Brand new on eMusic on a Saturday(!): The Best Metal Record of 2009, Funeral Mist’s Maranatha!.
I actually yelped when I saw this in Freshly Ripped today. I have been obsessed with this record for months, going so far as to try to track down the digital distributor to see if we could get it for [...]

This came up in the office today after I got an invite to a show featuring a band called, wait for it… McDonalds. I would post a link to their Myspace, but I, *ahem*, can’t find it. I think there was an ILM thread on this at one point, but I can’t find it now.
So, [...]

Ellie Greenwich was a head coach of popular music. A motivator. A playbook writer. A guiding light. She was a bedrock member of the Brill Building team, working alongside Carole King, Burt Bacharach, and Liber & Stoller. Phil Spector turned some of her finest songs into startlingly affecting 150 second teen soap operas of sound. [...]

Doesn’t look much like a deep house maverick, does it? Something about Walter Jones, the guy, and the hauntingly perfect single he’s just released, I’ll Keep On Loving You, doesn’t seem to add up.
The ho-hum, could-be-your-postman name. The hometown (New Orleans — not exactly a dance music mecca). The fact Jones has been making music [...]

Our fall will sound like summer. Not everyone’s but certainly indie rock’s, and three bands (a trend) — the Drums, Girls and Beach Fossils — will be partially responsible. Some of their music will remind you of surf rock. More of it like the electrified cicadas of early R.E.M. Most of it like California. And [...]

NOTE: Tho it says “Jayson” in the tag, Joe actually wrote this post. He had to step out, and I am just posting it for him….I wouldn’t wanna feel like I was taking the Diddy-makes-a-solo-album approach to posting….
Tons of interesting new arrivals today. Here’s a quick roundup — let me know what I missed in [...]

This has hardly been a balmy summer. In New York it never is. But putting the swelter aside, August can be a dirge. It’s often a slow time for new releases – too many people at the beach, or hiding in arctic movie theaters, maybe. But then there is September. Seasonally, it’s the beginning of [...]

That’s Loudon Wainwright III crying. But don’t be sad for him. He’s fine! Better than fine, really. He released his 20th studio album,  High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project, on Tuesday. (Well, sort of, but we’ll get to that later.) These days Wainwright is probably best known as the pater familias of the [...]

Note: Not all of these records are UK or EU-only, but I wanted to at least showcase some of the bigger/more interesting/notable just-ins specific to overseas, beginning especially with this first record…
The xx, xx: I was waaaaaaaaaay off about this one. For some reason, I (wrongly) assumed The xx were an NME-pandering angular haircut/landfill indie [...]

Photo courtesy of Walter Rosenblum via Royal Scourge
Hey, it’s rainin records! Or, as Joe just put it a minute ago: “We got some good, weird shit in today!” Let’s take a look, shall we? Spit-shined power-pop from Brendan Benson (aka The Raconteur who didn’t physically maul the dude from the Von Bondies), a dewy-eyed, [...]

Most albums with a “best ever” rep have been heard by millions. The sort that lurk around the top 100 rock albums lists made by Rolling Stone and Time Magazine. The biggies.  The legitimate, but inescapable old guard. Thriller. Born To Run. Sgt. Pepper’s. Blonde on Blonde. London Calling. Then there are some that aren’t [...]

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, aka every non-jazz listener’s favorite jazz record. You’ll see a lot of excellent essays this week about the impact of Blue and what it has meant to jazz and culture at large since. What you won’t see are many attempts to place the record [...]

So this weekend is the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, a fact that resulted in a spirited discussion in eMusic’s editorial department about the festival and its overall worth.
I’ll spare you my own personal Rock, Rot & Ruling of the festival and will say only that, aside from maybe 3.5 – 4 acts, I [...]

In honor of the memory of Les Paul, who we have just learned passed away at the age of 94, we thought it would be appropriate to post the entirety of Lenny Kaye’s wonderfully insightful, engaging essay on the man, which he wrote as one of his Rock/Pop columns. Please read, and enjoy…
Les Paul: American [...]

I was an 11 year-old Audrey
I love show tunes. It’s taken me a while to own up, but now I say it with pride. The musical theater geek is a highly specific sort, with a few defining characteristics: a flair for the dramatic, a surplus of passion, a hormonal level to rival the most flagrantly [...]

Via beneffervescent
At long last — New Arrivals! With the issues with yesterday’s roll resolved, we have a modest batch of records to pore over and talk about today. Let’s skip the preamble and just go for it:
The Dodos, Time To Die – I never took much notice when The Dodos’ last album was blowing up [...]

Usually when I think of summer jams, I think big and bold and bright. I think of swooping Beach Boys harmonies or “Heat Wave”-y romps or, ya know, Summer Jam. I’ve noticed recently, though, the ease of which I’ve stockpiled a bunch of scratchy new lo-fi summer favorites. I know “lo-fi” is a bit of [...]

When it comes to jazz, pretty much everything I know is bullshit. I traffic in half-truths and shallow assertions and hope that no one ever asks a followup (if they do, I’m all ears no mouth). If I’m completely honest with myself — and I’m doing my best to be — then I must admit [...]

Well, she’s a singer. A singer with a style that’s hardly uncommon these days. Her self-titled debut floated onto the site last week to little fanfare, though it’s being released by Starbucks’ record label arm, Hear Music, and her single, “Boom” was nominated for an MTV Video Music Award. Jon Caramanica calls it “coffeehouse soul” [...]

Wearing Bono shades in the Secret Garden
So as many of you probably already know, Radiohead released some new music to the world recently. It’s a song for charity; specifically, it is a song in honor of Harry Patch, the last man to ever see combat in WWI. He died recently, and to commemorate him, York [...]