More Pop Songs Should Have Horns In Them
Many pop songs have guitars in them. Ditto drums and piano and synthesizers. Fine! That’s fine. I am not here to take…
Mourn Prince However You Can, For As Long As You Want
Jesus, this is terrible. Just terrible. Prince is dead. There’s no way to wrap your arms, or your head, around it. Just…
Are Music Festivals Really All The Same Now?
When Coachella opens its gates at the Empire Polo Club today, it sounds the bugle for Festival Season, now a live-music…
The Best Track On Kanye West's The Life Of Pablo Is Also, Somehow, The Worst
What the world needs now is a great Kanye West song: no less and please, God, no more. Enough with the delays, the…
RIP David Bowie, The Most Human Alien Of All
Can we start with “Under Pressure”? Is that too obvious? Eh, who cares. We’re starting with “Under Pressure.” Get a…
LCD Soundsystem Don't Owe You Anything, Including Silence
You could’ve seen this LCD Soundsystem reunion business coming if you’d looked hard enough—if you’d looked anywhere, in…
The Best Things We Heard In 2015
Music! Everyone loves music. Lists! Everyone loves lists. Hit the deck.
Grimes Is A Very Awkward Pop Star, Which Makes Art Angels Way More Fun
The truth is that all sorts of weirdos get to be pop stars nowadays, and that should excite you whether you like pop…
John Seabrook's Pop-Music Treatise The Song Machine Is Half Wrong, Half Boring
Don’t bore us, get to the chorus: John Seabrook’s The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory (Norton) is one of the most…
14 Times Jay Z Got Owned By Another Rapper, Usually On His Own Song
Sorry, but the Jay Z you all worship might not be as good as you think. Or maybe it’s just that he’s easily dwarfed by…
You Can Take Yo La Tengo To A Mets Game, But You Can't Make 'Em Do The Wave
Credit where credit’s due: The New York Mets are very good this year, and they wholeheartedly earned the NL East title.…
EL-P On The New Cat-Rap Classic Meow The Jewels: "It's A Lonely And Strange Thing"
Embrace the moment: One of the most feverishly anticipated hip-hop
albums of the year is finally here, and it’s made up…
Q&A: Speedy Ortiz's Sadie Dupuis On The Band's New Anti-Harassment Concert Hotline
Speedy Ortiz are a noisy, lurching, acerbic, ’90s-channeling rock band from Northampton, Mass., whose loudest release…
An R.E.M. Song For Each 2016 Presidential Candidate
So Donald Trump took the stage at an anti-Iran-deal rally to the strains of R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World as We…
The New Miley Cyrus Record Is Exhausting, But Might Be Worth It Anyway
So what we’ve got here is Miley Cyrus singing a morbid piano ballad called “Pablow the Blowfish.” She’s wearing fluffy…
Diplo And Skrillex On Charlie Rose: A Partially Fabricated Transcript
Popular music becomes harder to wrap your head around as you get older, but shit’s so weird these days that you don’t…
Dr. Dre's Spotty Compton Is The First Record To Show His Age
Dr. Dre has enjoyed one of the most remarkable careers in hip-hop history. In music’s most youth-dominant genre, not…
We'll All Go Down Together: Billy Joel Says Goodbye To Nassau Coliseum
It’s a little after six on a sultry Tuesday evening, and the Champions sports bar nestled inside the Long Island…
Take
Third Eye Blind As Seriously As They Take Themselves
“Hi, we’re Third Eye Blind from San Francisco, California, and we’re high as kites.” Stephan Jenkins beams at the Blue…
Worst Fanboys In Music, Ranked
1. Chris Brown