The title isn’t an enormous “Kick Me” sign, honest. [Video][Website] [6.44] Sabina Tang: Low always felt like a band that would reward me if I ever paid active attention to their songs; thus far I’ve only managed to skip over what I’m aware is a mere surface of low/mid-tempo, low/mid-range pleasant acoustic melancholy. They’re like […]
Today, we’re at least partially about the 90s throwbacks. [Video][Website] [4.55] Josh Langhoff: And if Nirvana is 7, if Nirvana is 7, if Nirvana is 7, then these guys are[5] Brad Shoup: It’s on me to check, but maybe the folks jazzed about the Wavves/Surfer Blood revivalism took the deep end into account. Cobain is […]
Please do, please do, press rewind. [Video][Website] [7.13] Brad Shoup: I really really really hope the voicemail is from En Vogue!!![6] Jonathan Bogart: 2002 lives! The purpose-built next-generation Spice Girls Aloud for the Social Media Era have finally matched up with a tune that lets the four of them display their separate vocal personalities (previous […]
“Okay, now can you turn the ladies’ mics down even further?” [Video][Website] [5.50] Alfred Soto: Been so long since Shelton’s snarled that I figure it’s the missus’ doing. But I can barely hear the missus or her far more interesting cohort. Snarling in abstentia — the boys ’round here call it attitude. [5] Erick Bieritz: There’s […]
Yap that fool! [Video][Website] [6.88] Anthony Easton: I have been thinking about the supposed radicalism of the Annies’ position recently, especially considering the nature of country’s recent conservatism. The critical opinion seems to be that they are breaking apart the post-Garth soft rock politeness. But country has not been very polite. The pendulum has swung — critics ignore what happened in the work of John Rich and his […]
That hair is going places… [Video][Website] [4.11] Scott Mildenhall: A song very clearly from the viewpoint of a deranged stalker, sung by a 12-year-old boy. What an absolutely ridiculous work of art. The vocal delivery is suitably intense, the Aviciisms are threatening as well as exciting, the melodic similarity of the chorus to that of […]
The platonic ideal of a [5]? [Video] [5.00] Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Last month, Mike WiLL Made It had seven of his productions on the Billboard Hot 100. That is a lot of woozy synth pads, crater-levelling basslines and dangerous hazy atmosphere to chart at one time; he is having a moment right now, but one gets […]
Recall, if you will, Shipley’s First Hypothesis. [Video][Website] [6.43] Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: I haven’t been able to go to the cinema for a couple of months but I’m pretty sure that “Half Broke Horses” just saved me £13 by recasting The Place Beyond the Pines as a sin-of-the-mother epic about strained Southern lives and the inevitability […]
Let’s play a game! Which one of these is not like the others? [Video][Website] [5.78] Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Matt Berninger drawls his way through a series of past travails in a fading New York, Cohen-esque and gorgeously glum. As hypnotic as his baritone remains, The National would not be the band they are without the attention […]
Perhaps the Marina and the Diamonds we deserve… [Video][Website] [5.17] Patrick St. Michel: Someone who listened to Animal Collective a lot but imitated it in a really silly way.[4] Jonathan Bogart: My favorite work lately has tended to seriously smudge the line between “pop” and “indie” to productive ends. This jangles and drones too hard […]