Communication and journalism professor Josh Kun

Communication and journalism professor Josh Kun wrote an article in The American Prospect about today's pop musicians being obsessed with copying the past. "The growing passion for re-releasing music is, in part, the result of how the Internet has changed the way we listen," Kun wrote. "Anything ever recorded seems to be available somewhere, thanks to all those thousands of bloggers who share their rare stash of soul 45s or their grandparents’ collection of Tin Pan Alley 78s, and to all the music-streaming services—Spotify, Mog, Pandora—that let us beam our way into the past. In the age of the music cloud when “old” Phil Spector classics stream right alongside the “new” Best Coast songs that mimic them, the past isn’t the present’s ancestor—the past and the present are neighbors who live shoulder to shoulder on playlists that follow us wherever we go." At USC Annenberg, Kun's research focuses on the arts and politics of cultural connection, with an emphasis on popular music, the cultures of globalization, the U.S.-Mexico border, and Jewish-American musical history. He is director of The Popular Music Project at USC Annenberg's Norman Lear Center and co-editor of the book series "Refiguring American Music" for Duke University Press. Read the article More on Kun