My grandma's friend Willy told me the funniest and most honest thing I've ever heard an old person say. This was maybe two years ago, when I was visiting the retirement home where they both live. I asked Willy how he was doing. "The medicine they're giving me for my cancer's giving me boobs," he said matter-of-factly, "but […]
"With a foot on the ground / I can turn it around / Warming up to the sound / And I'm not coming down," croons Imperial Teen masse over a percolating keyboard riff on their splendid new album, sounding like a veteran quartet with nothing to prove, but still hellbent on proving it anyway. Keeping the alternative-rock fires burning well into adu […]
Read the review, then check out Deconstructing Lana Del Rey: untangling the year's most divisive new artist. "Bob Dylan" is not his real name. The "Ramones" were not related. "Sun Ra" was from Alabama, not Saturn. The Strokes' dads are not plumbers. "Rick Ross"… look, we don't have time for this. Yes, In […]
You can only cheerfully bark the refrain "Gonna walk around / Gonna walk around / Gonna walk around and drink" so long before your feet get tired, your poor liver gives out, and the rest of the kids at the party wander off and get jobs and stop being, well, kids. Which is the point at which Craig Finn's career truly started. Over five exhilara […]
In evolutionary terms, the march of indie rock into the 21st century has been largely monkey-to-man; it's rare that a young act with pop promise takes a hard left at ape and winds up on all fours, a lion instead. Our bands have been getting smarter and more sensitive, not cannier and crueler. So what's up with Cleveland's Cloud Nothings? Like […]
Album Reviews / Spin