Credit: Daniel Martin
Crack-Up could've been a conclusion. It certainly sounded like one, whether because the album played like a frayed breakdown at the end of Fleet Foxes' constant searching, or that out of desolation and paralysis it still managed to locate moments of resolution. The whole thing, after all, was named for an F. Scott Fitzgerald essay and the concept of holding two conflicting thoughts in your mind at...
Just last year, Bob Mould was happy. He named a whole album Sunshine Rock, of all things. Can you imagine? A veteran purveyor of emotions ranging from pissed-off to angsty to deeply tortured was, after all these years, looking on the bright side. Of course, you could already get the sense from interviews that Mould had aged gracefully, finding some modicum of peace and exuding a warmer, more reflective...
Welcome to the Number Ones Bonus Tracks, the addendum to our regular Number Ones column. We at Stereogum recently wrapped up our fundraising campaign, and we'd like to thank everyone who donated to support this site and keep it going. To those All Access donors who pledged $1,000, I promised that I'd write a Number Ones-style column on a song of their choosing, as long as that song charted on the Billboard...
Changes was a funny name for an album that rarely seemed to change at all. Conceptually, it made some kind of sense: Justin Bieber's life had transformed in the four and a half years since Purpose, the blockbuster LP that spawned three #1 hits, infused Bieber's pop-R&B sound with an EDM undercurrent, and completed his transition from teen idol to full-blown adult pop star. The premise back then was...
"I have no patience for expectation!" Chino Moreno screams on "This Link Is Dead." The song comes toward the second half of Ohms, Deftones' ninth studio album and first since 2016’s good but not-transcendent Gore. (When you’re dealing with a band this beloved and obsessed over, "not-transcendent" counts as a misfire.) Later on the same song, Moreno continues, “You’re on your own.” It could...
We lost two major jazz voices this month. Bassist Gary Peacock died September 4th at 85. He was one of those players whose experience spans a vast range; he was a member of Miles Davis's quintet in 1964, subbing for Ron Carter; that same year, recorded Spiritual Unity with Albert Ayler. He played in a lot of trios, with pianists whose styles were vastly different from each other -- Bill Evans, Paul...
Sharon Van Etten always had a way of drawing you in. She is a naturally gifted singer, with an endlessly expressive voice that stops you dead in your tracks before you even get to the raw emotional territory she’s willing to explore in her songs; she’s one of those musicians where you imagine they had to become who they are, because what else were they put here to do. But Sharon Van Etten did not...
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. Alicia Keys has come a long way from taking classical piano lessons as a kid. As her 2007 single suggests, she is a bonafide “Superwoman.” Nearly two decades after the release of 2001’s critically...
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.…
“You know, I’ve always been kind of busy,” Bartees Strange says over the phone. He pauses for a second, underscoring just how much of an understatement “busy” is — the Washington DC-based musician was, until late August, holding down a full-time day job directing communications and marketing at a climate change non-profit, all while releasing…
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.…
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.…
There is no version of 2020 where Barely Civil aren’t a nervous wreck. As drummer Isaac Marquardt helpfully reminds me: “We’re all early 20-year-old people in an emo band,” and a quintessential Midwestern one at that. Their 2018 debut We Can Live Here Forever reflected the concerns of four teenagers spread out at satellites across…
Mike Doughty may have left Soul Coughing two decades ago, but Soul Coughing never really left him. On his brand-new EP with bassist and longtime collaborator Andrew “Scrap” Livingston, Doughty has purposefully sought to revive his alt-jazz-rock project, which was famously born out of the ‘90s underground jazz scene in New York and resulted in…
If Krill was a project about how to be a better person in the world, then Knot is, for the most part, about how to make the world a better place for people. The shift from personal accountability to collective action occurred in the five years that Krill was away, from when the beloved Boston…
The dream of the ’90s is alive in Houston. Narrow Head’s second album 12th House Rock, out today, swirls together a broad spectrum of heavy alt-rock sounds from the late 20th century. Opening track “Yer’ Song” begins with gnarled Alice In Chains melodies, moves on to a dreamily whimpered Deftones chorus, then rips into a…
Jonathan Leahy was 11 when he saw a goofy movie about two bodacious teens who travel through time to complete a history project. “I was raised by old-fashioned parents in a conservative part of the Northeast,” Leahy says, recalling when Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure first came out. “I almost certainly saw it on VHS…
When Universal Pictures started the promotion cycle for Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, they clearly didn’t know which angle to push. To be fair, the movie has got a lot going on. Edgar Wright’s geeky action-comedy romance, an adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novel series, follows 22-year-old slacker Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) as he…
When we first met Fontaines D.C., they were already exciting. Between early singles like “Hurricane Laughter” and “Boys In The Better Land” and raw and exhilarating gigs in Dublin, everything seemed to point towards them being one of the best in a sudden swell of young guitar bands coming from the UK and Ireland. Still,…
A year ago, Lauren Morgan, one half of the Orlando-based indie rock duo SALES, shrugged off her hometown. As Morgan explained to an interviewer, the Florida city, home to over a dozen theme parks, did not significantly shape her band’s identity. “More than anywhere we’re from the internet,” she said. For seven years, Morgan and…
Tonight, I’m going undercover as one of the 695 people in the Angel Olsen Cosmic Stream group chat. My code name? Virginia. My mission?
Jessy Lanza songs don’t stop moving. They’re rendered in twitchy shuffles, hypnotic little loops that operate like spinning tops. These kinds of songs were fully realized on her dementedly fun 2016 album Oh No, and four years later she’s refined them even more on her latest, All The Time. The album was predated by a…
My phone call with Patty Smyth is cut off just as the former Scandal singer starts talking about living on the same East Village street as her name-doppelgänger Patti Smith in the ’70s. “I was getting Patti Smith’s mail, and I didn’t know who that was at that time,” she says before the line abruptly…
