I must confess that I've never been much of an Arctic Monkeys fan. The band came along at the height of a period when hipsters were chasing every garage rock band they saw and calling them the next saviors of rock n' roll (this happened to Arctic Monkeys,...
Rock stars seem to love singing about big issues whenever possible, especially death, but rarely do they do it with any true appreciation of their subject. The usual tendency is to romanticize it – from "Last Kiss" (you are no doubt familiar with Pearl...
Some people will probably say otherwise but, really, there's nothing more intoxicating than the dark soul of a woman who has been sorely tried – especially when it's placed on top of a 1-4-5 blues progression. Voices like that are rare; anyone can sing...
The problem that so many rock bands have been suffering from lately is that they've forgotten how to have fun. At one time, rock was a silly little music genre which was lighthearted at its core, and interested in having fun above all – not making grand...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Record Store Day-issued “Sue (Or In A Season of Crime) single by David Bowie. The arc that David Bowie‘s career has appeared to take over the last forty-seven years has been a truly unique one, when you think about...
Anyone who has been paying attention over the last five years or so knows and (if pressed) will begrudgingly admit that rock n' roll has needed a transfusion of new blood for a little while. Not that all the recent rock releases have been been totally stale or...
Maybe I'm not the most progressive hip hop lover in the world, but the emcees who really spit their syllables hard and don't just try to cram as many as they can into a stanza (a.k.a. Emcees from the school of Chuck D – not Eminem) are the ones who really...
Since sidling onto the music scene at the end of 2010, The Weeknd (a.k.a. Abel Tesfaye) has steadily garnered praise and critical acclaim for his mixtapes. After attracting the attention of fellow Canadian, rapper Drake, The Weeknd spent 2011 releasing House Of...
Soundgarden bassist Ben Shepherd has a lot of big ideas. Recently, he has entertained the idea of creating a zip-line range at a location where “you can go tearing from location to location in the tree tops, but you can only get to it by boat or if you already...
It could very easily be said that 2012 was the year musicians raised their voices and proved that some sounds need technology to be heard. Folk Music reasserted its grip on imaginations as a kind of countrer-cultural movement in a most incredible way, and the public...