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…
CD review
533 Articles
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…
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…
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…
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,…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
You thought they’d go away if you ignored them, but Third Eye Blind are still here — and Jeff Giles is listening to their new album for this week’s edition of You Again?
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…
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…
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
It’s not something that I’m particularly proud of, and in retrospect, it was remarkably short-sighted, but when Laura Nyro, unhappy with attempts to market her as a celebrity, announced her…
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…
Ken Shane
1 Min Read
In the grand rock and roll tradition of bands who met in art school — in this case Pratt Institute in New York City — along comes stellastar* with their…
Ken Shane
1 Min Read
Once upon a time there was a pioneering Americana band from Belleville, Il. called Uncle Tupelo. Two of the founding members of the band were Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar….
Ken Shane
2 Min Read
The first Pete Yorn song I ever heard was “On Your Side,” from his debut album, Musicforthemorningafter (2001), but where I heard it was a bit unconventional — playing over…
Ken Shane
1 Min Read
In the late 1990s, Levon Helm was diagnosed with throat cancer. The radiation treatments reduced his once powerful voice to a mere rasp. Unable to make any money touring or…
Ken Shane
1 Min Read
Wilco is back, with the appropriately titled Wilco (the album), and Ken Shane is here to tell you how it stacks up against the band’s critically adored earlier work.
Ken Shane
1 Min Read
Some really good music has come to us from the mountains so far this year. First, from New York’s Adirondacks, we had the Felice Brothers with their brilliant Yonder Is…
Jon Cummings
1 Min Read
Purchase this CD (Amazon) George Harrison was an intensely spiritual man, but the compilation gods have never been kind to him. His first best-of Á¢€” actually a kiss-off from Apple/Capitol…
Ken Shane
1 Min Read
Before you ask, yes, they are named after Manson Family member Linda Kasabian. She achieved fame for being the getaway driver following the infamous Tate-LaBianca murders in 1969. I’m not…
Ken Shane
1 Min Read
I get a lot of albums sent to me for review. The vast majority are things that I’ve requested from publicists or record labels. Occasionally, though, a person whose taste…
Ken Shane
1 Min Read
Old 97’s leader Rhett Miller has a real knack for taking lyrically dark material, and setting it to a upbeat tune. He takes that ability to a whole new level…
Dw. Dunphy
1 Min Read
Two things happened to the producer’s lot when home recording went digital. We’ll cover the second later on, but before the laptop and PC, home recorders used cassette machines that…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Willy Porter – How to Rob a Bank (2009, Weasel Records) purchase this album (Amazon) In the fall of 1995, I was just getting my life back in order after…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Lisa Donnelly – We Had a Thing (2009, BT Media) purchase this album (Amazon) Open your heart and close your legs They only want what makes ’em beg Get hurt…
Kelly Stitzel
2 Min Read
I have been a Tori Amos for more than half of my life. I was 14 when I first saw the videos for Á¢€Å“Silent All These YearsÁ¢€ and Á¢€Å“CrucifyÁ¢€ from…
Ken Shane
1 Min Read
The first thing that you notice about the new John Vanderslice album, Romanian Names (Dead Oceans), is the sound. The album has a definite sonic quality that is akin to…
Taylor Long
1 Min Read
For a band with a name like Akron/Family, it should probably come as no surprise that their new album, Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free, is filled with themes of…
Ken Shane
1 Min Read
Perhaps you’ve heard their story. A bunch of GIs find themselves stationed in Germany in the mid-’60s. They decide to form a band, which they call the 5 Torquays. The…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Matthew Barber – Ghost Notes (Outside, 2009) purchase this album (Amazon) The leadoff track of Matthew Barber’s Ghost Notes, “Easily Bruised” (download), kicks off with a sequence of sounds that…