The 2020 Grammy nominations are out, and there's a lot to discuss. Let's work our way through the big storylines. Lizzo Leads A Field Dominated By First-Time Nominees Lizzo's breakout year continues with an overall best eight nominations, including all four general field categories: Album Of The Year, Song Of The Year, Record Of The Year, and Best New Artist. Her total is two more than fellow A-list...
There is a lot of singing happening in rap music right now. Some of it -- Polo G, Lil Baby, Juice WRLD's "Bandit" -- is good. Most of it is bad. DaBaby and Megan Thee Stallion, the two rapping-ass rappers who emerged out of the internet in 2019, are looking more and more like glorious anomalies. Teenage America apparently just wants to hear dudes squeakily mewling about their toxic relationships through...
Back in July, shortly before the release of Sleater-Kinney's new album The Center Won't Hold, longtime drummer Janet Weiss announced that she was leaving the band. At the time, Weiss made a statement explaining that the band was "heading in a new direction." In an Instagram comment shortly thereafter, her ex-bandmate Carrie Brownstein said, "what am I supposed to say? She left. We asked her to stay....
In The Number Ones, I'm reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart's beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present. *** Meco - "Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band" HIT #1: October 1, 1977 STAYED AT #1: 2 weeks Star Wars season has never ended. The first Star Wars movie opened in May of 1977 on only 32 screens . Within six months, it had...
Shaky Knees has shared its 2020 lineup. The festival will return to Atlanta's Central Park next year from 5/1-3. Headliners for its three nights are the Black Keys, the Smashing Pumpkins, and the Strokes. Other artists on the lineup include Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Portugal. The Man, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, Liam Gallagher, Brittany Howard, Phoebe Bridgers, Stereolab, Drive-By Truckers, the Front Bottoms,...
Stop. Take a moment. Ask yourself something. Are you interested in death metal? This is not a philosophical question. Do you enjoy the sound of thundering double-bass judders and overdriven treble-soaked riffage and angry-god roars? Or, at the very least, are you open to enjoying these things? If you're not, that's fine. Nobody will judge. But this week's album is not for you. Within the extreme metal...
David Bazan is crying while driving. Many scenes in the new documentary Strange Negotiations find the once and future Pedro The Lion frontman alone, steering his sedan down endless highways between emotionally taxing house shows. In this one, he reaches his breaking point, despairing over the loneliness of his chosen path and the conflict between supporting his family and being with them. He laments...
Back in 2018, the National threw their first ever Homecoming festival, bringing a lineup of likeminded indie rockers to the Cincinnati riverfront alongside Bryce Dessner's longstanding avant-garde and neoclassical event MusicNOW. It was one of the best music festival experiences I've ever had. They took off this year due to the busyness with lots of other ventures, foremost among them the release of...
David Bazan is crying while driving. Many scenes in the new documentary Strange Negotiations find the once and future Pedro The Lion frontman alone, steering his sedan down endless highways between emotionally taxing house shows. In this one, he reaches his breaking point, despairing over the loneliness of his chosen path and the conflict between…
Over the course of this decade, Jenny Hval has built up a catalog of boundary-pushing, thought-provoking electronic music that’s rightfully earned her consistent acclaim and fascination. Two months ago, she released her latest collection, The Practice Of Love, the culmination of that decade’s worth of work. The immediate impact on first listen was hearing the…
For the sake of technical accuracy on their Bandcamp tags, Glass Beach identifies as a Los Angeles “post-emo” group. But ask the infectiously gleeful quartet where they live spiritually, sonically, and socially, it’s all the same answer: “online.” “Us, and people who are online as us, get information about the outside world from our Twitter…
Over the years, Brittney Parks has undergone her own personal apotheosis. It all started with the fiddle. She was mesmerized as a child after witnessing an Irish folk band performing in her hometown of Cincinnati. She begged her mom for a violin. Parks became mostly self-taught growing up, defining her style in church and warping…
Emily Yacina’s new song “Gleaming” is an upward rush of momentum. “Meet me here/ I’ll show you/ The same light/ I’m feeling,” she sings, her delivery breathless, words spilling out in an incantatory pulse. The track was originally supposed to be entirely instrumental, and it wasn’t until late in the process of making her new…
The legendary Liz Phair is releasing a memoir today, Horror Stories — you can read an excerpt from it here — and she’s also releasing a brand-new song, her first new track since 2010’s Funstyle, if you don’t count this Christmas original from 2014. “Good Side” finds her reuniting with producer Brad Wood, who she…
I am trying very hard to make this orange look like an orange. But after trying my best to bring my illustration of Adrianne Lenker’s snack to three-dimensional justice, I must concede that I have inadvertently drawn the sort of bowel movement that should make one hurriedly call their doctor.
We’ve Got A File On You features interviews in which artists share the stories behind the extracurricular activities that dot their careers: acting gigs, guest appearances, random internet ephemera, etc.…
The music of Lower Dens has always been dense and to some extent difficult, even when cathartic or hypnotizing. Across their first two albums, 2010’s Twin-Hand Movement and 2012’s Nootropics, the band perfected a kind of shadowy then nervy rock sound — exemplified by the albums’ respective highlights, “I Get Nervous” and “Brains.” Then, on…
Britons have a complex relationship with the Monarchy. Though adored by older generations and millions around the world, the Royal Family are almost exclusively met with scorn and contempt from younger Brits, and especially those who are left-leaning and in the music community. That makes “Magic Of Meghan,” the debut single from southeast London four-piece…
We’ve Got A File On You features interviews in which artists share the stories behind the extracurricular activities that dot their careers: acting gigs, guest appearances, random internet ephemera, etc.…
Of the many reasons artists have missed interviews — schedule conflicts, illness, feigned illness — childbirth is among the most reasonable. The original plan was to Skype with both members of the Oslo duo Konradsen, but vocalist and pianist Jenny Marie Sabel was unavailable due to the strong likelihood of induced labor. Fortunately, multi-instrumentalist Eirik…
Vagabon makes music for outcasts. Laetitia Tamko writes quietly luminous songs that help the listener feel less alone. Her work often meditates on how we find a sense of belonging within a community and what it means to feel truly at home. But it also grapples with what it feels like to be alienated, to…
It’s hard to believe Great Grandpa’s newest album is by, well, Great Grandpa. It’s a drastic musical shift, the kind that has you questioning if you accidentally put on a different band’s record or missed a transitional EP along the way. Four Of Arrows, the Seattle band’s sophomore full-length — due out this October via…
Caroline White has been releasing hushed reveries as Infinity Crush for the better part of the decade. The musician and poet’s songs are consistently revelatory in how much they do with so little. They are suggestive, her words have a precious, unfiltered intimacy. They’re loaded with imagery that takes on a kind of dream logic,…
