The Anniversary

Do you remember what a thrill it was to immerse yourself in Halcyon Digest? I remember it well -- or at least I think I…

"It starts with a beautifully recorded chord on acoustic guitar for a while before the singing starts. And I really liked how it goes on…

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…

"This is the future of sound." This was Madonna, talking to Billboard in August of 2000. She was describing the French producer Mirwais Ahmadzaï, her…

The Walkmen were a New York band. The group's members hailed from the DC area, but had made their name and their lives in New…

One morning in the summer of 2000, I woke up early, walked a mile to my nearest internet cafe, and spent half an hour hitting…

Katy Perry is wide-eyed and bedazzled. She tiptoes through Candy Land like Dorothy dropped into Oz. She waves to a pair of menacing anthropomorphic gummy…

As proclamations of supremacy go, it's not quite Jesus walking into the temple and declaring himself the messiah, but for an indie rocker in the…

There should be a word for it: The thing before the thing. In the summer of 2000, rock music was in a weird place. If…

Arcade Fire were already anointed. By 2010, their 2004 debut Funeral was already regarded as a modern classic, a flag in the ground for a…

Bethany Cosentino knew what was up. On "Everything Has Changed," a song from Best Coast's latest album Always Tomorrow, she looks back on her early…

The Baha Men’s "Who Let The Dogs Out" has existed for 20 years. There are adults of voting age who have never lived on a…

While blonde teenybopper prima donnas ruled MTV’s Total Request Live during the early 2000s, the era also ushered in a North Philadelphia-based R&B powerhouse who…

Raise your hand if you remember when Coldplay were the new Travis. Before the U2-for-millennials arena rock, the Grey's Anatomy tearjerker power ballads, the old-timey…

M.I.A. was right. Well, she ended up being wrong about a lot (vaccines especially), but she was on the money about the internet, the focal…