Email Author Mikael Wood

2004 Stories by Mikael Wood

• Jay-Z/Linkin Park

  published December 23, 2004

  This MTV-sponsored mash-up between megaplatinum rapper Jay-Z and megaplatinum rockers Linkin Park isn't the first time Chester Bennington and his... More >>

• T.I.

  published December 23, 2004

  Can we give out a Nobel prize this year for the Most Evolved View of Gender Relations in a Hip-Hop Song Still Saddled With Gratuitous Use of the... More >>

• Razorlight

  published November 25, 2004

  These hotly tipped Londoners are sloppier than Franz Ferdinand, not as sloppy as the Libertines, bitchier than the Strokes and more butch than the... More >>

• Soledad Brothers

  published November 4, 2004

  Detroit's Soledad Brothers -- named after the three African-American inmates of California's Soledad Prison who were convicted of killing a guard... More >>

• Maroons

  published November 4, 2004

  Maroons' cuter name is Lateef & the Chief: MC Lateef, half of undie hip-hop duo Latyrx (along with partner Lyrics Born), and DJ Chief Xcel, half... More >>

• Luna

  published October 28, 2004

  Luna front man Dean Wareham is the musical equivalent of one of those old chaps you see at county fairs presiding over an arts-and-crafts booth... More >>

• The Futureheads

  published October 28, 2004

  Unlike most of nü wave's hottest acts -- who endlessly parrot the notion that they just play what they play, without regard for what's going... More >>

• Lamb of God

  published October 14, 2004

  Richmond, Virginia's Lamb of God is a refreshing anomaly in the world of mainstream metal. They love a swinging 6/8 beat more than a solid 4/4... More >>

• Jill Scott

  published September 30, 2004

  Philadelphia-based singer/songwriter Jill Scott doesn't indulge in the sweeping generalizations that sometimes bog down work by her peers in the... More >>

• Liars Academy

  published September 23, 2004

  On Demons, its second album, this Baltimore band demonstrates that emo needn't be the sound of 15-year-old guys complaining about a... More >>

• The Faint

  published September 23, 2004

  Here's the line no one can resist quoting in reviews of Wet From Birth, the fourth album by the Omaha-based electro-punk act the Faint: "I... More >>

• Kings of Convenience

  published September 9, 2004

  They're right about the empty street: That's the only place these two knit-wearing, tightly harmonizing, acoustic-guitar-strumming Norwegian... More >>

• M83

  published September 2, 2004

  As a nation, no one does much better at total sonic immersion than the French. In their soundtrack to Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides... More >>

• Sahara Hotnights

  published August 19, 2004

  These Swedish Jennie bombs came to American attention in 2002 as the female counterpart to the Hives, whose front man Howlin' Pelle Almqvist dates... More >>

• Ken Stringfellow

  published August 5, 2004

  As a touring member of R.E.M., a late-era member of Big Star and a co-leader (with his friend Jon Auer) of the defunct Seattle power-pop band the... More >>

• Faithless

  published July 29, 2004

  This English dance-pop outfit is one of the world's biggest electronic acts in countries that aren't the United States, where we prefer our techno... More >>

• The Roots

  published July 22, 2004

  If The Tipping Point, the sixth studio album by Philadelphia hip-hop crew the Roots, sounds like it lacks the genre-busting centerpiece... More >>

• Sparta

  published July 15, 2004

  When At the Drive-In, the greatest multiracial post-punk band ever from El Paso, Texas, broke up three years ago, half of its members formed... More >>

• The Concretes

  published July 8, 2004

  Disappointed by the Cardigans' swerve from disco-flecked fizz-pop into touchy-feely roots-rock on their new Long Gone Before Daylight?... More >>

• Phish

  published July 1, 2004

  Last month at the band's final show in the New York City area, Phish invited special guest Jay-Z onstage for a couple of numbers, drawing a line... More >>

• Big & Rich

  published June 24, 2004

  Last year the Georgia-based rapper Bubba Sparxxx made an underappreciated record called Deliverance that presented a bracing vision of... More >>

• Vans Warped Tour

  published June 24, 2004

  It's baaaack! This summer sees the Vans-sponsored Warped Tour reaching its 10th summer of rocking young people in baggy shorts silly with a motley... More >>

• The Corrs

  published June 17, 2004

  Like their stateside sisters the Dixie Chicks, the Corrs have watched their commercial success grow as they've pruned the traditional musical... More >>

• !!!

  published June 17, 2004

  Before he was a member of this bicoastal dance-punk outfit, drummer John Pugh belonged to the same small but energized Arkansas music scene I did;... More >>

• The Stills, with Sea Ray

  published June 3, 2004

  The Stills, from Montreal, have the skimpiest backstory of any of the definite-article bands that have won hipster acclaim over the past couple of... More >>