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Near the end of "Everything To Me," the first song on the new Empress Of album Us, we hear the featherlight voice of Devonté Hynes, doing that Prince-style deeply intoned spoken-word thing that he sometimes does. When Hynes shows up, it's a genuine surprise. Of course, Us is an album that straddles the line between DIY indie and mainstream pop. On albums like that, you almost expect Hynes to show...
For an emerging artist, a hit single is both the best and worst thing that can happen to you. On the one hand, having your song all over radio and MTV essentially guarantees your first-ever national club tour will be sold out. On the other hand, it turns every show into an awkward waiting game, where the audience politely endures every song on the setlist that isn't The Hit, until The Hit is played...
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. *** The Doors - "Light My Fire" HIT #1: July 29, 1967 STAYED AT #1: 3 weeks They've been a favorite critical target for generations, but the Doors were, at the very least, an important band. They taught people. Prog and...
Have you ever been to Electric Ladyland? Chances are if you've ever fallen in love with classic rock guitar heroism, you've paid a visit to Jimi Hendrix's personalized dream world some time in the past five decades. The Jimi Hendrix Experience's third and final album, released 50 years ago today in the US, is a vast realm to get lost in, the sound of the universe that big-banged into existence with...
Breaks With Tradition is a new Stereogum column that examines a certain song that’s been frequently sampled and how that song has been used through the years. Sometimes a groove is just a groove, but sometimes it's a miles-deep goldmine of unintentional metacommentary and a focus point for the weirdest aspects of cultural repurposing. Songs get recorded for reasons ranging from pure mercenary money-making...
For years now, Desert Daze has arrived in October like a mirage in the landscape to which it owes its name. It's a sudden oasis, where psych-rock bands and artists and stoners and adventurous music fans have gathered, culminating in what founder (and JJUUJJUU leader) Phil Pirrone has deemed an “anti-festival.” And while Desert Daze might have some of the familiar trappings and production values...
Disturbed singer David Draiman recently had his signature chin piercing removed, as
The 1975 have two new albums coming down the pipeline, the first of which is out next month. It's called A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships, and we've already heard several singles including "Sincerity Is Scary," "TooTimeTooTimeTooTime," "Give Yourself A Try," and "Love It If We Made It." Today, the British maximalists debuted the video for their generational anthem "Love It If We Made It" and...
Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.…
Sir Babygirl lives up to the excess of her name. Kelsie Hogue, the mastermind behind the fledgling project, admits that her music can be a lot. “I want to do pop escapism,” she tells me at a café in Brooklyn, where she’s recently moved from New Hampshire. She hasn’t really had time to settle into…
Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.…
Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.…
Last time David Nance Group toured through my town, the venue was a laundromat that hosts DIY shows. So opening for Jack White last month was a pretty big deal for Nance and his band of Omaha rock ‘n’ rollers. When I reached him by phone two weeks ago, Nance was still revved up from…
Chan Marshall is trying to remember how her three-year-old son likes his bed made. Having failed to get it right the first time, she strips a set of white sheets and a quilt off of a small futon in the corner of her East Village bedroom while I look on. She starts over, tucking the…
In the late ’90s, musical genres that once felt as separate as continents began to shift into each other like tectonic plates, the great unifier being electronic music. Pick any genre or scene and you’ll find it taking hold due to an increasing interest in technology, which was growing more accessible (and affordable) than ever.
In 2003, Chloë Sevigny would endure the biggest controversy of her career, the Riot Grrrl group Bratmobile would officially break up, and Sheridan Frances “Francie” Medosch would still be in diapers. When I call the 17-year-old via video chat, she is sitting on the floor of her bedroom in Berwyn, PA with her cat named…
When Adrianne Lenker attempts to put a feeling into words, she narrows her eyes and moves her hands around like she’s physically trying to grab onto something. Gesticulation is, of course, a thing that a lot of people do, but the way Lenker does it feels intentional. Like she can see that one crazy feeling…
Back in May, Ryley Walker released his fourth album Deafman Glance. It marked the most significant transformation in an already shape-shifting career, finding Walker miles away from the folk troubadour we once knew as he delved into a battle-scarred sound indebted to Chicago post-rock and perhaps truer to himself than any of his past work.
Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.…
I know this is a big ask because it sounds like a throwaway gag from The Office, but I beg of you, loyal Stereogum reader: Put some respect on the name of “Lackawanna County’s ska-punk scene in 2005.” The Menzingers, Captain, We’re Sinking, and Tigers Jaw all emerged from hardscrabble Scranton and laid the groundwork…
Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.…
Back in the ’90s, Melissa Auf der Maur rose to prominence as the bassist of Hole. But even then, the mechanisms and visibility of being in a major rock band weren’t for her. She signed the contract in search of experience, got it, then walked away. After a brief stint with the Smashing Pumpkins following…
Homeboy Sandman raps; he does not dance. So he was surprised when he found himself with his girlfriend doing the thing he doesn’t do at a party at Queens’ Rockaway Beach. His collaborator Edan was DJing and put on William DeVaughn’s “Be Thankful For What You Got.” Sandman immediately started moving. “I thought y’all were…
