Icon: Ella Fitzgerald By Will Friedwald “Man, woman, or child, Ella is the most!” Bing Crosby’s much-quoted praise of Ella Fitzgerald is suspiciously similar to Duke Ellington’s equally famous observation that Fitzgerald was “beyond category.” They were both right: Fitzgerald was much greater than any other jazz singer or any other female singer; over the [...]

Are you psyched for this yet? Because you should be. Admittedly, we’re biased, but young bands making their second record can do one of two things: they can hedge their bets and repeat the same formula, or they can shrug their shoulders, accept the thrown gauntlet and go for it, rising to the challenge by [...]

Remember Those Darlins? Remember when they were a rough-n-tumble bust ‘em up country-influenced band? Those days are over ladies and gents. Behold the fantastically lurid video for sneering new single “Be Your Bro,” which finds the Darlins complaining, “I just wanna run and play in the dirt with you/ you just wanna stick it in.” [...]

So a few months ago, I was reading some online interviews with Captured Tracks‘ main man Mike Sniper, and he made a passing reference to “The Pendu Scene.” To which I said, out loud, “What the fuck is the Pendu Scene?” A few frantic searches later, I had an answer: Pendu is a loose collaborative [...]

One of 2010′s unjustly ‘hidden’ treasures was the debut by Tamaryn. It was a stark, moody, moving record full of dreamlike songs that suggested Siouxsie and the Banshees on a chez lounge. Now you can correct your oversight: Tamaryn has just announced a proper nationwide tour, which will see them plying their brand of kaleidoscopic [...]

In about a month, the phenomenal Dum Dum Girls will release the four-song He Gets Me High EP to hold fans over until the group’s next full-length (about which I’m already hearing incredible things). This band is well on their way to next-level status: I was riveted watching them open for Vampire Weekend and Beach [...]

(no picture because it was a tiny venue and I didn’t want to be That Asshole) There is behavior befitting a demure young ingénue and behavior that’s expected of a reckless pop star, and then there’s Adele, the smoky-voiced singer of devastating love songs who began her brief set at the tiny New York venue [...]

So we’ve made no secret about our love of Captured Tracks. Mike Sniper is restoring everything we loved about music growing up: a sense of mystery, a shared label aesthetic, a singular focus and — above all, really — a roster of amazing bands. So it’s about time those amazing bands all got together, Traveling [...]

So we’re not trying to politicize anything, but it seems crazy for us to not at least acknowledge what’s happening in Egypt right now. So we thought we’d shine a light on a roundup of music from Egypt hosted on the excellent blog Holy Warbles — all of it streaming. If you like what you [...]

So we’ve been wanting to post this for over two months now but, inexplicably, we still do not have the unedited version of The Black Album. Just the censored one. So proceed with caution. But Sean‘s writing is so great here, it was killing me to keep this one locked up for much longer. Below, [...]

Well, fuck. I like Jack White’s freelance endeavors as much as anybody (though I’m more Dead Weather than Raconteurs), but I liked them in a, “Well, this is a cool thing for me to listen to while I wait for the next White Stripes record.” Well, apparently, there ain’t gonna be another White Stripes record. [...]

Bands reinventing themselves is nothing new, but few bands have gone through as radical a reinvention as slowcore pioneers Low. The group was always heavy — even when the tempos were slow and the guitars were spiderweb-fragile, there was an astonishing ballast to their music, as if they were leaning in close and whispering the [...]

If you’re anything like me, you’ve been heartened by the uptick in the number of indie bands who use R&B as source material. Whether it’s the ultra-haze of How to Dress Well or Autre Ne Veut‘s comparatively more traditional approach (emphasis: comparatively), there’s been an encouraging uptick in interest in the kind of slow grooves [...]

eMusic Selects alum, and recent Loose music signee Hurray for the Riff Raff continue to increase their global profile. A recent article in the Times of London focused on Essential Music of New Orleans. The picks? Fats Domino‘s, “When the Saints Go Marching In,” Irma Thomas‘s “Time is On My Side,” “Get Out of My [...]

Back when she was Salon’s TV critic, Heather Havrilesky made me laugh out loud and nod with recognition on a regular basis. So I’m thrilled that she’s turned her eagle eye on herself, penning a debut memoir that’s sad and smart and funny all rolled into one. Recently, memoirs as a genre have come under [...]

It seems like an event that all of 2010 had been building up to, and last night, it finally happened: David Letterman acknowledged Snacks the Cat. The growth of Best Coast has been truly incredible to watch. Bethany blew through lo-fi in about ten seconds, to the point where her voice, presence and talent seem [...]

There is an unwritten rule that says that music that sounds like this, 9 times out of 10, is going to be my jam. I credit it to college years spent in love with Tori Amos’s Under the Pink. On March 15th, a date that already is crammed with 50,000 excellent new releases, the good [...]

If you believe us — and you should — Grinderman’s second record was one of the best of last year. That album has been gaining momentum steadily, rather than blowing up all at once, and folks who didn’t immediately cotton to the its feral snap, in addition to being out of their minds, might find [...]

You know what I like to do when the miserable weather makes me furious? Tell lots of jokes. We got completely hammered with new albums last week, so this week is a welcome reprieve. I’m going to use the space to fire off a bunch of limp one-liners. You know how I do. Everything is [...]

R. Kelly is a genius. Sly, hilarious, clever and possessed of some of the most fantastically batshit-grandiose ideas in contemporary pop, his knack for matching outrageous conceits with deadpan delivery is bested only by the clarity of tone and depth of conviction with which he delivers his more straightforward material. He is, bar none, one [...]