10/20/2010 - 7:39pm
Detroit. The one-time home of John Lee Hooker, of Berry Gordy, the Supremes and Hitsville USA. The industrial mecca that helped give rise to the MC5, P-Funk and house music. Seminal hip-hop groups like Slum Village have emerged from the city, and...
10/08/2010 - 11:21am
By all accounts, Tyler Clementi was a talented musician and a gifted young man. It seems impossible to even Google his name without coming across pictures of him with his violin under his chin, that focused-yet-tranquil look on his face of someone...
09/20/2010 - 9:12am
No two ways about it: if you listen to American music, then your life has been affected by Irwin Silber. He wasn’t a musician or artist. There are few, if any, recordings of “his” songs to be heard. Silber’s place was as a journalist and publisher....
09/10/2010 - 5:36pm
Imagine, if you will, what it would be like to conduct a survey of musical tastes among members of the Tea Party. Granted, the Tea Party is far from a monolithic organization with registered membership--even with the millions of corporate bucks that...
08/23/2010 - 7:18pm
With a combined four decades in the biz and a prolific output on both ends, Tom Morello and Boots Riley must be two of the most seasoned revolutionaries in music today. So it speaks volumes that while their second release as Street Sweeper Social...
08/07/2010 - 10:56am
The signs are unmistakable as you walk through downtown. In fact, the closer you get to the lake, the more they slap you in the face. The cold, gray chain-link fences, the almost Orwellian jumbo-trons, an absurd police presence--even for...
07/30/2010 - 4:01pm
Dear Elton,First of all, I hope you don’t mind that I refuse to call you “Sir.” Knights swing swords and ride horses. You play a piano. And nobody can really deny that you play that piano well. You are about as close as one can get to being a...
07/23/2010 - 9:59pm
It was 1980. The ‘60s were definitely over. Then-president Jimmy Carter had spent the past few years deregulating everything but the kitchen sink. With Ronald Reagan about to win the White House, the sink was now on notice. An era of unchecked...
07/14/2010 - 5:10pm
It’s created a buzz well before its release date. For the past several months, every pop music outlet has speculated on its content. It’s provoked fervent anticipation among fans, censorship from the World Wide Web, and derision from elitist...
07/05/2010 - 5:19pm
It's not infrequent in our highly depoliticized society for an outspoken artist to be attacked for daring to take a stand. As long as profit comes before integrity, then "shut up and sing" will be the rule of the day in the music industry; musicians...
06/28/2010 - 5:52pm
The Gaslight Anthem must be sick of the Springsteen references by now. Ever since bursting into international consciousness a few years back, there’s been no shortage of critics willing to draw the connections between them and the Boss.
06/11/2010 - 11:55pm
Lately it seems like the only thing following M.I.A. around more than controversy is bad journalism. To call Lynn Hirschberg's recent New York Times Magazine article on Mathangi (M.I.A.) Arulpragasam "weak" would be too generous. "...
05/31/2010 - 6:33pm
Kanye West. Massive Attack. Tenacious D. Sonic Youth. Joe Satriani. On the surface these artists might not have much in common. But on May 25th, all joined on with the latest wave of outrage directed at Arizona's draconian new immigration law.
05/24/2010 - 10:46pm
"We tryin' to build some schools in Africa with this one, and trying to build empowerment... So, the record's... all about really the 'hood and Africa also..." -NaS to MTV, at the 2009 Grammy Awards
