It’s a pretty hard thing to ignore — things just aren’t like they were in the 1990s, or even the 2000s, in terms of grassroots music scenes, all across the nation. Chicago is a great measuring stick for this. I can remember, that is, a time when the outdoor ampitheatre in Tinley Park (which I … Read more“Indie Rock Fires Rekindle in Chicago with Mer’s Musical Showcase”
Let me please preface this post by saying I’m a huge Soul Coughing fan and have the utmost respect for their artistic contributions in the 1990s. Their catalogue is a distinct force with, in tow, an incredible variety, dynamic and multitude of kinds of musical influences feeding its prowess. I am today dispatching from somewhat … Read more“Pontificating on Whether the Soul Coughing Renditions Would Work as Pop-Punk Versions”
In general, most of the opinions of Blur have been pretty positive, in America, in the last 20 years, matters perhaps getting a bit murky circa 2023/2024 with their questionable festival live show and band/audience relationship, centralized at Coachella and reported copiously by NME. Interestingly, upon its release, The Ballad of Darren, an album whose … Read more“On the Potential Extent to Which The Libertines Have ‘Become Blur’ with All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade.”
There’s a classic knock against Fiona Apple that she’ll take any little relationship hookup and blow it up into an astronomical disaster, provided it makes good copy in her lyrics. Well, as a TOOL fan, I’d be hypocritical to accuse her of that and forgive the penchant of Maynard James Keenan of treating a “Beastie … Read more“How Epoch Might Have Informed the de facto Emotional Authenticity of ‘Jambi’”
1 Big L – Lifestylez ov da Poor & Dangerous 2 Radiohead – OK Computer 3 PJ Harvey – Is This Desire? 4 TOOL – Aenima 5 Massive Attack – Mezzanine 6 Bone Thugs-n-Harmony – E. 1999 Eternal 7 Bjork – Post 8 The Smashing Pumpkins – Siamese Dream 9 Eminem – Slim Shady LP … Read more“Dolby’s Hot 100 — ’90s Albums (Spring 2024)”
To be honest, I haven’t really looked at pitchfork.com in a while, finding a slight problem, mind you, with their tautologically identical paragraph lengths, for one thing. It’s like, really, Pitchfork, all your paragraphs are the exact same length, and stuff? I mean, it doesn’t matter, I guess. Sometimes all the paragraphs on your entire … Read more“Led Zeppelin’s ‘Four Sticks’ as Recorded Proof That Rock Songs Shouldn’t Be ‘about’ Anything”
Now, believe me, it was never my intention to write a post about Taylor Swift. I did muster out one default-love-poem to her circa 2015, during an unusually horny phase of mine, kind of as a way of positing myself as a found art object for whom all the meaning in life has gone. I … Read more“An Old Curmudgeon Pontificating on Where Taylor Swift Would Stack up in the ’90s in Terms of Popularity”
About 80 miles or so west of London, sitting within England roughly where LA would be in relation to America, there lies, the water-flanked town of Bristol, which begat The Sundays in the late ’80s. They’re a band with a kind of an occult following, but for anyone unfamiliar, it’s like if Mazzy Star were … Read more“If You Get a Song by The Sundays in Your Head, You’re Probably Doing Alright”
At this point, obviously, nobody’s going to argue the greatness of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Cleveland’s proudest sing/song hip-hop group and overall purveyors of blistering, blissed-out and stoned-out “cool.” The “1st of tha Month” anthem is a routine denizen on social media, and, in general, if the group isn’t known as one of the weed-smokin’-est crews in … Read more“An Ironic Pontification on How Bone Stumbled upon the True Essence of Life with ‘The Crossroads’”
I’m writing this in repsonse to a headline I just saw on Bandcamp relating to the recently deceased rock musician/producer Steve Albini [1]. Now, of course, I realize it’s bad form to be critical of the dearly departed. Part of my issue, anyway, as it were, has to do with our annoying habit of speaking … Read more“Steve Albini ‘King of All Engineers’? Not So Fast”