Arts
Cursive writes new masterpiece
August 29Call it art-core, call it post-hardcore, call the genre whatever you want; Omaha's Cursive has been running that drill for nearly a decade.
Arts
Arts
Truckers album will stop you from cursing country
April 23It seems common to hate country music just on principle these days. The familiar phrase "anything but country" pops up frequently in the music sections on sites like Facebook and MySpace. Indeed, with popular country artists like Kenny Chesney singing a song titled "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy," it's no wonder that music listeners would immediately be turned off to the genre. Fortunately for those listeners willing to seek out better alternatives, there is good music to be found under the label "country."
Arts
Harry Potter is not the only person who's 'Under The Stairs'
April 22This is the type of music that makes you want to celebrate its release like it's the coming of the hip-hop messiah, arriving right on time to remind us of the standards of the golden days.
Arts
Built to Spill's new album, 'You in Reverse,' isn't built to last
April 19It has been a long road for Boise's Built to Spill. While nearly all of their Pacific Northwest, grunge-pioneering counterparts have either faded into irrelevance or overdosed on heroin, the permanent trio of Doug Martsch, Scott Plouf and Brett Nelson (recently joined by touring guitarist Jim Roth) have remained relevant post-Nirvana on the strength of broken, sprawling melodies and Martsch's confounding, inspiring, utterly incomparable song writing.
Arts
Celebrity cross-dressing, rivalry and drama at the MFA
April 19People Magazine, move over: The titillating truths of Kabuki theater rivalry and stardom are on display now at the Museum of Fine Arts! Furtive eyes, wicked grins and extraordinary costumes greet visitors at the "On Stage in Osaka: Actor Prints from the MFA Collection" show.
Arts
Saves the Day might need a little saving of their own
April 17Warning: do not listen to "Sound the Alarm," Saves The Day's new album, while holding any sharp objects, standing near open windows, or taking a bath with a toaster in reach.
Arts
9th Wonder's new record won't be joining the Pyramids and Great Wall
April 17Ever since breaking into the hip-hop scene on North Carolina trio Little Brother's "The Listening" in 2003, prolific producer 9th Wonder has been popping up everywhere, laying down his trademark clever soul sample tracks on albums for local and worldwide legends. In the past few years, 9th has produced two new Little Brother albums, along with albums for Buckshot, Access Immortal, a remix of Nas's "God Son" album entitled "God's Stepson LP," and tracks for Jay-Z, Jean Grae and Memphis Bleek. It appears that hip-hop has found another golden producer with a bright future in 9th Wonder, who consistently pumps out Pete Rock-esque beats reminiscent of the sample-heavy sounds of the early to mid '90s. It's no surprise that he's featured in the title of most of the albums he works on, because all he needs is an emcee with a competent, consistent flow to make a hit record.
Arts
Everything she needed to know she learned in kindergarten
April 12"Tempo, Tempo!" could not have been a more fitting title for the Marianne Brandt show, which features the compact, visually complex effect of photomontage. On display at Harvard's Busch-Reisinger Museum through May 21, 2006, the show exhibits over thirty photomontages that strike a palpable balance between the fast, industrial, powerful content of the cut-out images and the calculated deliberateness of their placement.
Arts
Morrissey's latest: mildly tormenting
April 12After a seven-year hiatus and ten years without a relatively acclaimed record, Steven Patrick Morrissey, best known for fronting revered '80s indie band The Smiths, rocketed back into the pop music scene with 2004's "You Are the Quarry."
Arts
Album Reviews | These latest dance comps will surely get you all 'FiredUp!'
April 12If you think that techno is a dead letter today, nearly as dated as a circa-1999 Ricky Martin ditty, you're more than a tad off-base. Sure, hip-hop rules the airwaves and many nightclubs, but the sounds of techno and trance still reign at many nocturnal spots.
Arts
Calexico's 'Garden Ruin' perfect for these spring months
April 11After a progression from post-rock to mariachi-influenced rock, Tucson-based outfit Calexico has completed yet another transformation: This week's release of "Garden Ruin" is a realization of the band's steady progression from lo-fi experimental to jazz-influenced rock and finally to a more solidly song-oriented Americana sound.
Arts
The Flaming Lips tackle the big questions
April 9If the future has a soundtrack, the new Flaming Lips album just might be it. Looking from Earth out into time and space and then back at ourselves, these big, cosmic songs ask the big questions but manage to keep it light at the same time. Plus they make a lot of cool noises, too.
Arts
New Yeah Yeah Yeahs album is a lot of the same yada yada yada
April 5After three years in the dark, fans of the NYC rock collective Yeah Yeah Yeahs finally have something to sink their teeth into. After various deceptions regarding the nature of their new record and its title (specifically one rumor that hinted that the project was to be a concept album about lead singer Karen O's Chilean pet cat), their sophomore effort, "Show Your Bones," hit the shelves last week. But don't worry; it's not of a feline nature.
Arts
Damn the Man, and skip the 'Empire'
April 5In their breakthrough 2001 album, "Underground Network," Anti-Flag took a solid stance against corporate media and put their ideas to catchy tunes, creating some of the most popular politically-charged music of the last five years; their latest effort, "For Blood and Empire" is more of the same, but under a shiny, new corporate label.
Arts
Former Wu-Tanger Ghostface's latest is so good it's spooky
April 2For anyone with more than a passing interest in pop music, it is incredibly difficult to like hip-hop. So much of the genre seems dominated by repetitive, uninspired, homophobic, misogynistic half-wits whose primary interest in making music is making dollars. For many, these qualities make it difficult to reconcile their appreciation for mainstream rap with their appreciation for good music. As a result, serious music fans who also are interested in hip-hop are forced to listen to a tiny group of creatively acceptable, "underground" rappers that too frequently sound stilted, boring and, worst of all, alike. Caught between maintaining their credibility as fans and satisfying their need for beats and rhymes, serious music aficionados who explore hip-hop often end up unfulfilled.
Arts
Patience pays off for Umphrey's McGee
March 29It's been a productive few years for Chicago-based jam/prog rockers Umphrey's McGee. Thanks in part to a relentless bi-coastal touring schedule and the release of their critically lauded album "Anchor Drops" (2004), Umphrey's has been riding a wave of popularity.
Arts
Prince releases the latest in his purple reign
March 28When NBA player Carlos Boozer rented out his house to Prince, he should have known he wasn't going to get it back in the same shape. He should consider himself lucky that the biggest changes were a newly purple exterior adorned with the Prince symbol and the name of his new album, "3121."
Arts
The drum's alive on this album, and that ain't no lie
March 26In comparison to their 2001 debut "They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top," Liars' new record, "Drum's Not Dead," sounds as if it were made by a totally different band. The stark contrast makes sense, though, as over the course of five years the quartet has lost two members and gained one, and has changed its headquarters from NYC to Berlin.
Arts
New album explores Harper's 'Sides'
March 25Remember the days when the artistic expression of a musician was more than a couple of singles? When an entire album was focused around a central theme that wasn't the opposite gender? For those of you who believed the idea of the "concept album" to be a thing of the past, do yourself a favor and pick up Ben Harper's new release, "Both Sides of the Gun."
Arts
An unlikely, but beautiful, indie duet
March 15Opposites attract. This fact is often a governing principle in relationships, as well as the magnetic properties of certain minerals. But is it true for musicians as well? Can two seemingly dissimilar artists successfully unite to create compelling and melodious music? When the combination consists of former Screaming Trees and Queens of the Stone Age vocalist Mark Lanegan and former Belle and Sebastian cellist/vocalist Isobel Campbell, the answer is an easy yes. Their latest release "Ballad of the Broken Seas" is proof enough.
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