The new issue of beardie-loving music mag Magnet has a column by Corey DuBrowa on the sophmore slump — second albums that fail to live up to the promise of the first. This is a fairly common trope in rock criticism and has some basis in truth. One theory holds that most artists spend years [...]
Cat Power gets creamy Cat Power has done this before. In 2000 Chan Marshall (for Cat Power is she for all intents and purposes) released The Covers Record, a set of radically re-interpreted songs both classic and obscure that dramatically raised her profile in the music world. Jukebox is a similar undertaking but Cat Power [...]
Magnetic Fields ride a freight elevator together Magnetic Fields’ mastermind Stephen Merritt is a man constantly in search of a gimmick to hang his new albums on. 69 Love Songs, the band’s brilliant box set that contained exactly what the title promised, is still the most successful of these, but their last album i (all [...]
Here’s my list of best EP’s of the year. Do Extended Play releases even mean anything in the age of download-able music? Whether the idea is outmoded, there were at least five that were worth the time to find on iTunes or your local record store this year. 1) Yeah Yeah Yeah’s – Is Is [...]
Here it is– The final four! 1) Of Montreal – Hissing Fauna, Are you The Destroyer?This is the best concept album ever about moving to Norway with your new wife only to find your marriage falling apart. Lest you think that’s faint praise, this is a disgustingly good album, fun to listen to with it’s [...]
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