Music Issue 2010
Yesterday’s musical outsiders have set the standard for Atlanta’s current sound
Right off the top, I’d like to dedicate this year’s music issue - CL’s first cover-to-cover music issue! - to the memory of Gen. Tecumseh Sherman.
Dude practically planted the seeds for this year’s theme when he burned this city to the ground with an (un-)Civil War vengeance. Ever since, it seems Atlanta has been infatuated with reinventing itself. Forever the phoenix rising from the ashes, we rarely pause to acknowledge the past or its footprint on the present.
That’s particularly true of our city’s dual emergence as a pop music mecca and thriving underground indie scene. So for this year’s music issue, we wanted to explore some of the links between our past and present in order to figure out how we got here. Along the way we discovered that many of yesterday’s musical outsiders (freaks, geeks, weirdos, and yes, even OutKasts) set the standard for Atlanta’s current sound.
— Rodney Carmichael