Credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images for BET
Let’s kick things off with a bold statement: Blood Bank is arguably the most consequential EP of the 2000s. Arriving two years after For Emma, Forever Ago, Justin Vernon’s career-making debut as Bon Iver, the short, four-song release looked like your typical EP in early 2009: a means of offloading old tunes, keeping an artist’s name in the public consciousness, and giving writers an excuse to...
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. *** George Harrison - "My Sweet Lord HIT #1: December 26, 1970 STAYED AT #1: 4 weeks George Harrison was the George Harrison of the Beatles. This, presumably, was not an easy thing to be. Harrison was a bona fide star,...
There have always been two James Blakes. There's the one that's been behind the boards for a lot of famous people (Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, Frank Ocean, Jay-Z, to name a few), pumping their songs full of a welcome gravitas. And then there's the Blake that's been present on his solo albums, something of a forlorn electronic balladeer with an interior worldview that lends itself to music that often...
Ariana Grande has been riding a high since her break-up with former fiancee Pete Davidson. She found gratitude on "Thank U, Next" and new love on "Imagine." With her new single, "7 Rings," Grande celebrates female friendship with retail therapy. It bops like a modern day, trap remix of "My Favorite Things" and comes with a Barbie-pink music video featuring Ariana living luxuriously and hanging with...
Will Oldham is a slippery interview. He doesn’t love to explain the meaning behind the songs he writes and he has made that known throughout his long career. His wit is dry and intimidating, and when I saw him in conversation at Brooklyn’s Bell House a few months back, I tensed up during the Q&A portion, anxious for anyone who would dare raise their hand to ask a question. Oldham isn’t prickly,...
Rey Washam shared an unearthed demo with Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic from 1992, when Grohl and Novoselic were in Nirvana. The recording includes an early version of "Scentless Apprentice" from Nirvana's 1993 album In Utero. "At the Nirvana rehearsal studio. Dave was obviously new to guitar , but had some songs he wanted to try out with a band," Washam writes in the description. The recording is...
Vampire Weekend have finally unveiled some information about their long-awaited fourth studio album. In an Instagram post, Ezra Koenig said that the album's title has the initials FOTB and that it's 18 songs and 59 minutes long. The first two songs will be out next week -- they have the initials "hh" and "2021" (presumably that last one is just ... "2021") -- and they'll be followed by two other two-song...
Kim Gordon has long been one of our most intimidating rock stars. From her work with the legendary Sonic Youth to her side gig Free Kitten and current project Body/Head, she's always been able to wield harsh noise, anti-patriarchal vitriol, and rock star cool with ease. But even though she can summon the feedback to clear a room whenever she likes, she also needs to get lost in some meditative music...
Kim Gordon has long been one of our most intimidating rock stars. From her work with the legendary Sonic Youth to her side gig Free Kitten and current project Body/Head, she’s always been able to wield harsh noise, anti-patriarchal vitriol, and rock star cool with ease. But even though she can summon the feedback to…
There’s been something happening in Dublin. Across 2014 and 2015, a group called Girl Band started to generate international buzz thanks to their idiosyncratic blend of noise-rock, post-punk, and techno-inspired rhythms. Here was a new sound, one nobody associated with a specific generation or scene in Ireland. Girl Band then went silent for several years,…
We’ve Got A File On You is a new reboot of an old-school Stereogum franchise. Once called Annotated Media Guide, these are interviews in which artists share the stories behind the extracurricular activities that dot their careers: acting gigs, guest appearances, random internet ephemera, etc.
Almost 10 years ago, Sharon Van Etten released…
For someone who can be so verbose, Bradford Cox is the first person to admit he doesn’t have all the answers — at this point, he’s not even pretending to.
Chris Simpson doesn’t think he’s ever met a casual Mineral fan, but the potential for millions of them briefly existed in the minds of people like Sylvia Rhone, Jimmy Iovine, and Clive Davis. Even your parents can probably name the careers shepherded by these legendary A&Rs: Santana, Bruce Springsteen, 2Pac, Eminem, Billy Joel, Aerosmith, Metallica,…
Sasami Ashworth is determined to make it. In a sense, she already has. She’s scored short films and commercials, taught in an elementary school, and collaborated in the studio with artists like Vagabon, Hand Habits, and Wild Nothing. And for two-and-a-half years she was a member of Cherry Glazerr, playing the synths that leveled out…
Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.…
Wayne Coyne is always busy. Whether working on official albums or a smattering of side projects, the Flaming Lips — the band he’s now been a part of for 35 years — never seem to stop moving. “With us, it’s always like five things at one time,” he says from his home in Oklahoma City,…
Phoebe Bridgers won a lot of people over quickly. Amidst releasing her debut Stranger In The Alps last year, she immediately made her presence known: A gifted singer-songwriter often diving into confessional, melancholic depths while maintaining a sometimes-dry, sometimes-quirky sense of humor online and elsewhere. She was gifted, and she was interesting. We wound up…
Right now, it certainly seems as if Open Mike Eagle can’t be stopped. Since he got started in earnest at the beginning of this decade, he’s never really taken a break from releasing projects in various forms. His run of albums and EPs since 2014, in particular, has shown the arc of an artist getting…
“It certainly has been … a surprising year,” Lindsey Buckingham joked from the stage at Manhattan’s Town Hall last week. Fleetwood Mac’s erstwhile singer and guitarist is playing shows in support of Solo Anthology, a career-spanning collection that’s somehow his first-ever hits package 37 years into a successful solo career. The just-released 6xLP version of…
Snail Mail was already having a quick ascension. Last year, when Lindsey Jordan was just 18, she garnered a ton of buzz and acclaim for her reissued 2016 EP Habit, eventually earning her a deal with Matador for her full-length debut. She seemed like one of the indie world’s bright new stars, and we named…
When someone says they want to show you a piece of Old New York, there are certain locations you might imagine. Maybe a far-flung corner of Brooklyn or Queens, less touched by waves of gentrification. Perhaps one street hidden away in the long-lost stretches of the Lower East Side, still openly marked by all the…
Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.…
Before she had no luck at all, Aimee Mann had beginner’s luck. She hit it big at the age of 24 with one of the first songs she ever wrote, “Voices Carry,” a top-10 hit for her band ‘Til Tuesday. Despite its superficial new-wave signifiers, “Voices Carry” wasn’t merely a vacuous byproduct of the Me…
