Louder Now, the third album by Amityville, New York emo kids Taking Back Sunday, isn’t really “louder now.” In fact, I’m tempted to say that it might actually be more sugary than their first two albums – it’s riddled with hints of pleasing a younger, more pop-driven audience. Not that Taking Back Sunday’s earlier releases were shrouded with cryptic, brooding, off-center hymns, but there was a sense of originality and that genuine feel I got when I heard those older songs that just …

Every once in a while you read a review that describes the album in this manner: “it’s like [insert currently trendy band here] meets [incredibly obscure, vanity band] being raped by a bunch of aliens.” You can replace “being raped by a bunch of aliens” with “thrown in a blender” if you prefer your reviewers to be ashamed of their past Star Trek heritage. But either way, I always felt this was a lazy way of reviewing. I mean, who even really knows what …

Further proof that the hip-hop world moves too goddamned fast for us rockists: just when we’d gotten the whole “is DJing a legitimate art form” debate through our thick-as-Led skulls, along came Kanye, Danger Mouse, and the Neptunes, and they went and turned it into a producer’s medium.
Now, aspiring Timbalands can even create reputable music on their own home computer – aren’t those the things Jack White hates? – with just a vast MP3 collection, a decent sampling program and a good feel for …

The title of Ramblin’ Jack Elliott’s latest album doesn’t lie: amongst the traditional folk giants with whom he once ran, Elliott really does stand alone. Woody Guthrie, his mentor and friend, is, of course, long dead; as is their old mutual traveling buddy Cisco Houston. Pete Seeger, who frequently shared the stage with Elliott and counted him as an influence, performs only rarely because of age. And then there’s the man whose early persona was so indebted to Ramblin’ Jack that his …

Lately, there seems to be a formula for making a radio hit album. Give it a Franz Ferdinandesque backbeat, a sprinkle of whiny lyrics, and a shitload of influences that will please the shaggy-haired kid who still buys vinyl (assuming, of course, he even listens to the radio). And then, the final touch to our peachy keen delicious dessert: add a thick layer of shiny, saccharine production that could have been slowly forced out of a Duncan Hines red and white frosting cup.
This is …

Despite the fact that Grant-Lee Phillips is a regularly occurring character on the new CW‘s Gilmore Girls, he appears to remain fairly unknown. Perhaps it’s because Phillips, as Stars Hollow’s town troubadour, never makes out with either Lorelai or Rory Gilmore. Perhaps it’s because he has only really taken the spotlight on the show twice, once when his character challenged the authenticity of a rival troubadour in a town hall meeting, and once in season six’s finale, when he ended up opening …

In 1929, Luis Bunuel directed a film called Un Chien Andalou. Perhaps you’ve heard of it: co-written with then-Surrealist artist and provocateur Salvador Dali and possessed of an infamous opening sequence that still shocks today, it was met with admiration in artistic circles but with much more widespread revulsion from the general public – though not, as is often apocryphally claimed, with the riots which would eventually greet Bunuel’s second collaboration with Dali, 1930′s L’Age d’Or. Look at the first two films by this …

Not everyone feels as if they must accept death. With such concepts as ashes being launched into space and bodies turned into diamonds, death no longer is a solemn disappearance, but has shifted more into a spooky permanence. A person may be forgotten in the ground, but never when they’re winking expensively on a relative or a lover’s ring finger. There is a human wish for immortality which can surface subconsciously with every written word, recorded song, or brush stroke. There may not …

The histories of country and soul music have always run parallel. Both emerged from the lower-class environs of the Deep South in the early 20th century, blending varying amounts of blues, jazz, gospel, and Appalachian folk music to achieve two discrete concoctions whose surface distinctions — mainly bound to race — only served to mask identical hearts. Over the years, more musicians than can be named here have recognized these crucial similarities; from the “Cosmic American Music” of Gram Parsons and the Flying …

Last month, Detroit rock supergroup The Raconteurs released their highly anticipated debut album, Broken Boy Soldiers, to widespread public acclaim and a critical response that ranged from middling to ecstatic – including a decidedly middling review from our own Megan Giddings. But for those of us in the know, the idea of a Motor City answer to Blind Faith was never quite as enticing as the hysterical reports from NME had made the Raconteurs’ gestation period sound. That’s because we’d already heard …