I appreciate honestly and accuracy in promotion, so I’d like to celebrate the simple guarantee offered by the trio Mountain Man in announcing new covers of John Denver songs. On their Facebook page, after pointing out they’d gone the extra … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Mountain Man, “Take Me Home, Country Roads”

“And it all feels harder than normal,” Jess Cornelius sings at the opening of the new single “No Difference,” over a spare, echoing guitar line. “And you can’t believe it’s happened again,” she continues, the last word stretched to about … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Jess Cornelius, “No Difference”

When I write about music, there are a few synonyms I might employ to avoid repetition of the word “singing.” I’m partial to “belting,” but I probably need to retire the term. How can it be applied with any accuracy … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Lizzo, “Cuz I Love You”

I’m fully prepared to defer to John Darnielle if he posits differently, but I think there’s no story from Greek mythology with more of an indie rock vibe than that of Sisyphus. The story of a egotistical king who was … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Andrew Bird, “Sisyphus”

Here’s the thing about working in higher education, as I did for about fifteen years: You get to feel booming pride for a whole fleet of young adults who go out and start putting dents in the world. Sometimes, that … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Emily Reo, “Strawberry”

Maybe someday Phoebe Bridgers will appear on every record, or at least every record worth buying. In the last sixteen months, Bridgers released her solo debut, gave all the sad kids new treasures as one-third of boygenius, and now arrives … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Better Oblivion Community Center, “Dylan Thomas”

The way Timothy Showalter tells it, creating new music to be released under his preferred moniker Strand of Oaks wasn’t his idea. On his website, Showalter even openly ruminates on the possibility that he might have reached a creative endpoint … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Strand of Oaks, “Weird Ways”

“Seventeen,” the new single from Sharon Van Etten’s album Remind Me Tomorrow, sneaks up. Gradually growing louder in volume at the beginning, the track is all beautiful tension at first, which is Van Etten’s creative comfort zone.  It holds promise … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Sharon Van Etten, “Seventeen”