year.

The High School Musical soundtrack.

Till then.

I'm Jenny Owen Youngs, and when I'm not watching the X-Files or Buffy or Yellow Jackets or Xeno Warrior Princess, I'm usually making music.

I'm going on tour this fall.

Here's where I'm headed.

There's a passage in the RJ Smith biography where he does a good job of listing out, he says, James Brown had many guises, many names.

Crip, Music Box, the hardest working man in show business.

Mr.

Please, Please, Please, Butane James, soul brother number one.

We're sitting down to discuss Chris's new book, A Brief History of Black Cultural Life, which comes out this September 2026 from Yale University Press.

This book explores the U.S. history of Black cultural life as a history of soul, a spiritual lived practice rooted in communally fostered music, religion, and politics.

It makes the case that soul is forged through Black community connections and that it's sustained by moral principles or pillars which define how it is lived.

The book's four chapters are organized around four of these pillars.

So I thought that was super important.

And you have someone like Jewel Tice Williams at the end of the book, where she is located in the Los Angeles community where queer people of color, black lesbians in particular, gays don't have a place to go.

And her dream is to take over this important establishment called the Diana Club and create a place where people can come and not just drink alcohol, but they can dance and have great music.

And it was like, that was the seed of, so there was a black community in Los Angeles.

You are welcome to go to the Vertida Center to take part if you'd like.

And this evening, Rice University's Shepard School of Music will mark the anniversary with its annual In Memoriam 9-11-2001 performance.

There's more about that at music.rice.edu. On Saturday, the nonprofit Carry the Load will hold volunteer events at national cemeteries across the country to provide Americans with active ways to honor those who served our country.

That includes at the National Cemetery here in Houston.

There's a remembrance ceremony planned there Saturday morning at 930.