Piano & A Microphone 1983 is an unpolished Prince gem, while Metric loses focus on Air Of Doubt, and Lonnie Holley is louder than ever on Mith. Plus, we take a look at Carrie Underwood’s sixth LP, Cry Pretty.
The season is changing, and with it, the state of Kanye West. Over the last year, we’ve seen Kanye on a lot of things: The soapbox, the defensive, his hustle, and the couch of an ABC talk show, talking about his tastes re: jerking off. But now the Ye rapper is back at last on his home turf: His bullshit. (And also the…
Back in January of 2015, while on the set of the N.W.A. biopic Straight Outta Compton, rap mogul Suge Knight hit a man named Terry Carter with his car and drove off. Carter died, and Knight was later charged with murder—which could have gotten him life in prison. Today, after several setbacks (including Knight firing…
According to Rolling Stone, Kiss announced during n appearance on America’s Got Talent last night that the band would soon be embarking on one last tour before wiping off the makeup and hanging up the spiky armor for good. Kiss said this will be “the most explosive, biggest show” they’ve ever done, and that both fans…
When Christine And The Queens emerged with 2015’s self-titled effort, the album was a welcome antidote to sterile pop music. Héloïse Letissier, the French musician behind the project, wasn’t just a refreshingly honest songwriter. She was also a mesmerizing live performer who seemed to melt into rhythms and grooves—and…
Recognizing, at long last, that their various differences shouldn’t get in the way of the shared practices that bind them so beautifully together—i.e., inflating concert prices to fuck the rest of us over when we just want to see Bruno Goddamn Mars—Ticketmaster has now been accused of entering into tacit partnerships…
In what’s either a pretty standard attempt to claw her way back into the musical limelight, or the boldest move yet in the industry’s most “Sk8ter Boi”-adjacent grift, the person claiming to be Avril Lavigne has just announced that she’s making a comeback. (Fun fact: You can describe almost anyone as “the person…
Speaking with Access Hollywood at the Emmys, Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown revealed that she recently became friends with Drake, adding that he texts her with advice “about boys.” This may seem cute, since they’re both famous and it’s fun when celebrities are friends, except Drake is a 31-year-old man and…
It’s been eight long years since Robyn’s career-defining Body Talk LPs, and though she’s released a handful of collaborative singles and shorter projects in the meantime, the wait for a new solo full-length from the Swedish pop artist is almost over: Honey will arrive October 26 via Interscope and Robyn’s own label,…
As reported by Billboard, the Senate has unanimously passed the Music Modernization Act, a piece of legislation designed to update—or modernize—the way songwriting royalties work in today’s stream-heavy world. Most importantly, though, the Senate also decided to change the bill’s name to the Orrin G. Hatch Music…
Last week, we reported that Pyotr Verzilov, a member of Russian punk band/art collective Pussy Riot, had fallen mysteriously ill after a court appearance stemming from the group’s on-field World Cup protest earlier this summer, with the group reporting that doctors believed Verzilov—who had quickly become unable to…
We’re of two minds when it comes to putting punk music onto streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music, et al. On the one hand, those streaming services are owned by insanely wealthy, male-dominated tech companies that are basically the antithesis of everything that punk—and specifically the riot grrrl movement of…
To commemorate 60 years of the Billboard Hot 100, Off The Charts revisits each year since it was established to spotlight songs and artists that didn’t make the cut, yet still made a significant impact. Years are chosen randomly and—to make it even harder on ourselves—rules for inclusion are that neither the songs nor…
Eminem has never really shied away from saying awful stuff in his songs, either as an edgy gag or because he’s just really pissed about his mom or whatever, but he admits that he actually went too far on his new song “Fall.” Speaking with Sway about his new album Kamikaze (via Vulture), Eminem acknowledged that he…
Weezer’s transition into America’s most successful touring cover band continued this week, when the band—which recently got a lot of credit for convincing people its thoroughly adequate cover of Toto’s masterpiece “Africa” was actually good—whipped out another karaoke classic: Blink-182's existentially catchy “All The…
2018 is proving to be a profitable year for the diss track. Pusha T’s “The Story Of Adidon” set the high bar, obviously, but there’s been a lot of them, a surprising number somehow related to aging Venom rapper Eminem. Earlier this month, the Detroit rapper kicked a hornet’s nest of vaguely apathetic hornets with his…
Two weeks ago, British folk-rock icon Marianne Faithfull announced her 21st studio album, Negative Capability, will arrive November 2. And today she’s shared its first single, “The Gypsy Faerie Queen,” written with and featuring Nick Cave. It’s the latest in a long-running creative relationship between Faithfull and…
Low goes fully experimental on Double Negative, while Philly’s Spirit Of The Beehive gains focus on Hypnic Jerks, and Paul Weller contemplates True Meanings.
Lil Wayne’s album Tha Carter V has been stuck in limbo for just about four years, with a contract dispute between Lil Wayne and his old label Cash Money Records keeping the album stuck on the proverbial shelf. Earlier this year, though, Universal (Cash Money’s parent company) decided to quit messing around and settled…
Earlier this summer, four members of Russian punk band/protest art collective Pussy Riot were arrested after they jumped onto the field during the World Cup final. After being denied access to a lawyer, all four of them were sentenced to 15 days of “administrative arrest” and were banned from attending sporting. In a…
