By Brittany Spanos At what point did teen girls suddenly just become wrong? “Serious” music fans seem to have universally accepted a critique of quality that befalls any artist who willingly sells to the rabid teen girl market and stigmatized the fans who dare to sometimes be male or at…
This is a turning point in the history of music on the internet. I know, I know, it feels like a regular Friday, but trust me, things will never be the same again. The forces of capitalism, social networking and goofing off have converged at the perfect time to create…
Rowboat started out as the more acoustic and folk-oriented solo project of Sam McNitt, then the singer and lyricist of Blue Million Miles. With that band, McNitt learned to transform acoustic songs into heady, often aggressive space rock, but his words always seemed to come from a place of refined…
Country music used to have its own distinct identity, one that was tied to rich traditions of lonesome country roads, hard work, low pay and drinking. These days it’s a black hole of insipidity. Following the Grammys, the Lumineers and Mumford & Sons are now reportedly making inroads on country…
Hip-hop is a world unto itself. Its rich tradition of spoken word poetry, self-referential subject matter and electronic and sample-based production make it, in many ways, a difficult musical form to adapt to, especially if you come from a more traditional background. These ten acts helped make rap more accessible…
We’ve got another fresh batch of homegrown hip-hop for you this week, and the cuts we’ve picked will take you through different ends of the spectrum. DJ Cavem brings in a breath of fresh air with his anti-pollution anthem in “Hybrid Lex (I Can’t Breathe the Air),” H*Wood takes you…
Like the quixotically stylish music of his full-time band, Fingers of the Sun, Nathan Brasil’s solo side-project, Salads and Sunbeams, is a warm and accessible, stripped down version of the mustachioed songwriter’s dream-pop style. “It’s a lot of odds and ends that didn’t work with Fingers of the Sun or…
Pitchers and catchers reported this week. You know what that means, right? Yeah, probably nothing. We’re not going to get our hopes up here. I mean, aside from our new skipper, Walt Weiss, a beloved former Rockies shortstop, there’s really no reason to believe this season will be any less…
With a recent chart-topping house banger on Beatport, Israeli producer Asaf Borger, aka Borgore, has a new record on the horizon. Aside from enjoying other recent success with Miley Cyrus on the collaborative chart topper “Decisions,” Borgore is mainly focused on finishing his forthcoming album at an L.A.-based studio when…
Founded in 1985 by a group of teenage friends who had been part of the Bay Area hardcore scene, Neurosis was never just a conventional band. Dabbling in heady ideas and archetypes of the human imagination, Neurosis is one of the most influential metal bands of the last two decades,…
OM first formed when Al Cisneros and Chris Hakius got together a handful of years after their old band Sleep parted ways in the late ’90s. The idea was to create a project that used rhythms to convey meaning in a fashion akin to Tibetan devotional music or Gregorian chants…
Known for a diverse music scene, Memphis, Tennessee has become known for its punk and garage rock scene, thanks to acts like the Oblivions, the Reatards and the bands championed by Goner Records. Ex-Cult came out of that punk world but ended up making the kind of rock and roll…
The Vaccines formed in London in 2010, when Justin Young shelved his solo project, Jay Jay Pistolet, and got together with some friends who had also played gigs with him under his old moniker. The new band came out of punk, and its songs have an undeniably raw energy despite…
So, yeah, I’m watching the Grammys right now and dutifully monitoring the #GRAMMYs hash tag on Twitter (thanks for the helpful reminders, LL). Color me confused. I feel like I just walked into the middle of a movie: On the set, Miranda Lambert and Dierks Bentley are in the middle…
Jai Harris was a poet before she even knew it. Hmm…doesn’t sound as good in the past tense, but in Harris’s case, it really is true. She recalls going to a yard sale with her grandma when she was seven and buying a little book with a poem written on…
Velvet Acid Christ started as an offshoot of Toxic Coma, a project whose strange and unsettling recordings finally saw a wider release last year. Velvet Acid Christ was a decidedly more serious and musical effort rather than an attempt between friends to shock each other and make each other laugh…
Reed Mathis talks about improvisation like it’s a mystical religion. The current bassist for the San Francisco-based quintet Tea Leaf Green and former frontman of the Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey sees a great deal of power in making music on the spot, and that passion will likely be front and…
Producing music since high school, Eliot Lipp found his own voice in hip-hop beats and instrumentals. One of the most recent additions to the Pretty Lights Music roster, Lipp has been notably prolific in cranking out new tracks and mixes. In advance of his three-night Colorado run, which kicks off…
Great art does not always move units. Case in point: The Stooges’ 1973 album, Raw Power, was a complete flop commercially. But, as with the story about the Velvet Underground, it seems that everyone who did buy it must have been inspired to start a band, because forty years after…
Another week, another fresh batch of local hip-hop. We’ve got new joints from the Southern-flavored but fully local Hustle Man, as well as a new cut from Whygee that name-checks one of East High School’s most famous former students, plus a nighttime call to action from Drop Switch and a…
So the album that everybody’s talking about this week (and for good reason) is mbv, the record that fans have been eagerly awaiting for at least two decades, since the release of Loveless, My Bloody Valentine’s 1991 masterpiece. To give you an idea of just how eagerly awaited this follow-up…
Pallbearer has been making waves with its psychedelic doom metal. Rather than relying on excessively repetitive riffs, however, the quartet employs actual melodies into its music, as well as simple yet intricate dynamics and rhythms that give the songs more actual sonic heft than grinding away at a single chord…
