Articles by Jason Heller | | The A.V. Club

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For Our Consideration What do we mean when we call music pretentious?

Just because “transcendental black metal” is a thing doesn’t mean it’s not from the heart.

May 21, 2013 | 12:00am -
AVQ&A What are your favorite and least favorite cultural baits and switches?

Stop jerking us around, pop culture.

May 17, 2013 | 12:00am -
For Our Consideration High infidelity: For the love of side projects

An appreciation of musical polyamory, from Tom Tom Club to Vår.

May 15, 2013 | 12:00am -
For Our Consideration Are oral histories a good way to write about music?

Louder Than Hell is an unconventional oral history, but how much should an author shape a true story?

May 14, 2013 | 11:00am -
MusicalWork Review Survival: Survival

Liturgy’s divisive frontman ditches the metal and shoots for the heavens.

May 14, 2013 | 12:04am -
AVQ&A The films you’ve loved longest

In the third AVQ&A in a themed trilogy, we look at the films we discovered earliest in life and still enjoy rewatching.

May 10, 2013 | 12:00am -
Hear This An Iceage side project sings of the apocalypse

Vår’s “The World Fell” is elegantly depressing.

May 9, 2013 | 11:00am -
Hear This An early Killing Joke song brings out the dead

“Requiem” is an inhumanly cruel contraption of industrialized dread.

May 8, 2013 | 1:00pm -
Hear This Neil Diamond made his name with “Solitary Man”

Noah Kaminsky’s version of the song just wouldn’t have been the same.

May 7, 2013 | 12:00pm -
The Single File A personal, firsthand account of Neutral Milk Hotel’s debut single

As the band gets ready to reunite, Jason Heller looks back at its beginning.

May 7, 2013 | 12:00am -
AVQ&A The books you’ve loved longest

This week, our staff and reader question addresses the books we discovered earliest in life and still have on the shelves.

May 3, 2013 | 12:00am -
Inventory “Spread your wings and let me come inside”: 13 songs about losing virginity

Another list from The A.V. Club.

May 1, 2013 | 12:00am -
MusicalWork Review Iggy And The Stooges: Ready To Die

A legendary band makes another stab at a comeback.

April 30, 2013 | 12:04am -
MusicalWork Review Coliseum: Sister Faith

Guests from Boris, Jawbox, and Sebadoh don’t add much to a solid post-hardcore showing.

April 30, 2013 | 12:00am -
Hear This Wardruna brings its Nordic-folk to Vikings

Ragnar Lodbrok would approve.

April 26, 2013 | 10:00am -
AVQ&A Favorite pop-culture goodbyes

A staff departure has us thinking about the best and most poignant farewells in pop culture.

April 26, 2013 | 12:00am -
Hear This A Swedish metal band finds the devil in the details

Ghost B.C.’s “Secular Haze” is a mini-masterpiece.

April 22, 2013 | 1:00pm -
AVQ&A The album you’ve loved longest

A reader asks about albums we discovered early in life and still consider essential listening.

April 19, 2013 | 12:00am -
Hear This An ex-Beatle flexes his wings on “Maybe I’m Amazed”

It isn’t always easy to pick between a live performance and the studio version.

April 18, 2013 | 12:00pm -
Primer A beginner’s guide to the music of The Cure

Explore The Cure’s body of work, from late-blooming goth-rockers to epic stadium-fillers.

April 18, 2013 | 12:00am -
For Our Consideration Black Sabbath, Dust, and the myth of the “metallectual”

Far from being the ugly, scumbag music it’s stereotyped as, metal is often both beautiful and harmonious.

April 17, 2013 | 12:00am -
AVQ&A Willful cultural ignorance

Our weekly reader-and-staffer question looks at art and information we’ve deliberately avoided because we don’t want it in our heads.

April 12, 2013 | 12:00am -
Inventory There’s something I have to say to you: 16 songs with weird whispers

The A.V. Club's weekly list.

April 8, 2013 | 12:00am -
Memory Wipe Revisiting fate and parental lies in real life and the Black Cauldron books

An adult writer re-examines Lloyd Alexander’s fantasy series The Chronicles Of Prydain, and finds personal resonance.

April 5, 2013 | 10:00am -
Loud The final edition of Loud brings new music from Snakewing, Intronaut, and more

It’s been a long, thrashy trip.

April 3, 2013 | 12:00pm -
Inventory Tail between legs: 27 solo albums that sent musicians scurrying back to their main bands

Another list from The A.V. Club.

April 3, 2013 | 12:00am -
The Single File The Talking Heads’ eulogy for honky-tonks, Dairy Queens, and 7-Elevens

A band, and the decade it defined, came to a haunting end with this song.

April 2, 2013 | 12:00pm -
MusicalWork Review Alkaline Trio: My Shame Is True

A pop-punk workhorse lies down on the job.

April 2, 2013 | 12:03am -
MusicalWork Review Mudhoney: Vanishing Point

Grunge’s slack-master general keeps it messy.

April 2, 2013 | 12:02am -
Inventory It’s time to move on, it’s time to get going: 17 solo albums (and one single) that effectively doomed bands

The A.V. Club's weekly list.

April 1, 2013 | 12:00am -

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