To celebrate Tuesday’s release of the new Patty Griffin album Downtown Church, Popdose looks back at the catalog of one of Americana’s brightest lights.
Popdose Guides
124 Articles
Dave Steed
1 Min Read
In part one of the Popdose Guide to Prince we took a look at the start of his career up through Graffiti Bridge in 1990. Tons of good music and…
Dave Steed
1 Min Read
What’s purple, has two thumbs, and will most likely try to sue our asses for running this guide? Ladies and gents, Prince Rogers Nelson!
Anthony Hansen
1 Min Read
It took him almost two months, but Anthony Hansen is back with the final installment of his guide to David Bowie’s recording career. Let’s get eclectic … and let’s dance!
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John Young
17 Min Read
Professor John Young takes us through the long arc of KISStory in this Popdose Guide to KISS
Anthony Hansen
1 Min Read
Been missing the Popdose Guides? So has Anthony Hansen — and unlike the rest of us, he’s gone and done something about it.
Anthony Hansen
1 Min Read
Missing the Popdose Guides? You’ll be pleased to make the acquaintance of Anthony Hansen, who makes his debut with the Popdose Guide to Todd Rundgren’s Utopia.
Mojo Flucke
1 Min Read
For all the Hammond-deficient Memorial Day barbecues out there, Mojo Flucke has prepared a treat: The Popdose Guide to Jimmy Smith.
Jon Cummings
2 Min Read
For someone who can talk your ear off, Syd Straw certainly has built an enigmatic career. After establishing her bona fides as an arty modern-rock diva during the mid-Á¢€â„¢80s, as…
Jon Cummings
2 Min Read
To fans of her four albums of marvelous acoustic pop in the mid-to-late Á¢€â„¢80s, Marti Jones seemed on the cusp of becoming the next (albeit far hipper) Linda Ronstadt. Jones…
Jon Cummings
1 Min Read
Don Dixon may never quite achieve the lofty stature of rock and rollÁ¢€â„¢s Great Men, but thereÁ¢€â„¢s no questioning that for nearly 40 years heÁ¢€â„¢s been one of the industryÁ¢€â„¢s…
Michael Fortes
1 Min Read
Listening to rock radio in the early ’90s — particularly the college and ‘alternative’ varieties — was an experience like no other. The ratio of tolerable to intolerable music was…
Jack Feerick
1 Min Read
In The Pogues’ breakthrough 1988 single “Fairytale of New York” (download), songwriter Shane MacGowan and guest vocalist Kirsty MacColl portray a codependent couple. He’s an aging alcoholic, gone beyond repentance,…
David Eastman
1 Min Read
A drunk, an atheist and a poet walk into a bar. They’re all the same guy, and there is no punchline. Welcome to Del Amitri! Anchored by the stereotypically “dour…
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Chris Holmes
7 Min Read
The pop music landscape is littered with bands whose time in the limelight was cruelly short. And let’s be honest, most of them didn’t even deserve the little success they…
Jack Feerick
1 Min Read
This story I’m telling, it starts in the middle. But this is a story that loops and circles in on itself, like a cloverleaf roadway; you’ve got to start where…
Michael Fortes
2 Min Read
Few bands in the history of rock n’ roll have been simultaneously as lucky and doomed as Badfinger. Lucky because they were not only one of the wildly eclectic assortment…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Yes, gentle readers, we treated you to an interview with Matthew Ryan on Monday, and today — which just happens to be the day his new album comes out —…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
He hasn’t released nearly as many albums as most (all?) of our previous subjects, but David Mead is a perfect Popdose Guide artist — which is to say that vast…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Doesn’t look like the godfather of punk, does he? Well. Maybe not the godfather, but perhaps a kindly uncle. Either way, Nick Lowe’s footprint on punk — hell, on all…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
What, you thought we were kidding around with the whole “Al Week” thing? Shame on you. And while we’re at it, shame on you for thinking Al Jarreau is too…
Jeff Giles
2 Min Read
I love rooting for the underdog. In almost any scenario, whether it’s sports or politics or just plain real life, I root for the little guy. This means I’m frequently…
Ben Wiser
1 Min Read
[He doesn’t write them anymore — in fact, they aren’t even online anymore — but truth be known, it was my good friend Ben Wiser who inspired the original Idiot’s…
Ken Sumka
1 Min Read
[Editor’s Note: I just checked, and it was November 24, 2005 when I got an e-mail from Ken saying “If you ever want someone to do a guest Idiot’s Guide…
Michael Fortes
1 Min Read
I am not one to toss around the word “hero” lightly. It takes extraordinary courage to earn such a designation. I am also not one to write one of these…
Darren Robbins
1 Min Read
The Beginning Mike Zelenko (drummer): “I met Jim through an advertisement in the Illinois Entertainer (a local monthly music magazine) right out of high school. He called me a couple…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Welcome to the Popdose Guide to the Call, a semi-forgotten group that had a couple of hits in the ’80s, but has seen its catalog fall out of print and…
Jon Cummings
1 Min Read
Nanci Griffith is arguably the most important folk-music artist of her generation. That statement is risky not so much because there are so many other contenders for the throne, but…
Anthony Kuzminski
1 Min Read
Act I: Johnny Cougar Chestnut Street Incident (1976) purchase this album (Amazon) I remember finding a cassette of this album back in the ’80s and enjoying the hell out of…