Last year, when helping assemble SPIN‘s 50 Best Albums of 1971, I wondered if that year could have been popular music’s absolute peak. Now I’m asking myself that same question all over again. As I built a spreadsheet for 1972, gathering our writers’ votes alongside my own weird choices, I was once again struck by […]
The concert industry exploded in the 1970s, and the live album, a stopgap project once reserved for only the biggest artists, became a compulsory ritual and a pivotal moment for many artists. Live albums captured legendarily loud bands like The Who and The Ramones in their natural element. Once obscure regional acts like Bob Seger, […]
“A self-centered way of life will bring all of us down in the end,” Made Kuti sighs on “Different Streets,” the saddest funky track to come out in 2020. The song [a cut off his forthcoming solo album, For(e)ward] starts off on an invigorating note, with an Afrobeat rhythm driven by a pulsing riff. Kuti delivers […]