Ever been surprised by those moments when a musician takes a significant creative turn that didn't even appear to be on the horizon? It's not uncommon for fans to only be acquainted with a musician through his body of work – that's how artists are introduced to the public – so any psychological profile or assessment of musical values that listeners might develop (if that's something you're prone to doing) is based on a very outward-facing persona. In that sense,...

It's funny how things can change and evolve, and sometimes all it can take is a slightly different perspective to spur it. As a perfect example, just look at twenty-first century punk rock. Over the last few years, the genre has become so institutionalized that some quadrants of it have mutated wildly as perception in-breeds it; like when punk fused with pop and hard rock years ago, it marked the birth of emo. When punk fused with pop, hard rock,...

While Soulfly has been instrumental in seeing metal be infused with a variety of different styles since the band formed in 1997, such stylistic incorporation (including punk rock and hardcore of course, but also elements of different musics native to South America) has always been a little bittersweet for devout metalheads; for whatever reason, metal fans tend to take an 'all metal, all the time' stance to the music they like and balk at anything that doesn't fit the paradigm....

The surest way to disrupt a comfort zone is to bombard it with outside stimuli and, clearly over the last year or so, that has been precisely the plan for Mark Oliver Everett and the Eels. Following a four-year absence from recording after the release of Blinking Lights And Other Revelations, Everett broke the silence and released Hombre Lobo on June 2, 2009. Fans were in fits of ecstasy at the return and Hombre Lobo was received very well by...

Maybe it's just the power of suggestion but, while Heart That's Pounding is the singer's first album, it's impossible not to feel like you've heard Sally Seltmann before, somewhere. From the very beginning of “Harmony To My Heartbeat,” as the drums tap gently open and Seltmann meekly coaxes every ounce of attention out of anyone and everyone listening to join her in her own stolen moment, something seems familiar; it's a little sweet, a little euphoric and very, very infectious....

There are only a few guarantees in the music business. Counting on record sales is next to impossible these days stacked against digital retail and the fickle nature of it, and the timeline attached to phrases like “here today, gone tomorrow” and “fifteen minutes of fame” have been exponentially reduced; trends and fads are changing faster now than they ever before which makes most everyone's livelihood in the music business all that much more uncertain. With such instability in evidence,...

Lexicographer Samuel Johnson once wrote that, “He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man” and, truly, Iggy Pop and The Stooges had tested that adage to its' absolute extreme by 1970. Between 1968 and 1970, the pages of those music magazines that would cover the band (there weren't many) ran red with pictorials of Iggy Pop – rolling in broken glass, smearing himself with peanut butter, knicking himself with drumsticks when he...

Alright ya mugs,So here it is, your newest load o' stuff that my sticky little fingers could – shall we say – liberate from the greater clutches of the music business. I'm still a little amazed at how easy it is – I'm not gonna lie; what with the music business holding on SO tight to the intellectual property of their artists, how is it that I can take so much? It must be like they say; hold onto something...

For the last twenty-three years (at least), the Cowboy Junkies have cut a solid and celebrated career out of accentuating both the 'southern' and the 'gothic' ends of the term 'southern gothic' – essentially enhancing and focusing on those two elements and injecting some broken soul into the mix while ignoring all else. The band has poured itself into that – thereby indulging in the darker side of human psychology if only to function as the light in that darkness...

Some things are just beyond comprehension – no matter how open-minded or understanding you try to be. Are you skeptical? Here are some examples of questions that have no easy answer: 

“How is it that there are throwbacks in evolutionary development like the platypus?” 

“How – in spite of flagging ratings – does Donald Trump's The Apprentice remain on network television?”“How did it come to pass that Sing It Loud found itself signed to Epitaph Records?” Each of...