In 2015, the Offspring auctioned off the rights for their Columbia Records catalogue to Round Hill Music, a $35 million deal that included a total of six studio albums and a greatest hits LP -- all released after 1994's Smash, the group’s Epitaph breakthrough and still the best selling independent album of all time. Now, while there is surely some money to be made on nostalgia streams of one-note...
We here at Stereogum love Beach House. The Baltimore dream-pop duo's latest album, 7, was our #1 Album Of The Year So Far. You know who else likes Beach House? EDM-pop duo the Chainsmokers. You know how we know that? 'Cus they wrote a whole song about it! Yes, the Chainsmokers' latest opus is a single called "Beach House," and in its opening lines it talks about how much they listen to Beach House:...
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. *** Tommy James And The Shondells - "Crimson And Clover" HIT #1: February 1, 1969 STAYED AT #1: 2 weeks Brian Wilson once reportedly described the songs on Smile, the Beach Boys album that he never got to finish making,...
Do you remember what you were doing the night of December 31, 2016? Just after midnight, I was at home watching Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve With Ryan Seacrest, still smarting from Ohio State's brutal loss to Clemson in the College Football Playoff, when onto my screen bounded Mariah Carey, apropos of nothing. Carey wasn't promoting new music -- her most recent album, the fabulously named Me....
Does Taylor Swift travel inside a suitcase to avoid paparazzi? In the summer of 2017, a photographer snapped a pic of Swift's bodyguards carrying a large suitcase out of her apartment. Splash News, the photo agency that published the image, originally captioned it, "Taylor Swift being transported in a huge suitcase from her Tribeca apartment into her truck, in the trunk. Almost a dozen of Taylor Swift's...
For the past week, the collective imagination of the internet has been captured by the story of one Jered Threatin, a metalhead with big dreams who managed to con his way into a European tour despite having no actual fans. Threatin bought Facebook likes, YouTube views, and event RSVPs, faked live footage of packed shows, posed as a nonexistent concert promoter, and lied about ticket sales. He invented...
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. *** Marvin Gaye - "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" HIT #1: December 14, 1968 STAYED AT #1: 7 weeks It's a dark, clammy creep. A cold, quiet drum-crack announces the arrival. Organ and guitar ooze out a sense of general...
I was born in San Francisco, CA to two Chicano musicians who connected over their complete obsession with playing and studying music. Once we were old enough to hold instruments, my sister and I expressed some reticence about performing with our parents, but due in part to the closeness of the Mexican family unit and the allure of high-paying, fun gigs, we caved and formed our family band, La Familia...
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…
Let’s just make something clear: While motorized scooters have infiltrated just about every major city in America to entertain drunks, endanger pedestrians, and undermine mass public transportation, watching kids throw Birds and Limes off a building or lighting them on fire is not funny. Nor is seeing a dog take a shit on these Uber-funded…
When Trent Reznor says he is excited about something he doesn’t actually sound excited at all. He speaks in a measured mutter, choosing his words carefully whenever he’s asked a question that could potentially lead to a headline-grabbing response. The press cycle for his most recent Nine Inch Nails release, Bad Witch, generated some notable…
Lorely Rodriguez writes about love in massive and minuscule ways. She measures it in the stars, she memorializes moments shared on a city stoop. Whether you’re speaking to her in person or listening to her lyrics, Rodriguez is considerate and direct. Both are attributes that she uses to write songs that feel universal and familiar…
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.…
