The new Works Progress Administration album is the sort of musical collaboration that should be encouraged. The core of WPA consists of Glen Phillips (Toad the Wet Sprocket), Sean Watkins…
CD Reviews
636 Articles
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
This probably isn’t the best week for a Kanye West protege to drop his debut full-length album, but don’t feel too badly for Kid Cudi — with a couple of…
Ken Shane
1 Min Read
As you may recall, last week I wrote about a very fine Black Crowes show that took place at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park. The show was part of…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
You know the joke, “It might look like i’m doing nothing, but at the cellular level I’m really quite busy”? Bruce Hornsby’s post-1990 career is a little like that. As…
Dw. Dunphy
1 Min Read
Jim O’Rourke is either a master provocateur or just plain infuriating; it all depends on how you feel about his career as a whole. If you liked his experimental acoustic…
Dw. Dunphy
1 Min Read
A famous occurrence found its way into Woody Allen’s film Manhattan. The director has just explained all the artistic allusion and metaphor in his latest work, pouring over details and…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
“I’m talkin’ ’bout music, I ain’t talkin’ ’bout rap,” spits Jay-Z in the opening moments of The Blueprint 3‘s leadoff track, “What We Talkin’ About,” and if you didn’t know…
Ken Shane
1 Min Read
Generally it’s not my style to ask you to buy an album. I tell you what I think, and then you make up your own mind. That’s the way it…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
The coolest thing about 7 Worlds Collide’s The Sun Came Out is also its biggest flaw: Namely, that “group” founder Neil Finn brought the whole damn thing together — all…
Scott Malchus
1 Min Read
Scott Malchus has had a copy of the remastered Rubber Soul since last week, and he hasn’t been able to listen to anything else. Read his thoughtful review in this week’s edition of Basement Songs.
Popdose Staff
1 Min Read
9/9/09 is finally here, and to celebrate the occasion, the Popdose staff has, ahem, come together to give you their personal perspectives on the music — yesterday and today.
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
As a general rule, I don’t have much time for country music; I developed a distaste for it during the early ’90s, when its Garth Brooks-led resurgence meant any critic…
Ken Shane
1 Min Read
In 1957, Izzy Young started the Folklore Center on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village, which at the time was the epicenter of the folk music craze. If you’ve read Bob…
Robert Cass
3 Min Read
“In the style of the boy-band vocal bands of the time, Human Nature became Australia’s most successful pop group of the ’90s and beyond,” according to their Allmusic.com biography, “outselling their…
Dw. Dunphy
1 Min Read
There is half a good album here, and there’s no other way to put it. Primary Dreaming in Stereo member Fernando Perdomo has a heck of a time balancing the…
Ben Wiser
1 Min Read
Meet James Perry, whose debut solo CD arrives after 20 years spent playing in Bay Area bands. Perry speaks with Ben Wiser about the eclectic new album, titled Now You’re Gone.
Dw. Dunphy
2 Min Read
Can you will yourself into liking a CD or is it merely that the recording is a ‘grower’? The term itself is suspect; it’s almost a prettified way of saying…
Dw. Dunphy
1 Min Read
There are things that an EP is supposed to do, and things many invariably do, making the whole EP concept a source of dread for reviewers. These things are supposed…
Ken Shane
1 Min Read
Fun. is one of those bands that take all the music that they love, throw it in a blender, and pour the resulting mixture into an album. In this case,…
Robert Cass
3 Min Read
Four years ago GRP/Verve released Best of George Benson Live, recorded at a concert the veteran jazz guitarist and singer gave in Belfast, Ireland, in 2000. The set drew mainly…
Dw. Dunphy
1 Min Read
Sometimes criticizing a recording is easy. It’s just like pulling a trigger. You’ve heard the songs, you dislike the songs and you know exactly why. Sometimes it’s extremely difficult, especially…
Ken Shane
1 Min Read
When discussion turns to the band Radio Birdman, they are invariably described as the “seminal Australian punk group.” That’s selling them just a little short. Radio Birdman was formed in…
Dw. Dunphy
1 Min Read
I remember when the Dresden Dolls first came out. All my friends who knew my tastes told me I had to check them out, that I would love this duo….
Dw. Dunphy
1 Min Read
Two of pop’s most studious classicists, Neil Hannon (The Divine Comedy) and Thomas Walsh (Pugwash), converge on what could only be considered a monumental summit for UK pop fans, bestowing…
Jack Feerick
1 Min Read
Ashley Tisdale’s new album is called Guilty Pleasure, and in his latest How Bad Can It Be?, Jack Feerick explores the levels of irony in its title.
Ken Shane
1 Min Read
First an admission. Even though I am the New Music Editor for Popdose, I can be pretty old school. If you’ve been reading along, you already know that. There’s some…
Dw. Dunphy
1 Min Read
The new crop of pop stars could learn a lot from Frank Sinatra. No, they probably won’t match his voice or his depth of feeling. No, they probably will still…
Robert Cass
4 Min Read
“We’ve kinda found that people really dig one record of ours or another, and then kinda want that version of Wheat to be the one that they always get,” said…
Ken Shane
1 Min Read
The Jayhawks, Music From the North Country: The Jayhawks Anthology – Deluxe Edition (Sony Legacy) In the grand history of pop music, there haven’t been all that many voices that…
Ken Shane
1 Min Read
I have to admit that I am not one of the people who jumped on the bandwagon for Regina Spektor’s last album, the 2006 breakthrough Begin to Hope. I’ve still…