Achingly lovely and heart-rending in its poignancy, “Looking for America,” the new single from Lana Del Rey, is a perfectly timed reminder that pop music can be about important topics. Engaging with the monumental challenges of the day is one … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Lana Del Rey, “Looking for America”
Championing my personal pick for the best new song of the week has been an ongoing endeavor since the start of this calendar year, and I haven’t previously had such a difficult time settling on a selection. This week brought … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Pom Pom Squad, “Honeysuckle”
A glimmering Ring Pop of a single, “I’ll Be Back Someday” could redeem high school poetry. If that task is realistically beyond the scope of any bouncy pop song (or, you know, the abilities of mere mortals), it at least … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Tegan and Sara, “I’ll Be Back Someday”
The brilliance of the extended performance piece that was The Colbert Report duly acknowledged, the portions of the program I most adored were those instances when the host’s disguise fell just enough for his inner fan to emerge. In crafting a nightly show partially dependent on the guests with some amount of celebrity, Stephen Colbert at some point figured out that the rundown could be shaped in part by his own personal predilections formed through a lifetime of obsessive attention to science fiction, fantasy novels, comics books, and other touchstones of Gen X geekery. I admired the way he lived … Continue reading This Week’s Model — The Mountain Goats with Stephen Colbert, “This Year”
Merging orchestral music with modern pop stylings often results in a sonic mess, tilting toward either the pure cheese of the disco classical that burbled up in the nineteen-seventies and -righties or the unbearable pretension of rock acts trying to expand their … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Anna Meredith, “Paramour”
Long Beard is the performing moniker employed by singer-songwriter Leslie Bear, whose 2015 debut album, Sleepwalker, stirred up admiring interest from music fans inclined towards the wistful. Recently relocated from Canada to her native New Jersey, bear acknowledges her songwriting … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Long Beard, “Sweetheart”
Back when Fridays were turned over older songs excavated from my digital collection, the edition that landed around the U.S. federal holiday Independence Day often featured a track that somehow, some way spoke to the character of the nation celebrating … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Lucy Dacus, “Forever Half Mast”
I want music to be complex and surprising. I want intricacies and subversions, devilishly clever reinvention and bursts of inspiration that upend the very foundations of pop. But sometimes — often, really — what I want more than anything is … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Sheer Mag, “Blood From a Stone”
Bob Mould writes about the impact of the Buzzcocks in his memoir, See a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Memory. As a college sophomore, Mould saw the Buzzcocks opening for Gang of Four. Enamored by what was before him, Mould intently studied the guitar work of frontman Pete Shelley. The scrutiny was obvious enough that Shelley supplemented Mould’s studies by shouting out chord changes as he made them. Elsewhere in the book, Mould recounts meeting Steve Garvey, bassist for the Buzzcocks, enthusing about the long-past show that shaped him. “I was again reminded that I’m simply part of the … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Bob Mould, “I Don’t Mind”
The press release connected to “Superbike,” the new single by Jay Som, states her goal was to sound like Cocteau Twins and Alanis Morissette. I can’t say I hear everyone’s favorite jagged little Canadian on the track, but the honey-soaked … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Jay Som, “Superbike”
