The top 20 songs from the year 2021 that did the most for me. Featuring Rostam, TORRES, Kings of Convenience, CHVRCHES, Tyler the Creator, Deafheaven and more.
Read MoreMy (20) Favorite Songs of 2020
The top 20 songs from the year 2019 that stuck with me all the way to the end. Featuring Remi Wolf, Car Seat Headrest, Bright Eyes, Lauren Auder, Empress Of and more.
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I Grew With You, and Now I've Changed
The lack of romance is apparent throughout the album. The Idler Wheel’s emotional core was the anguish and stakes of relationships: of finding them, burning them and burying them. In its absence, she refocuses her passion on other avenues: trauma, nostalgia, anecdotes, and complicated letters to other women.
Read MoreMy (20) Favorite Songs of 2019
The top 20 songs from the year 2019 that stuck with me all the way to the end. Featuring Broken Social Scene, Clairo, Sharon Van Etten, Better Oblivion Community Center, Earl Sweatshirt, Jai Paul and more.
Read MoreI Don't Like Many Old Things
I have a bias against a lot of old music that I can’t really explain. For a self-proclaimed music geek, expressing that I don’t really like classic rock is disqualifying. But that’s why the death of canon-thinking has been thrilling: it allows people to be their true selves and have their purest taste.
Read MoreThere Are No Sell Outs Anymore
Over the last 10 years or so, the new dynamic has opened up all sorts of opportunities. Artists perform at ad agencies to curry favor with decision makers. Major blockbusters, no matter how uncool, can book the coolest artists for their soundtrack. You can even make songs explicitly for branded content!
That last paragraph may sound derisive, but I want to be clear that it’s all fair game in 2019. We’ve blown up the music industry, especially in terms of what money goes directly to artists. But it seems that in our zeal to get rid of the problematic “sell out” stigma, we never replaced it with anything better.
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Rust and Time
I hadn’t thought about songs like “Driving Home” and “At The End of a Gun” in literal years, and there they were, right in front of me, exactly as I remembered them. I spent teenage afternoons studying the bass tabs of the song “Free Radio Gainesville” and convinced myself it wasn’t possible with human hands, and there was Jason Black, just fucking doing it. It hit me hard, in a mixture of glee and longing.
Read MoreMy (20) Favorite Songs of 2018
A paragraph for 19 of my favorite songs from 2018 albums; and a few more for my #1.
Read MoreFoxing - Nearer My God
Nearer My God sounds like the solution the death of guitar music since the rise of Poptimism. Not that poptimism is inherently wrong, but the reassessment of music writing changed the values of the playing field. Suddenly nothing sounded as forward-looking, or cutting edge, or the result of meticulous craftsman engineering like the big budget pop hooks on Top 40 stations.
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Ted Leo at The Echo
June 21, 2018
Sin Eaters
On its 15 year anniversary, Ted Leo is touring Hearts of Oak on a bit of a nostalgia tour. I went on Thursday night at The Echo. It was an all-time great concert, a marvel of singing and song construction, but very much a weird echo of the Bush era and the things we worried about back then.
Read MoreRostam - Half Light
The cutting edge of music now belongs to pop and hip hop. These are genres where the top artists are thinking, "What's a sound we haven't used before?" or "What's a flow no one else has?" Modern indie merely asks, "What is pop not doing?" and maybe that's why we don't have rock stars anymore.
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