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…
Sonic Youth’s sound is instantly recognizable—it’s loud, unconventionally melodic, guitar-driven noise rock—and it’s possibly best exemplified by the band’s highest-charting song, “100%” from its 1992 LP Dirty. Fresh off reunion stints at Riot Fest and FYF Fest, Chicago natives Cap’n Jazz decided to take on the Sonic…
Welcome back to AVQ&A, where we throw out a question for discussion among the staff and readers. Consider this a prompt to compare notes on your interface with pop culture, to reveal your embarrassing tastes and experiences, and to ponder how our diverse lives all led us to convene here together. Got a question you’d…
Sometimes, the internet acts like a brilliant pop-culture sommelier, suggesting perfect little audio-visual pairings that people might not otherwise have considered. Such is the definitely the case with “Twin Peaks Remixed,” a video by artist and musician Steve Collender that deftly combines clips from the first two…
After 35 years in the music business, Kim Gordon has finally gotten around to releasing her first single. That is, if we don’t count any of the hours and hours of music she created with Sonic Youth, Free Kitten, Body/Head, or Glitterbust. All that stuff is just a prelude to “Murdered Out,” the first song to ever have…
Rap-rock, nu-metal, rap-metal, shit-metal, douche-rock. Whatever variably damning epithet you wanted to call it (just don’t call it late for its shift at Lids), the hybrid genre broke out in the mid- to late 1990s as a cathartic, unintelligible yaaaargh youuuu reaaadyyyy against the increasingly strained earnestness…
It was sometime around 1997 or 1998 when author and rock journalist Michael Azerrad was sitting at home watching a generic multi-part history on rock ’n’ roll. It was late in the evening, and the episode he caught detailed the history of punk rock—or was supposed to. But something was wrong. “It went straight from…
Even though Sonic Youth has been officially defunct since 2011, Kim Gordon is still writing badass, ethereal noise-rock: Her latest musical endeavor is Glitterbust, a duo she formed with Alex Knost of Tomorrow’s Tulips. The band will drop its self-titled debut album via Burger Records on March 4, and has teased the…
Few music scenes in history have been as influential—and as misunderstood—as Washington, D.C.’s hardcore scene of the 1980s. After Minor Threat introduced its fierce, anthemic sound and attitude in 1980, the band’s label, Dischord, became the epicenter of a subculture that evolved both musically and ethically as the…
Lollapalooza revolutionized the way Americans experience large musical festivals with its multiple stages, carnival midway and cross-genre acts, bringing a taste of England’s famous five-day Glastonbury Festival to the United States.
Welcome back to AVQ&A, where we throw out a question for discussion among the staff and readers. Consider this a prompt to compare notes on your interface with pop culture, to reveal your embarrassing tastes and experiences, and to ponder how our diverse lives all led us to convene here together. Got a question you’d…
History is written by the victors—one of them being, oddly enough, Steve Albini. In 1993, his infamous article “The Problem With Music” ran in The Baffler, and it was disseminated further in 1994 when it was reprinted in Maximum Rocknroll. Written from Albini’s perspective as a staunchly independent frontman of…
California Sunday Magazine, in conjunction with Google Play, has created a new animated interview project with Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon. In the video, which is part of a California Inspires Me series, Gordon expounds upon the many ways in which she was impacted and influenced in her time as a resident of the…
In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, we’re picking our favorite unlikely collaborations.
Kim Gordon is going on tour. Granted, it’s a book tour in support of her memoir, Girl In A Band, but the run of dates actually has some musical elements. At her North Carolina stop, for instance, Gordon will be interviewed by Superchunk and Mountain Goats drummer Jon Wurster. In Seattle, she’ll chat with Sub Pop…
Since the dissolution of Sonic Youth, Thurston Moore has kept plenty busy. This week alone, he released The Best Day, an album that features Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley and members of My Bloody Valentine. He made you a mixtape soundtracking his own perfect day. And now, in an interview with The Wall Street…
In I Made You A Mixtape, we ask our favorite musicians, actors, writers, directors, or whatevers to strut their musical savvy: We pick a theme, they make us a mix.
Thurston Moore brought an end to some longstanding things in 2011: After being caught in an affair, he separated from Kim Gordon, his wife of more than 25 years and co-founder of pioneering noise-rock band Sonic Youth—which, in the aftermath of the split, met its demise as well. Such breaks in life are rarely clean,…
“Homerpalooza” (season seven, episode 24; originally aired 5/19/1996)
Around the halfway point of “Bring The Sun/Toussaint L’Ouverture”—a 34-minute track on Swans’ new two-hour album, To Be Kind—the sounds of horses can be heard. They whinny, neigh, and clop in panic. This happens during a lull in the song, a nerve-jangling interlude that makes the noise breakdown in the middle of Sonic…
