01/18/2010 - 10:20pm
Last week's massive earthquake in Haiti has horrified the world. All eyes seem to be on the small nation, the poorest in the Western Hemisphere, as people watch a population that has had a the rawest of raw deals dealt to it suffer through even more...
01/11/2010 - 10:40pm
Vic Chesnutt couldn't be described as a "star." Most likely, he would have bristled at the term. First and foremost, he was a songwriter. And though he never reached the heights of fame and fortune, the seventeen albums he released during his twenty...
01/04/2010 - 11:38pm
If the last year of the "double-Os" is any indication, then the coming decade will be one of growing anger directed at the richest of the rich. By now it's hardly news that there is a palpable resentment for the Goldman Sachs execs or insurance...
12/31/2009 - 12:38am
Make no mistake. When the ball drops this December 31st, there will be no shortage of music fans who will look back at this past year and say "damn, I'm glad that's over." Frankly put, 2009 was a rough year for music, a year simultaneously...
12/16/2009 - 2:02am
Here they are: the best five releases of 2009! Perhaps it goes without saying that these records have, in one way or another, all the qualities we've seen throughout the list (viewable here andhere) that make each entry so urgent and relevant--only...
12/09/2009 - 1:40am
Progressing through the list (the first part of which can be viewedhere), the changes taking place in music become more apparent. The best releases of 2009 aren't just those that took the decay of post-recession society and made something...
12/02/2009 - 1:50am
It's that time of year again: when every music rag, website and blog releases "the list." It's no mean task sifting through the countless notable CDs and sound-files that come our way every year and definitively naming "the best." Nonetheless, if...
11/23/2009 - 10:12pm
"I'm not a betting man, but if I was, even I wouldn't bet on me winning." So says Blur drummer Dave Rowntree about running for British Parliament. Rowntree is set to run in the upcoming 2010 elections as the Labour Party's candidate in the Cities of...
11/17/2009 - 11:49pm
Hip-hop fans knew what was coming in the wake of Derrion Albert's death in Chicago this past September. Here was the ultimate urban tragedy: a sixteen-year-old kid beaten to death in a blighted, neglected community. It's close to certain that the...
11/10/2009 - 9:32pm
It seems like not too long ago (and in fact, it wasn't: only two years) that Radiohead sent a buzz through the music world by announcing they were releasing their new album In Rainbows as an online "pay what you can" scheme. Now, such an occurrence...
11/03/2009 - 10:31pm
t's been a year since the world watched at Barack Obama was elected president of the United States. I remember sitting in a Chicago bar and hearing the crowd erupt into cathartic applause when the news was announced. Not only were eight years of...
10/25/2009 - 11:12am
One could say that as goes U2, so goes capitalism. Few rock bands have provided so effective a bellweather for the health of the world economy than this one. In previous eras, any strong criticism of Saint Bono and his apostles was guaranteed to be...
10/19/2009 - 9:53pm
Nowadays, the term "pop" stirs negative connotation among a great many music devotees. For some the word itself is little more than the sonic expression of everything that's wrong with the music industry--shallow, trite, and more or less divorced...
10/12/2009 - 6:19pm
“When you hear a song that is written in a way you never heard before, or you see a painting that is done in such a way that makes you go ‘wow, I never thought this shape and this color could go together,’ that opens a space in your mind and your...
10/05/2009 - 7:20pm
It's no exaggeration to say that Pittsburgh was occupied territory when the G20 descended upon it late last month. Ostensibly, the 6,000 police and National Guards that patrolled the streets during the meetings were there to protect the rights of...
