Being Funny in a Foreign Language is the sound of the 1975 no longer selling their own myth. They sound relieved. After a decade of playing the self-referential and pop-minded rock band – frontman Matty Healy’s famous “a millennial that baby-boomers like” lyric can still summarize why people love and hate him – the British […]
Let’s talk about Blue Rev. Not the new Alvvays album, but the booze for which it’s named, because this is some deeply, deliciously Canadian shit. The niche nostalgia play is fitting for a Toronto band largely defined by backward glances: to past loves and the jangly post-punk of C-86 bands like Primal Scream and the […]
When the Yeah Yeah Yeahs ensnared the rock consciousness with Fever to Tell almost 20 years ago, the band’s true magic was never bound to where they’d been — the romanticized New York underground pedigree, those “had to be there” early shows — but where they might be going. With Fever, in all its exhilarating, […]
If there’s been one deserving criticism of Maggie Rogers since Pharrell Williams famously likened the then-NYU student to the Wu-Tang Clan in 2016, it’s that the singer-songwriter entered the pop zeitgeist too fully formed. Sure, songs from the Maryland-born artist’s anticipated debut LP, 2019’s Heard It in a Past Life, were deftly penned — a […]
Interpol’s debut album, 2002’s Turn On the Bright Lights, thrust them into the blistering limelight of New York indie rock and solidified their signature sound: addictively melancholy rhythms (“NYC”), gargantuan anthems (“PDA”), and despondent ballads (“Leif Erikson”). The band also embraced the mystery that enveloped them: They quickly became known for their earnest demeanor, monochromatic […]
Rage Against The Machine finally kicked off their Public Service Announcement Tour last night, and Run The Jewels might have summarized it best while wrapping up their opening slot at Wisconsin’s Alpine Valley Theater before introducing the headliners. “It’s the oldest story there is. It’s us versus them,” said Killer Mike, referring to the people […]
Baz Luhrmann’s unparalleled, and some would say over-the-top production style works very well to present the arc of Elvis Presley‘s career. The story is told through the eyes of Presley’s mercurial manager, Col. Tom Parker, astutely played by Tom Hanks. The Oscar-winning actor draws us in with his conspiratorial voiceovers, and then we see Presley’s […]
Hidden beneath all the thumping revelry, newfound freedom, and summertime horniness of MUNA’s marvelous third album, there flows an undercurrent of irony. The Los Angeles trio released two albums, in 2017 and 2019, on RCA Records, a major label with all the resources a budding indie band could ever need to launch them into the […]
Maluma is spicing things up on his seventh album. The Colombian heartthrob channels the playful sex appeal in his new collection of romantic and risqué tunes. After teasing fans with a few steamy posts on Instagram, Maluma surprise-released his new LP The Love & Sex Tape. Across the eight-song album, he returns to his reggaeton […]
“Simple City” is the name locals gave to Benning Terrace, a housing project in southeast D.C. shouted out by local go-go artists and once recognized as one of the most active sites of gang violence in the country. Growing up a half-mile over the Maryland border, rapper IDK became childhood friends with a boy from […]