pop-music - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
John Seabrook's Pop-Music Treatise <i>The Song Machine </i>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 frustrating music books in memory. You will learn a lot from this book; unfortunately, a lot of what you’ll learn is inaccurate. And all too often, what’s not inaccurate is vitiated...
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 the guest verses on his own tracks. These days he’s more or less abandoned making new music, instead busying himself with buying up companies and brands and streaming services or, i...
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. But given the team’s habit of historic late-season collapses—recall, for example, when they blew a sturdy seven-game September division lead in 2007 by losing 12 of their last 17 g...
EL-P On The New Cat-Rap Classic <i>Meow The Jewels</i>: "It's A Lonely And Strange Thing"
Embrace the moment: One of the most feverishly anticipated hip-hopalbums of the year is finally here, and it’s made up almost entirely of sampled cat sounds. It’s called Meow the Jewels, and you can download it for free right here, and its backstory is now the stuff of internet (and cat) lore. It st...
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 of 2015 is liable to be a phone number. On Labor Day, the quartet took to Facebook to announce the creation of “(574) 404-SAFE, our help hotline you can text if you are being harasse...
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 Know It (And I Feel Fine),” and Michael Stipe got all salty about it, and, well, look out. You’re welcome....
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 unicorn pajamas and playing an electric piano in an ersatz cornfield; additional props include a stuffed unicorn on a stool and an inflatable Super Mario Bros. power-up mushroom. Ve...
Diplo And Skrillex On <i>Charlie Rose</i>: 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 even have to be that old to find yourself flummoxed by it. The majority of people in their forties don’t get Taylor Swift, lots and lots of thirtysomethings are baffled by the succes...
Dr. Dre's Spotty <i>Compton </i>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 only has he managed to roll with the changing times, he has ranked among the most powerful forces steering the direction of the rap industry for a solid two decades. Which makes it a ...
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 Marriott is packed with an unusual crowd. The walls are lined with memorabilia from the New York Islanders, who up until a few days ago called the crumbling Nassau Coliseum next door home...
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 Hills Bank Pavilion crowd from the depths of his hoodie; his legs are encompassed by shorts and a glossy cylinder of fabric that could be classified as a skirt. Behind him, the stag...
