This review involves a lot of name-dropping. So don't say you weren't warned.
And, really, how else to consider Free Energy? The Philadelphia-based blogosphere favorite doesn't strive for originality, nor even hipster cachet: You can hear Television or Big Star all you want in the quintet's peppy, big-guitar sound, but really, these guys are all about [...]
Pastiche can be a funny thing: When Paul Sprangers and Scott Wells played fuzzy, proggy slacker pop in the St. Paul, Minn., band Hockey Night, I figured that as long as Stephen Malkmus keeps pumping out decent-or-better albums every few years, my brain just doesn't have the RAM for a Pavement Lite.
If this is beginning [...]
You probably could take the phantasmagorical art pop of Bat For Lashes and resoundtrack Labyrinth with it: Hell, the 1986 Henson/Lucas/Bowie collab might even benefit from Natasha Khan's spooky, finicky arrangements and fantasy-genre imagery. The poetry of crystal towers, emerald cities, wizards and white magic — not at all credible on paper but enchanting and [...]
Your sacred cows mean nothing.
That, at least briefly, was the message of Los Campesinos! last night at a packed 9:30 Club. "I never cared about Ian MacKaye," sputtered Gareth Campesinos!, the Cardiff, Wales-based group's frontman, in "The International Tweexcore Underground," surely aware of the lyric's particular application. Not that the audience — whose average age [...]
Last month, mid-90s emo rockers Sunny Day Real Estate announced a reunion tour in support of their first two albums LP2 and Diary, both of which are being reissued by Sub Pop in September. (More on those special reissues at the band's new official site.) The good news for Midatlantic emo junkies is that the [...]
Some 14 years after their first big hit, No Doubt is still a far bigger draw than I would have imagined, nearly selling out the 25,000-capacity Nissan Pavilion. After watching their stage show, that fact becomes a bit more comprehensible: these are incredibly professional entertainers with hit song after hit song after hit song to [...]
Skate rock (Think Sublime's genetic material crossed with that of Minor Threat) is a lot like milt. Some people get a mouthful of the creamy white stuff and think, "So this is fish sperm. Not bad!" Other people take a bite, move it around with their tongues, and then say to themselves, "Oh god, I [...]
Miami-based Cuban-American rapper Pitbull performs at Ibiza tonight, touring in support of his chart-climbing, video-fave single “I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho).” Mr. 305’s parents may have made him memorize the works of Cuban poet José Martí, and he may have a few socio-political songs on albums such as “El Muriel” and “The Boatlift,” [...]
Katy Perry is a consummate entertainer with a mega-hit pop song, and the 9:30 Club seemed like a pretty small venue for an artist of her standing. I heard that last Friday's show sold out in less than 15 minutes, which seemed about right just judging from the sheer enthusiasm of the audience (people apparently [...]
Yeah, that's right. Had enough of SXSW coverage and all that damn hipster music? Armed with photo pass and camera and ready and willing to destroy any last vestige of my music-snob credibility, I joined thousands of fans, parents and curious observers for the biggest concert in town last night, Britney Spears and the Pussycat [...]
