Music

Black Sabbath are generally credited as the leading pioneers of heavy metal music, and rightfully so. They took some definite cues from outfits like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Blue Cheer, but their iconic use of the musical tritone, sinister lyrical content, tuned-down guitars,…

There never was a romance quite like it: beat poets/star-crossed lovers Exene Cervenka and John Doe form a little rock band with guitarist Billy Zoom and drummer D. J. Bonebrake — a list of names straight out of a Charles Bukowski novel — then…

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back is a masterpiece. The inception of old-school rap bore a political consciousness (Grand Master Flash’s The Message), as did the defining new school record…

Steve Albini boasts a legacy that is at once massive and, at the same time, pretty fucking stupid. The albums he worked on as a sound engineer comprise a significant portion of what’s considered the alt/indie rock “canon” (or whatever you would like to…

Set My Heart on Fire Immediately finds Perfume Genius making both his body and heart vulnerable, creating a profound intimacy from his preoccupations with fragility. Michael Hadreas can seem obsessed with thoughts of his own death, whether those manifest as the immediate release resulting from…

Waxahatchee’s latest succeeds according to her familiar attention to emotional precision and in pivoting to a more Americana-leaning sound. After 2017’s dark and brooding Out in the Storm it feels good to have a warm sounding record from Katie Crutchfield’s Waxahatchee project. Saint Cloud…

Tame Impala’s latest does nothing to change the narrative that Parker’s emulation of other bands borders on unintentional parody. Kevin Parker is often praised for his ability to take a sound that audiences are familiar with and contort it into something that’s somehow different,…

NO DREAM represents a thinning of Rosenstock’s post-2016 ethos. Jeff Rosenstock has spent the past decade or so getting flustered and yelling at a lot of different people in power — well, more specifically, he’s filtered his usual manic-ridden angst through a more righteous political…

Tame Impala Kevin Parker is often praised for his ability to take a sound that audiences are familiar with and contort it into something that’s somehow different, breathing new life into a lot of musical ideas that are older than he is. Parker’s passion…

“I love you / you pay my rent.” These words, sung in a chorus on the 1987 classic Actually, are probably the sharpest distillation of the uncompromising aesthetic and sociopolitical concerns which Pet Shop Boys were steeped in at this early point in their…