Pop Culture

What better way is there to mark Stephen Malkmus‘ past milestones and present achievements than to revisit his most memorable Pavement songs? Malkmus’ wordplay, enigmatic and open to interpretation as it was, revealed different aspects to Pavement, often hinting at a sentimental, emotionally in-touch side that belied the wiseacre reputation that preceded the band. This

Bands come and go, and sometimes come back (again and again, especially when the well runs dry). But the Denver indie pop-rock duo named Tennis, formed in 2010 by college philosophy students Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley, aren’t playing around regarding their music career. Calling their downtown Denver apartment “home” for over a decade while

Eli Winter’s debut album didn’t reveal all his tricks. The Time to Come was a solo acoustic guitar affair, a cathartic release put out while Winter was still in college. The nature of the LP and his references to Jack Rose and Daniel Bachman suggested he was heading down one path. Still, he was simultaneously

Some of the most creative guitar music of the past decade and a half has come from female artists. On the outer fringe of jazz, there’s the incomparable work of MacArthur Genius Mary Halvorson, along with her recently rising acolytes, Ava Mendoza and Wendy Eisenberg. For art rockers, there are the stylistic and disjointed riffs

Suppose one glanced at the pitch for Send a Prayer My Way. One could conclude that this collaborative project is fraught with the dangers of novelty, a wild-hair whim of two indie rock darlings who wanted to cosplay as country music artists, blowing off steam from their day jobs. Julien Baker and Torres have established

Asheville, North Carolina-based singer-songwriter Colin Miller’s latest record, Losin’, was written in the shadow of his friend Gary King’s passing. Miller became King’s caretaker in his final years, living in a home on King’s property and tending to his day-to-day needs for care and friendship. Losin’ is Miller’s way of working through his grief, but

The first time I heard the Hold Steady’s Separation Sunday, I thought there must be some kind of mistake. This couldn’t be the band earning critical acclaim and making year-end lists. Who would want to listen to some guy scat-singing over bar music, especially this obscure kind that integrated blues guitar licks, organ notes, and

HausLive 4 Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet Hausu Mountain 29 April 2025 “We’re playing this music that I made on a record called Music for Four Guitars,” says Bill Orcutt in between songs on HausLive 4. “That record is 30 minutes; this show is an hour, so we’re improvising.” Orcutt‘s matter-of-fact explanation is admirable in its

Imagine a time when white, straight America was so insulated from reality that Gen-Xers were more likely to argue over the legitimacy of the alternative rock band Bush as opposed to, say, debating politics and social justice. But hey, that was 1995 for you. Too many of us were spoiled rotten, so much so that

Few bands can kick my synesthesia into high gear like the Raveonettes. Their sound is coated in glorious contradictions: Shoegaze static spilling forth from the guitars, keyboards twinkling like bright, blinding stars, booming bass and drums, rapturous harmonies that allude to the Everly Brothers and girl groups and evoke nostalgia for a time you may

This year’s Coachella kicked off over two April weekends in Indio, California, drawing an estimated 125,000 attendees. It featured performances from prominent bands and artists like Green Day, Lady Gaga, and Post Malone, as well as recent sensations like Benson Boone. The “Beautiful Things” singer’s live cover of Queen‘s “Bohemian Rhapsody” sparked online discussions when

One of the more fascinating solo artists I encountered while checking out the lineup for theKilby Block Partyfestival, which takes place 15-18 May in Salt Lake City, is a multidimensional Renaissance woman with a one-stage name. She isn’t Madonna, Rihanna, or Shakira.Want to take a guess? Sasami is a Northern California-based no-fear musician who learned

Scowl’s debut, How Flowers Grow, was a blast of traditional-leaning hardcore that showed promise. However, the follow-up EP. Psychic Dance Routine, suggested they were already outgrowing a classic hardcore sound, incorporating more sung vocals from lead singer Kat Moss and embracing Riot Grrl and indie rock influences. This trajectory continues on Are We All Angels,

Guitarist William Tyler’s albums are typically made for sipping a backyard beer or for soberly looking out the window as your van drives down a faceless, nameless highway. Take “Highway Anxiety” on his albumModern Country:A reverb-tinted guitar spends about seven minutes rolling out a slow-developing pick pattern that eventually slides into a smooth synth fade.

One of my more entertaining music experiences during trips to Nashville over the years occurred at the Bluebird Cafe. The iconic club located in a strip mall away from the insanity found in tourist traps along Broadway is considered a space for songwriters (some unsung) who are the “heroes behind the hits”. That was the

In The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, when Don Quixote affirms for Sancho Panza the truth of the proverb, “Where one door shuts, another opens,” he is steeling himself for a more exciting adventure than the exploits that did not materialize or resulted in setbacks. In the character of Quixote, Cervantes creates a

For those concerned they won’t remember everything fromMission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One, there is no need to worry. The half-hour preceding the credits ofMission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning(confusingly not titledMission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part Two) serves as a handy exposition download packet. Flashbacks from across the series’ nearly three-decade history flicker

Do you remember that suicide poem, “Resumé” by Dorothy Parker? The narrator lists the various ways one might kill oneself and concludes they are all too messy, unpleasant, or just plain dull. “You might as well live”, the speaker wearily concludes. Tony Kamel’s new album features a host of songs about death and dying, but

Born in Australia, raised in Seattle, and currently based in New York, singer/songwriter/pianist Eliana Glass learned to sing and play piano by ear as a child. Hiding underneath her parents’ piano, she felt moved and inspired. “I felt protected under the wooden beams,” she explained in the press materials for her debut album, E. “I

To Hell with Poverty! A Class Act: Inside the Gang of Four Jon King Akashic September 2025 There’s no question that Gang of Four are legends of punk, but where do they belong in the conversation really? When they formed in 1976, punk was still shiny, new, and considered revolutionary. Yet even in their embryonic

NI HUI – Voices of the Forest Kayatibu Da Lata Music 9 May 2025 It’s not every day that the rich tones of a remote Amazonian commune find their way up the sonic ladder to a global audience. The Indigenous Brazilian music collective Kayatibu bring us to the nucleus of their world on their stunning

Who was Tom Tyler? This forgotten matinee hero, known mainly for B westerns and serials, receives a bout of resurrection in The Tom Tyler Silent Film Collection, newly on DVD and Blu-ray from Undercrank Productions. According to the bonus slideshow on the disc, Tom Tyler was born Vincent Markowski to parents who immigrated from Lithuania.

“The Weight” appears on the Band’s now legendary 1968 album Music from Big Pink. Wikipedia says that Robbie Robertson wrote the song. However, to borrow a phrase fromGeorge Gershwin‘s Porgy and Bess, it ain’t necessarily so. Or, to borrow a phrase from “Luck Be a Lady”, best known in Frank Sinatra’s version, “there is roomfor

If you were an alto saxophonist any time after 1940, the question was not whether Charlie Parker was inside your sounds, but how and what you did with that influence. Bird changed how people played jazz on every instrument, but in playing his instrument, it was tough to avoid comparisons to the master. Jim Snidero

Gee Whiz: The Get Away From Me Demos Nellie McKay Omnivore Recordings 9 May 2025 Twenty-one years ago, the 21-year-old Nellie McKay released her debut album Get Away From Me to much critical acclaim. Reviewers from the New York Times to Pitchfork and PopMatters praised its eclectic mix of musical styles from Tin Pan Alley

Too often, dub is used as a superficial shorthand for slowed-down, chilled-out, reverb-laden instrumental bonus tracks. I tend to encounter “dub versions” of songs tacked onto the ends of albums like musical petit fours, which can come across as a tropicalist trope with broad appeal; who doesn’t like a breezy beat, after all? Other artists

In 2019, André 3000 appeared to be in the grips of an existential crisis. “In my own self, I’m trying to figure out where do I sit?” speaking to Rick Rubin, he continued, “I don’t even know what I am, and maybe I’m nothing. Maybe I’m not supposed to be anything.” These somber musings were

It’s a surreal time for America in the spring of 2025, with the Trump regime’s fascist assault on the republic feeling like a dystopian sci-fi movie come to life. However, the psychedelic rock counterculture will never yield to authoritarianism, being a movement that has long stood as a beacon for peace, freedom, and personal liberation.

One scene defines D.A. Pennebaker’s 1967 documentary Dont Look Back (the title omits the usual apostrophe), which chronicles Bob Dylan’s 1965 UK tour at the ascension of his stardom. It’s the long shot from behind Dylan as he performs on stage surrounded by darkness, a single spotlight bearing down on him. One scene also defines

In his debut novel, Not Long Ago Persons Found, poet and fiction writer J. Richard Osborn invites us into a shadowy landscape in which the murder of a child impacts the governments of two unidentified countries. This novel is doubly enigmatic: the narrative atmosphere is mysterious, intimidating, and obscured by ambiguous events, and the narration