What’s that one band that you ALWAYS see on those lists of “Artists Whose Best Album is Their First One”? It’s Wu-Tang, without any question: people treat “C.R.E.A.M.” and “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing ta F’ Wit’” like the second coming of Christ and basically throw the rest of their albums under the bus, calling them […]

Detroit rapper Black Milk burst on to the scene, to the delight of many, including me, in the 2000’s with some organic, soul-inspired beats and some fiery, street diction. 2008’s Tronic was the definite classic, full of insight into the rap game but mainly just egotistical swagger, all over those punchy, tight snares, kicks and […]

Pitchfork? What? I discovered Wolf Parade in Rolling Stone, in the reviews, saw the three and a half stars (they typically gave everything indie three and a half stars) but bee lined it to Best Buy for the CD for the group’s association with Isaac Brock, of Modest Mouse, who produced. And I put it […]

Something strange within the music industry without question is that there’s no “Best of AC/DC” disc or collection available anywhere. There’s no “The Essential AC/DC,” there’s no “Greatest Hits,” no “The Best We Could Do” or anything corny like that. The closest thing we get is probably AC/DC Live, which to be sure is at […]

Now here’s something I hadn’t known until just now: “I Will Always Love You” was originally written and also recorded by Dolly Parton, equal arbiter of The White Stripes’ magnanimous “Jolene” version, in which Jack White pleads “Jolene / I’m beggin’ of you / Please don’t take my man”. To be honest, to this day, […]

 Trip-hop is a funny style of music, in a way, because as catchy and cool as it sounds, and as vital as it can be when it’s at its best, it’s dominated to such an absurd extent by Bjork, Tricky and Massive Attack that there’s really almost no point in designating it as a thing […]

Dolby Disaster’s first decade of existence is now in the books — I still remember getting the idea in the fall of ’12 around what must have been a special glut of great new music I was encountering. This of course would have especially included Nootropics by Lower Dens, Sweet Sour by Band of Skulls […]

When I first saw the semi-famous quote from Frank Zappa, that “Government is the entertainment division of the military-industrial complex,” [1] [2] [3] I have to admit it was a hefty step ahead of me: I still believed in, if nothing else, at least our leaders’ proclivities for acting as good role models for young […]

The thought occurred to me a couple of years back, being reinforced by the fact that we’ve seen no new styles materialize, that the enterprise of visual art, as in creative art paintings, and its cultural efficacy, or power, deteriorated right before or with the onset of the pop culture icon Madonna. Wikipedia has it […]

* Now kids, we’re going to conduct dinner just the same, whether your crazy uncle XTC comes over or not. Sure, he’s been in the middle of the Serengeti with nothing but a canteen, drinking his own urine and initiating “vision quests,” as he likes to say. He** I hope he still has his OPTICAL […]