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Being online often feels like witnessing a chaotic, nonstop reality TV show. We're given windows into the private lives of everyone we didn't know we were supposed to care about, alerted whenever Ariana Grande cuts her hair or Cher has a thought. There are the couples we're all rooting for and the unions we didn’t see coming, the undercooked side stories, the running gags, and of course, the beef. The...
Another year gone by means a few dozen more popular bands broke up, but not Coldplay. (No offense to them but imagine how psyched people would be if Coldplay called it quits now and reunited for Bonnaroo 2031.) For the 11th time, Matt Neatock and I have compiled this loving Oscars-style tribute to all the acts who were overcome by creative differences and/or lack of income this year. To be eligible...
A 32-year-old Delaware native who moved to Nashville more than a decade ago, Jimmie Allen hustled to land a record contract, lived in his car for a while, finally released his debut album in October, and became country music's story of the year. Mercury Lane, which follows up last year’s self-titled EP, reveals a singer with a strong, spry, expressive voice that suggests the casual intimacy of someone...
Each December, in an effort to celebrate outstanding achievements and commemorate The Year That Was, the pop culture media industrial complex foists lots of lists upon the world. We here at Stereogum are party to that deluge; we shared our collective conclusions about 2018's best albums a week ago and have been keeping the year-end #content coming ever since. Today we're back with a roundup of songs...
In late 2017, alternative rock radio returned to New York City for the first time in six years. 92.3 FM made the switch from pop to rock, which at the time was welcome news since NYC already has a behemoth in Z100 for top charts, and like with the city’s sports teams, there’s only a real need for one of the same thing. A press release promised "an expertly curated playlist with local, informed...
The last few years have been a wild time to be a jazz fan. On the one hand, legendary players and crucial figures in the music’s history continue to pass away. This year we lost pianists Henry Butler, Cecil Taylor and Randy Weston; trumpeters Jerry González, Roy Hargrove, Hugh Masekela, and Tomasz Stanko; saxophonists Hamiet Bluiett, Sonny Fortune, and Big Jay McNeely; bassist Buell Neidlinger;...
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 better and better. And while Open Mike Eagle has been an underground name for many years, he's finally...
"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 the set marks the first time some of his...
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…
The most influential emo bands are almost invariably mourned using the lexicon of incompletion and imperfection – they break up on the precipice of something bigger, are misunderstood or scorned by contemporary critics, leave a cruelly small recording legacy cited by more commercially successful peers as a primary influence. And since Algernon Cadwallader is a…
Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.…
“The Best Years Of My Life,” a standout from the Pistol Annies’ third album, Interstate Gospel, may have the best opening line of any song this year. After a short guitar intro that sounds like someone is X’ing out another day on the calendar, Ashley Monroe sings, “I picked a good day for a recreational…
Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.…
Linnea Siggelkow. L.S. Ellis. It’s as simple as that. And the Hamilton, Ontario musician’s songwriting is just as intuitive, a raw yet graceful breed of indie rock with a dream-pop splendor and a brooding slowcore soul.
For people of a certain age, Gary Busey is best known as a rapscallion of disputable ’00s television, popping up in programs such as Entourage, I’m With Busey, Dancing With The Stars, Celebrity Apprentice, and Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew to offer up loopy yet undeniably heartfelt exhortations to follow your dreams to anyone who…
Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.…
It’s late Wednesday evening in London and Danny Elfman is admittedly jet-lagged. “We’re right in the middle of scoring Dumbo,” says the iconic composer of the upcoming live-action adaptation of the classic story starring Danny DeVito and directed by his frequent collaborator Tim Burton. “All I can say right now about it is that the…
The first thing you’ll notice about Miya Folick is that voice. She’s just one of these people: There’s a natural gift there, and she has cultivated it, and she knows how to deploy it. Her vocals have an overwhelming power when she truly lets loose, the sound of a storm brewing within then erupting from…
