Credit: Charlie Engman
Will they be the same band? That's something we used to worry about. From the post-Nirvana early-'90s grunge boom all the way through to the mid-'00s, some of us would bellyache every time one of our favorite bands signed a major-label deal. We would want these bands to succeed and thrive, but we would always fixate on the idea that these labels could take away all the things that made these bands...
Last night, we learned that Grimes is the star of a new Adidas ad campaign. And in announcing her Adidas gig, Grimes posted on Instagram about her workout regimen. Somewhere in there, Grimes made a truly shocking announcement: She's had experimental eye surgery, replacing the "top film" of her eyeball and replacing it with "an orange ultra-flex polymer." This is meant to treat seasonal affective disorder...
Chicago folk-rock luminaries Wilco have a new full-length on the way called Ode To Joy, the proper studio follow-up to 2016’s Schmilco. The record, in general, is about encouraging "the act of finding joy in a dark political climate," according to the band. Today, in addition to announcing the album, Wilco are dropping Ode To Joy's lead single. "Love Is Everywhere (Beware)" is a warm, breezy, mostly...
Justin Bieber has spent the greater part of the past few years looking like a 7-11 parking-lot stoner. Bieber has long been vocal about his love for classic-era Metallica, and a couple of years ago, his tour merch featured a repurposed Marilyn Manson T-shirt. So it shouldn't be that big of a surprise that Justin Bieber digs Tool. But this revelation has already led to a public beef between Hailey Bieber,...
Beyoncé is starring as Nala opposite Donald Glover's Simba in the new CGI live action remake of The Lion King. And upon the release of her new song "Spirit" last week, we learned she'd made a whole companion album to go along with the movie. Today we get to see its extremely intriguing tracklist. The Lion King: The Gift is out this Friday. It features some of the names you'd expect: Childish Gambino,...
Appropriately enough for a season defined by swimming pools, sweat, and refreshing ice-cold beverages, the Song Of The Summer is a slippery concept. Does it merely amount to the summer's most popular and inescapable track? If so, our current Song Of The Summer is "Old Town Road," objectively the biggest hit of not just summer 2019 but the whole damn year. Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus' joyous country-rap...
Naturally, Jack White likes Greta Van Fleet. In a new interview with Rolling Stone, White praises the young band, who won a Grammy earlier this year for Best Rock Album. "They’re three Polish brothers from Frankenmuth, Michigan — I thought that was a joke!" he said during the interview in response to a question about the criticisms the band has received about copying older music. "But it’s exciting...
Bob Dylan and Neil Young closed their co-headlining show tonight at Ireland’s Nowlan Park with a joint rendition of “Will The Circle Be Unbroken." This marked the first time the two have performed together in 25 years, since a show at New York’s Roseland Ballroom in 1994. It's the second time they played this particular song together since 1975, when they shared the stage for the first time...
There’s a song on Glitterer’s official debut album, Looking Through The Shades, called “The News.” Unlike the other 13 tracks on the record, which are all speckled with synths and/or propelled by a thumping drum machine, “The News” is just Ned Russin singing a simple melody over an equally rudimentary bassline. “Saw my face up…
In April of last year, Frightened Rabbit’s landmark, breakthrough sophomore album The Midnight Organ Fight turned 10. It was cause for celebration: This was the album on which the band came into its own, featuring some of Scott Hutchison’s most enduring songwriting, the album that fans would latch onto in their times of need and…
I have to constantly remind myself that Maxo Kream is a little less than two years older than me. Besides the black-and-green Supreme jersey, everything about the 29-year-old rapper emanates an OG persona. When he comes downstairs to a Flatiron District hotel lobby, he gives the type of hard handshake that makes you aware you’re…
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.…
The first time I saw Anthony Naples, he was shrouded in fog. He was DJing his residency at the Ridgewood, NY club Nowadays, lighting the misty dancefloor up with thorny techno and scrappy house. I saw an artist in full control of his craft as a DJ, unconcerned with appearances as a “performer.” Now, Naples…
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.…
“Where do you go when you just wanna go? Where do you go when you let it all go?” Emily Sprague asks on a song from Florist’s third album, which was written as an escape — from life’s external pressures, from the constant buzzing inside your own mind. It’s an album that’s constantly looking for…
“Method Man,” the lead single of Detroit-based rock musician Stef Chura’s new album, Midnight, paints a picture of a dude whose condescension is dreadfully magnetic. Driven by an fervor and fixation similar to that that fuels the type of relationship it describes, Chura’s vocals and the accompanying instrumentals speed up and intensify as the song…
Carlos Santana has a lot to celebrate in 2019. It’s the 50th anniversary of his band’s self-titled debut album, which was released on August 30, 1969. Two weeks before that, the band gave a legendary performance at the Woodstock festival in upstate New York. They’d been a popular live act in San Francisco, but their…
The rain can force us into unexpected places. Sometimes, it’s for the better. Such is the case when I meet Welsh musician and novice furniture maker Cate Le Bon in New York City during a torrential downpour. We take refuge in the Guggenheim, as our expected coffee shop has been overtaken by others also finding…
Trevor Shelley de Brauw is a pretty busy guy. In addition to being the guitarist in Pelican and RLYR — and releasing an excellent solo album, Uptown, in 2017 — he’s also a father and works full-time as a music publicist. (Full disclosure: de Brauw did press for my band United Nations’ last full-length in…
Do you remember being small in a big confusing world? Do you remember feeling excitement for the first time or being cognizant of how clothes fell on your body for the first time? Not many people do, or most of us don’t dare to think back on it. For shoegazey Madison rockers Slow Pulp, this…
(Trigger warning: this article contains discussion of sexual assault.)
In 2015, Charly Bliss had self-released a three-song EP called Soft Serve and were more than content to play tiny Brooklyn venues whenever the opportunity arose. “We were crushing it,” says drummer Sam Hendricks. “Spike Hill on a Tuesday.”
You can call Holly Herndon a doctor now. When I meet the experimental composer in lower Manhattan in April, she’s just arrived from the Bay Area, where she successfully defended her dissertation at Stanford’s Center For Computer Research In Music And Acoustics. Now that her PhD program is behind her, Herndon has moved from California…
Part of Sass’ origin took place at a party in a Minneapolis apartment complex turned personal palace that has 35 rooms and seven bathrooms, all lavishly dedicated to the 1960s. (Really, it’s quite something.) It was in one of those rooms that Stephanie Murck met Willem Vander Ark. Murck had been involved with some other…
