Facing today’s opponents of liberty without arming oneself with sound answers to their deep, philosophic arguments is like showing up with a knife to a nuclear war.

Mark Knopfler says of his craft, “if you’ve energized somebody . . . or you’ve sensitized somebody, you’ve made a difference.” In a body of work spanning nearly five decades, the Sultan of Song has continued to do just that: sensitize listeners to the drama of the oft overlooked.

Welcome to the Summer 2024 issue of The Objective Standard.

These artists are “bringing back the instrumental”—and reminding us that yes, indeed, well-crafted instrumental music can tell great stories.

Most of America's founders came to despair that things had gone dreadfully awry and that their creation would soon crumble. What can their disillusionment teach us about America's future?

The success of many of today's popular musical artists evinces a broad cultural trend: the triumph of defeat—that is, the near-universal acceptance that we are but confused and helpless creatures.

Welcome to the Spring 2024 issue of The Objective Standard. This begins the journal’s nineteenth year in publication, and I’d like to thank everyone who subscribes and supports our work. It’s because of you that all of us at TOS get to do what we love doing, supporting reason, egoism, and capitalism.

Dream Louder drips with talent, but it is not mere “musician’s music”—technical pyrotechnics without soul. In fact, it is one of those rare jazz albums that even non-jazz fans can deeply enjoy.

Many could stand to expand their holiday soundtrack palette. Toward that end, here are two suggestions, one old and underappreciated, one contemporary but not exactly mainstream, both of which were re-released in new editions this year.

“Israeli occupation” is on the lips of everyone from Hamas militants to Harvard students, European protestors to American politicians. But what does it actually mean?

Dolly Parton has always been a rockstar. Nonetheless, we can count our lucky stars that she decided to record a rock album. The genre is better for it.

Welcome to the Winter 2023 issue of The Objective Standard, which caps the journal’s eighteenth year in print, providing clarity on all manner of important issues.

In one way or another, Hannah Frankman has spent most of her life in the alternative education sphere: She was homeschooled, then worked for the college-alternative bootstrapping program Praxis before starting her own alternative education company, Rebel Educator. Here’s how and why she’s helping parents take their children out of government schools.

When I heard that two friends and highly successful businessmen—Tim Chermak and Mitchell Broderick—had launched a new venture called John Galt Mortgage Company, I immediately thought, Brilliant! But I didn’t realize then how brilliant their idea really is.

Much jazz revels in the obscure, eschewing the pleasing consonances of more popular music. But in Lage’s hands, the genre’s extended harmonic palette is instead used to milk maximum expressiveness from more familiar sonic territory.