It would be unforgivably glib to say that Miike Snow — an electropop trio from Sweden — sometimes sounds like ABBA with an echo deck. But it’s true! It’s so true. Crisply emotive, with unusual phrasings and a disarming dash of neo-funk, the music has inspired comparisons to Vampire Weekend…
Oy vey, these kids are young. How young? Well, they still have that wet, matted, quivering-foal youngness to them. You know? That certain gooeyness that just screams “Clearasil-sponsored talent search winners.” Raised on the mean streets of Fountain Hills, this mixed-gender foursome certainly looks the part of the lean, hungry,…
“Mass murder makes me happy/Dead bodies make me happy/Until eternity/We’ll always have Juggalo family.” -“Juggalo Family” (2001), Dark Lotus Consider the preceding lyric. Savor it. Swish it in your mouth. It’s puerile, no? Vulgar, vicious, toxic, all that. But embedded within the murderous glee of the lyric is something else…
What makes these proto-grunge mainstays stand out from the crowd? Is it their low-and-slow sludge musicianship? Their glory days as the elder statesmen of the Northwest music scene? Lead singer/guitarist Buzz Osborne’s irrepressible Robin Lopez hairdo? Naw. It’s their dang Protestant work ethic. In the two-plus decades since their debut…
Put away your Docs, Mr. Aging Gen X Rock Fan — this almost certainly isn’t the X that afforded you so many precious mosh-pit memories back in the day. That X featured the pitch-perfect wailing of John Doe and Exene Cervenka, the V-twin rockabilly guitar of Billy Zoom, and the…
Put away your Docs, Mr. Aging Gen X Rock Fan – this almost certainly isn’t the X that afforded you so many precious mosh-pit memories back in the day. That X featured the pitch-perfect wailing of John Doe and Exene Cervenka, the V-twin rockabilly guitar of Billy Zoom, and the…
What makes these proto-grunge mainstays stand out from the crowd? Is it their low-and-slow sludge musicianship? Their glory days as the elder statesmen of the Northwest music scene? Lead singer/guitarist Buzz Osborne’s irrepressible Robin Lopez hairdo? Naw. It’s their dang Protestant work ethic. In the two-plus decades since their debut…
Since releasing her sophomore full-length album, Battlefield, in July 2009, the Valley’s own Jordin Sparks has kept a relatively low profile. Opening for the Jonas Brothers here, a Haiti benefit single there. Nothing that approached the publicity blitz of her American Idol triumph three years ago. Well, the beaming 20-year-old…
A hard-knock life? Eh, not so much. In stark contrast to so many of his fellow Brooklyn-born MCs, Talib Kweli was raised by two university-professor parents and spent part of his childhood in a posh Connecticut boarding school. As such, matters of Afrocentric conscience, not urban street survival, informed his…
Were these Tempe-based punkabilly legends simply whisked off the planet in 2005? Visit their flatheadaz.com Web site and you find nothing but dead links to six-year-old newspaper stories and a heartfelt plea from the band to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. (Coldly, they overlook that tragic business in Chicago…
The most powerful force in commercial music today? No debate. It’s iTunes. According to recent data, Apple’s online behemoth crammed 69 percent of our collective digital-music spending into its swollen, Jabba-like gullet last year. That works out to 25 percent of all music sales — a fairly astounding figure that…
Before there was JT “the ‘Dick in a Box’-endorsing Madonna-molester,” there was JT “the methadone-smooth folk-rock lothario.” And from almost the beginning, Carole King was there, too. Taylor first collaborated with singer-songwriter King on his breakthrough album, Sweet Baby James (1970), and her contributions to his career probably can’t be…
Before there was JT “the ‘Dick in a Box’-endorsing Madonna-molester,” there was JT “the methadone-smooth folk-rock lothario.” And from almost the beginning, Carole King was there, too. Taylor first collaborated with singer-songwriter King on his breakthrough album, Sweet Baby James (1970), and her contributions to his career probably can’t be…
The most powerful force in commercial music today? No debate. It’s iTunes. According to recent data, Apple’s online behemoth crammed 69 percent of our collective digital-music spending into its swollen, Jabba-like gullet last year. That works out to 25 percent of all music sales — a fairly astounding figure that…
Aside from a dubious one-night stand with rap-metal in the late ’90s, former Dokken guitarist George Lynch has remained heroically faithful to his cock-rock roots. After Dokken disbanded in 1989, Lynch recruited vocalist Ori Logan and started Lynch Mob — one of the great no-brainers in the annals of ego-driven…
What a difference a couple of years and a Billboard chart-topping album can make. In 2008, A Day to Remember was just another bunch of doughy Florida pop-punkers in designer T-shirts harboring dreams of stadium rock stardom. Buoyed by the moderate success of their sophomore album, For Those Who Have…
Irony is dead — at least in the world of alternative metal. The organizers of the Family Values Tour shot it through the eyeball when they booked these Texas-based Christian rockers to play alongside the likes of Korn and Bury Your Dead in 2006. See what I mean? What’s the…
Irony is dead — at least in the world of alternative metal. The organizers of the Family Values Tour shot it through the eyeball when they booked these Texas-based Christian rockers to play alongside the likes of Korn and Bury Your Dead in 2006. See what I mean? What’s the…
Far be it from me to deny these reefer-rap legends the freedom to reinvent themselves, but seriously: What’s the deal with Cypress Hill’s new album, Rise Up? From a cover-art standpoint, it looks like runoff from a Billy Bragg sample book — all played-out Bolshevik lithography and overdeveloped forearms. Not…
For geography-impaired Americans, being able to differentiate between this British city and that British borough is always a dicey proposition — especially if one of them isn’t London. I mean, there’s just so much de-industrialization everywhere. And curry shops. Makes it hard to know your Leeds from your Leicester. The…
This judgment comes to us from no less an authority than Christian Lander, the Canadian humorist whose Stuff White People Like blog has become an Internet staple of the pigment-poor, diploma-rich, probably-votes-Democrat set. The blog’s appeal is quite simple: It shows those very same navel-gazing whiteys the folly (and, by…
Full disclosure: I’d never heard of Nonpoint before sitting down to write this article about Nonpoint. They’re a raised-fist groove-metal band. I’m more a neuroses-infused post-punk guy. I like it when bands shred, but I want them to mitigate their shreddiness with a little irony, some artful doubt. Nonpoint does…
