Dear Departed
PARTISAN
8/10
THERE’S always been a fine line between the nostalgic and the timeless. Both acknowledge the past, of course, but one depends upon former glories to justify its present, while the other’s historical ties are a mere bedrock for its future. The line’s becoming ever finer, too, as pop continues to eat itself. Contrived familiarity, after all, is a comforting illusion, and if recent legal cases – like the Marvin Gaye estate’s against Ed Sheeran – have exposed the form’s