With the winter solstice officially upon us today, Dec. 21, Weezer are wrapping up their ambitious seasonal EP project with the final installment: Sznz: Winter.
In the lead-up to the EP’s release, Weezer shared one new song, “I Want a Dog,” a solemn acoustic number that first seems like it’s just about canine companionship, before turning into a broader meditation on human connection in the digital age. “I Want a Dog” is one of seven tracks on the Winter EP, which also includes tracks like “Iambic Pentameter,” “Sheraton Commander,...
In the lead-up to the EP’s release, Weezer shared one new song, “I Want a Dog,” a solemn acoustic number that first seems like it’s just about canine companionship, before turning into a broader meditation on human connection in the digital age. “I Want a Dog” is one of seven tracks on the Winter EP, which also includes tracks like “Iambic Pentameter,” “Sheraton Commander,...
- 12/21/2022
- by Jon Blistein
- Rollingstone.com
“I did want to make an escape film, and I didn’t know how badly we would need an escape film,” describes director Autumn de Wilde. Her sumptuous adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Emma” landed in theaters just before the pandemic forced movie houses to shutter. The timing of its release saw “Emma” make a quick jump from theaters to video on demand, where the newly quarantined masses gobbled up its bright and witty story. “One of the biggest things for me,” explains the director, “is that people have told me that it helped them through a hard time.” Watch the exclusive video interview above.
The screwball comedy is de Wilde’s feature film directorial debut. She is widely known as a photographer, famed for portraits and album covers of rockers like Elliott Smith, Beck, and Jenny Lewis. Directing was a natural evolution for her, as de Wilde notes “I’ve always been a storyteller.
The screwball comedy is de Wilde’s feature film directorial debut. She is widely known as a photographer, famed for portraits and album covers of rockers like Elliott Smith, Beck, and Jenny Lewis. Directing was a natural evolution for her, as de Wilde notes “I’ve always been a storyteller.
- 1/20/2021
- by Sam Eckmann
- Gold Derby
Kill Rock Stars has continued its 30th-anniversary celebration by releasing Mike Watt and the Black Gang’s cover of Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl.”
Recorded live on October 16th, 1998 at the Knitting Factory in Manhattan, New York, the track features Watt taking on Kathleen Hanna’s powerhouse vocals and energy. Members of the Black Gang — Wilco’s Nels Cline and Bob Lee — soundman Steve Reed all contribute backing vocals.
“Me and K [Kira Roessler] have a two bass-only band called Dos and we opened up for Bikini Kill once and that’s...
Recorded live on October 16th, 1998 at the Knitting Factory in Manhattan, New York, the track features Watt taking on Kathleen Hanna’s powerhouse vocals and energy. Members of the Black Gang — Wilco’s Nels Cline and Bob Lee — soundman Steve Reed all contribute backing vocals.
“Me and K [Kira Roessler] have a two bass-only band called Dos and we opened up for Bikini Kill once and that’s...
- 1/19/2021
- by Angie Martoccio
- Rollingstone.com
Gearing up for the reissue of Elliott Smith’s 1995 self-titled album, Palehound dropped a searing rendition of “Southern Belle.” The cover arrives on August 6th, which would have been Smith’s 51st birthday.
Palehound intensifies the song’s bustling acoustic rhythm with an electric guitar riff. “I don’t want to walk around/I don’t even want to breathe,” Ellen Kempner sings. “I live in a southern town/Where all you can do is grit your teeth.”
Palehound’s rendition is part of a series of Smith covers that...
Palehound intensifies the song’s bustling acoustic rhythm with an electric guitar riff. “I don’t want to walk around/I don’t even want to breathe,” Ellen Kempner sings. “I live in a southern town/Where all you can do is grit your teeth.”
Palehound’s rendition is part of a series of Smith covers that...
- 8/6/2020
- by Angie Martoccio
- Rollingstone.com
Christian Lee Hutson recorded so many versions of his new album, Beginners, that the day before it was finally released last month, the singer-songwriter joked with his friends about a dark possibility: “There’s still time to record it one more time.”
Hutson, 29, first began work on his new plaintive folk collection in 2014, back when he was still touring the country as an aspiring retro-country singer, performing Gram Parsons and George Jones covers at an endless string of what he now refers to as “fucking spaghetti restaurants.”
Today, Hutson is...
Hutson, 29, first began work on his new plaintive folk collection in 2014, back when he was still touring the country as an aspiring retro-country singer, performing Gram Parsons and George Jones covers at an endless string of what he now refers to as “fucking spaghetti restaurants.”
Today, Hutson is...
- 7/16/2020
- by Jonathan Bernstein
- Rollingstone.com
Three years ago, Bea Kristi uploaded a low-fi love song called “Coffee” to YouTube. Little did most listeners know it was the first song she’d written, ever. “I came home from school one day, and I think my dad had noticed that I was getting depressed and kind of bored, so he bought me a secondhand guitar,” recalls the 20-year-old London singer-songwriter. She wrote “Coffee” on her new guitar without giving it much thought — “The tempo changes halfway through, it’s dumb as fuck,” she says now — and though...
- 7/9/2020
- by Claire Shaffer
- Rollingstone.com
Musician Elliott Smith has made an abundance of legendary contributions to cinema, both in his short lifetime (he passed away at the age of 34 in 2003) as well as posthumously. He is, arguably, the greatest singer-songwriter of his generation. In film, Smith is, perhaps, most well-known for his tracks on Gus Van Sant’s Good […]
The post How the Music of Elliott Smith Lives on in Film and Television appeared first on /Film.
The post How the Music of Elliott Smith Lives on in Film and Television appeared first on /Film.
- 7/3/2020
- by Alex Arabian
- Slash Film
Kill Rock Stars have released Elliott Smith’s “Some Song,” a track from the late songwriters’ previously unreleased live album, Live at Umbra Penumbra, out August 28th.
“Some Song” first appeared on the “Needle in the Hay” seven-inch single in 1995. “Got a rock song I’d like to play,” Smith tells the crowd on the live recording, strumming the acoustic guitar. “It’s a junkie dream, makes you so uptight/Yeah it’s Halloween tonight and every night,” he sings, before approaching the brooding chorus: “Help me kill my time...
“Some Song” first appeared on the “Needle in the Hay” seven-inch single in 1995. “Got a rock song I’d like to play,” Smith tells the crowd on the live recording, strumming the acoustic guitar. “It’s a junkie dream, makes you so uptight/Yeah it’s Halloween tonight and every night,” he sings, before approaching the brooding chorus: “Help me kill my time...
- 6/30/2020
- by Angie Martoccio
- Rollingstone.com
The biting emo-folk of Phoebe Bridgers’ 2017 Stranger in the Alps established the singer-songwriter as a woeful wisecracker. Bridgers was a millennial Warren Zevon who, even if she sang about sexting instead of heroin withdrawal, shared the shrewd Seventies songwriter’s penchant for fictionalizing their own death and chronicling perpetual L.A. decay. “Nothing’s changed,” as Bridgers put it dimly on her debut, “L.A.’s all right.”
Like Zevon, Bridgers also emerged with an uncanny knack for pop songcraft and classic American songbook melody, a dexterity she spent the...
Like Zevon, Bridgers also emerged with an uncanny knack for pop songcraft and classic American songbook melody, a dexterity she spent the...
- 6/17/2020
- by Jonathan Bernstein
- Rollingstone.com
Matty Healy knows exactly how and why he’s just been canceled. It’s Tuesday afternoon, about an hour after Notes on a Conditional Form, the sprawling, undefinable fourth album from his band, the 1975, leaked online in full. Some of the band’s most hardcore fans — people who couldn’t wait the last few days for the album’s official release on May 22nd — are already buzzing about “Roadkill,” a folksy Americana-ish song on which Healy recalls a homophobic slur that was once wielded against him.
“A lot of them are coming at me,...
“A lot of them are coming at me,...
- 5/22/2020
- by Brittany Spanos
- Rollingstone.com
Elliott Smith’s 1995 self-titled second album will be reissued with a previously unreleased live album, Live at Umbra Penumbra, to mark the record’s 25th anniversary. The set will arrive August 28th via Kill Rock Stars.
To preview the collection, Kill Rock Stars shared Smith’s gripping and restless rendition of “Big Decision” from Live at Umbra Penumbra. The concert took place September 17th, 1994, at the Portland cafe Umbra Penumbra, and the record captures the earliest known recording of Smith performing as a solo act.
Along with Live at Umbra Penumbra,...
To preview the collection, Kill Rock Stars shared Smith’s gripping and restless rendition of “Big Decision” from Live at Umbra Penumbra. The concert took place September 17th, 1994, at the Portland cafe Umbra Penumbra, and the record captures the earliest known recording of Smith performing as a solo act.
Along with Live at Umbra Penumbra,...
- 5/21/2020
- by Jon Blistein
- Rollingstone.com
The Jayhawks are out Tuesday with “This Forgotten Town,” the second track off the band’s forthcoming album Xoxo. They previously dropped the Elliott Smith-esque tune “Living in a Bubble.”
The mid-tempo jangly roots-pop gem opens the band’s first album of new material since 2016’s Paging Mr. Proust. The song features vocals from lead singer Gary Louris and drummer Tim O’Reagan.
“Introducing different voices throughout the song added a new dimension to telling the story,” says the band’s bassist Marc Perlman, who co-wrote the song with Louris.
The mid-tempo jangly roots-pop gem opens the band’s first album of new material since 2016’s Paging Mr. Proust. The song features vocals from lead singer Gary Louris and drummer Tim O’Reagan.
“Introducing different voices throughout the song added a new dimension to telling the story,” says the band’s bassist Marc Perlman, who co-wrote the song with Louris.
- 5/12/2020
- by Jonathan Bernstein
- Rollingstone.com
The more emotion-driven a TV series or movie, the more important the soundtrack. And boy is Normal People, the Hulu adaptation of Sally Rooney’s wildly popular novel of the same name, driven by the emotion of its characters and world.
Normal People follows Marianne and Connell’s complicated relationship as they move from being teenagers at a small town in western Ireland into young adulthood at Dublin’s Trinity College, and showrunner Ed Guiney, directors Lenny Abrahamson and Hettie Macdonald, music supervisors Juliet Martin and Maggie Phillips, and editor Nathan Nugent have done an impressive job crafting the music landscape for this world.
“We were trying all sorts of tracks ourselves,” said Abrahamson, who mentioned Martin, Phillips, Nugent, and himself as the chief collaborators in the process. “So, as well as the work that Stephen Rennicks, the composer, was doing, it was just, again, a very organic kind of collaboration.
Normal People follows Marianne and Connell’s complicated relationship as they move from being teenagers at a small town in western Ireland into young adulthood at Dublin’s Trinity College, and showrunner Ed Guiney, directors Lenny Abrahamson and Hettie Macdonald, music supervisors Juliet Martin and Maggie Phillips, and editor Nathan Nugent have done an impressive job crafting the music landscape for this world.
“We were trying all sorts of tracks ourselves,” said Abrahamson, who mentioned Martin, Phillips, Nugent, and himself as the chief collaborators in the process. “So, as well as the work that Stephen Rennicks, the composer, was doing, it was just, again, a very organic kind of collaboration.
- 4/29/2020
- by Kayti Burt
- Den of Geek
Pretty much every singer-songwriter who achieves any kind of success on their own eventually struggles with the same question: Keep things spare, or scale up, trying out a lusher sonic palette? Some who take the latter route stumble, but Elliott Smith soared. Figure 8 — the final album he released during his lifetime, which came out 20 years ago, on April 18th, 2000 — showed how the rich yet tasteful settings he crafted with co-producers Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf only highlighted the gemlike beauty of his songs.
But the idea of Smith as an indie-folk bard hung around.
But the idea of Smith as an indie-folk bard hung around.
- 4/18/2020
- by Hank Shteamer
- Rollingstone.com
“Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way,” Jane Austen wrote in “Emma,” justifying the frivolous nature of the last novel she published before her death two years later. The central purpose — maybe even the loftiest ambition — of any film adapted from Austen’s book should be to support that claim, and to do so with enough conviction to subvert the universally acknowledged truth that some works of art are more serious than others.
Enter: Director Autumn de Wilde’s lavish but loyal “Emma” (stylized “Emma.”), that dares to imagine how — on a long enough timeline — the whole of human existence might be no more important than a straw hat shaped like a fortune cookie, or a navy blue shirt popping against a mustard peacoat, or the romantic misfortunes of an unsophisticated teenage girl as they reverberate through a vain pocket of the English gentry.
Enter: Director Autumn de Wilde’s lavish but loyal “Emma” (stylized “Emma.”), that dares to imagine how — on a long enough timeline — the whole of human existence might be no more important than a straw hat shaped like a fortune cookie, or a navy blue shirt popping against a mustard peacoat, or the romantic misfortunes of an unsophisticated teenage girl as they reverberate through a vain pocket of the English gentry.
- 2/5/2020
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
Dashboard Confessional usher in #ThrowbackThursday with a Spotify playlist that features a mix of video clips and songs to mark the release of Dashboard Confessional’s The Best Ones of the Best Ones compilation album, which will be available on Friday.
Band leader Chris Carrabba personally culled the 50-track Spotify playlist, which includes clips from a 2001 Dashboard Confessional show in Connecticut and “Behind the Song” video introductions. The playlist spans Nineties and early 2000s emo and indie punk classics from artists such as the Promise Ring, the Get Up Kids,...
Band leader Chris Carrabba personally culled the 50-track Spotify playlist, which includes clips from a 2001 Dashboard Confessional show in Connecticut and “Behind the Song” video introductions. The playlist spans Nineties and early 2000s emo and indie punk classics from artists such as the Promise Ring, the Get Up Kids,...
- 1/30/2020
- by Althea Legaspi
- Rollingstone.com
It was the final book that was published while Jane Austen was alive back in 1815, and now over 200 years later, we receive yet another version of “Emma” adapted for the big screen (you may remember the 90s version with a young Gwyneth Paltrow). The film is directed by photographer-turned-filmmaker Autumn de Wilde, in what will be her feature-length directorial debut. She has previously worked on short films, including “The Postman Dreams” for Prada, as well as music videos for artists such as Elliott Smith, Jenny Lewis, Spoon, Florence + The Machine.de Wilde is also known for her indie-rock photography, gracing the pages of Spin and Rolling Stone often, while helping shape the visual photographic identity of artists like Elliott Smith and Beck among many others.
Continue reading ‘Emma’ Trailer: Anya Taylor-Joy Is The Titular Character In Jane Austen’s Beloved Comedy at The Playlist.
Continue reading ‘Emma’ Trailer: Anya Taylor-Joy Is The Titular Character In Jane Austen’s Beloved Comedy at The Playlist.
- 11/21/2019
- by Harry Frazer
- The Playlist
Sarah Mary Chadwick’s voice has always sounded devastating — her sparse “Confetti” was one of the most moving songs of the year — and that voice sounds like it’s on the verge of breaking apart throughout “Please Daddy,” an elegy for her late father. The New Zealand–born, Melbourne-based artist can barely form the word “please” toward the end of the song, as she tries to make sense of death.
Although she built the tune from a slow-rolling piano line, gentle trumpet and flute lines, and a vocal line that...
Although she built the tune from a slow-rolling piano line, gentle trumpet and flute lines, and a vocal line that...
- 11/18/2019
- by Kory Grow
- Rollingstone.com
Lauren Alaina tugs at the heartstrings, John Calvin Abney bids farewell to his father, and Jason James gets bombastic in this week’s list of must-hear country and Americana tunes.
Jillian Cardarelli, “I Never Do This”
Produced by behind-the-scenes powerhouse Alex Kline, “I Never Do This” finds Jillian Cardarelli getting her groove back over Shania-sized rhythms and banjo hooks. It’s a song about dressing up and getting down, rooted in the same supersized stomp as your favorite hit-the-town epics from the Nineties.
John Calvin Abney, “Maybe Happy”
Written during...
Jillian Cardarelli, “I Never Do This”
Produced by behind-the-scenes powerhouse Alex Kline, “I Never Do This” finds Jillian Cardarelli getting her groove back over Shania-sized rhythms and banjo hooks. It’s a song about dressing up and getting down, rooted in the same supersized stomp as your favorite hit-the-town epics from the Nineties.
John Calvin Abney, “Maybe Happy”
Written during...
- 10/4/2019
- by Robert Crawford
- Rollingstone.com
Benjamin Franklin believed that only two things were certain in life — death and taxes — but longtime Ryan Murphy collaborator and recently elevated president of Ryan Murphy Productions Alexis Martin Woodall begs to differ. It’s all about music and smells in her estimation. “Nobody is ever going to smell the same thing you smell and feel the exact same way. And that’s how music is,” she says. “You hear a song and it puts you in a time and place. I argue that music is important in every show.”
Murphy wouldn’t disagree with Woodall on that score — they’re like a old married couple. And when it comes to a mutual love of music, they might be soulmates.
Fittingly, Woodall’s collaborations with Murphy have been hallmarked by a strong musical presence. Friday marks the premiere of the first product of Murphy’s record-breaking development deal with Netflix,...
Murphy wouldn’t disagree with Woodall on that score — they’re like a old married couple. And when it comes to a mutual love of music, they might be soulmates.
Fittingly, Woodall’s collaborations with Murphy have been hallmarked by a strong musical presence. Friday marks the premiere of the first product of Murphy’s record-breaking development deal with Netflix,...
- 9/27/2019
- by James Patrick Herman
- Variety Film + TV
That Dog were a beloved band in the Nineties whose legacy has only grown since they released their last LP, 1997’s near-perfect Retreat From the Sun. They just released a deluxe edition of their 1995 debut album, and they recently played their first show in 19 years. In an example of That Dog’s influence on today’s generation of indie rock, Allison Crutchfield of the great band Swearin’ was on hand to sing backing vocals. Now, they’ve announced a new album, Old LP, their first since Retreat From the Sun.
- 8/23/2019
- by Jon Dolan
- Rollingstone.com
Chicago – A fiery phoenix rising from grunge and punk rock ashes, Skating Polly brings youthful hope to anyone looking for in-your-face, high energy, furious live performances. The talented trio alternate instruments and create a new form of music they call “Ugly Pop.” They performed at Schuba’s in Chicago on May 2nd, 2019.
Jeff Doles of HollywoodChicago.com recently attended that show. He caught up with Peyton Bighorse, the bass guitarist, sometimes drummer, sometimes singer of Skating Polly. In addition to talking about the origins of the band, Peyton discusses a wide array of topics, including the songwriting process, the local scene in their native Oklahoma (which includes a famous local venue) and how the band continues to evolve and grow.
Peyton Bighorse of Skating Polly
Photo credit: Jeff Doles for HollywoodChicago.com
HollywoodChicago.com: How did the music scene in Oklahoma, and the local venue The Conservatory [now 89th Street] influence the band’s music and style?...
Jeff Doles of HollywoodChicago.com recently attended that show. He caught up with Peyton Bighorse, the bass guitarist, sometimes drummer, sometimes singer of Skating Polly. In addition to talking about the origins of the band, Peyton discusses a wide array of topics, including the songwriting process, the local scene in their native Oklahoma (which includes a famous local venue) and how the band continues to evolve and grow.
Peyton Bighorse of Skating Polly
Photo credit: Jeff Doles for HollywoodChicago.com
HollywoodChicago.com: How did the music scene in Oklahoma, and the local venue The Conservatory [now 89th Street] influence the band’s music and style?...
- 5/25/2019
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Once More We Saw Stars is a quietly heartbreaking memoir from Jayson Greene, a music editor at Pitchfork. It’s his first book—but the last he ever would have wanted to write. He and his wife Stacy lost their two-year-old daughter Greta in a horrifying accident—the girl was sitting with her grandmother on a park bench in New York City, when a piece of brick fell from the eighth story of a nearby building and hit her. The book begins with their shock: the hospital rooms, the funeral,...
- 5/15/2019
- by Rob Sheffield
- Rollingstone.com
The Counting Crows aren’t touring this year beyond a handful of festival dates, but frontman Adam Duritz is keeping busy by co-hosting the podcast Underwater Sunshine with his buddy James Campion. Here are five songs he played on it recently that really blew his mind.
Sunflower Bean, ”Come for Me”
I went to see this band play in Brooklyn not long ago and it was such an in-your-face rock show. They are a trio led by Julia Cumming, who reminds me of a lot of Seventies punk singers. The...
Sunflower Bean, ”Come for Me”
I went to see this band play in Brooklyn not long ago and it was such an in-your-face rock show. They are a trio led by Julia Cumming, who reminds me of a lot of Seventies punk singers. The...
- 5/13/2019
- by Andy Greene
- Rollingstone.com
A protest song from Josh Ritter, the latest punk-vaudeville from Megan Mullally and Stephanie Hunt, and Valerie June’s mesmerizing Hendrix tribute make up this week’s list of must-hear country and Americana tracks.
Leo Rondeau, “Get On With It”
While a chugging rhythm section keeps pace in the background, Nashville-by-way-of-North Dakota songwriter Leo Rondeau packs his bags and hits the road, looking for the quickest way to heal a broken heart. “I never know what I want, and in the end it’s only my fault,” he sings, shouldering...
Leo Rondeau, “Get On With It”
While a chugging rhythm section keeps pace in the background, Nashville-by-way-of-North Dakota songwriter Leo Rondeau packs his bags and hits the road, looking for the quickest way to heal a broken heart. “I never know what I want, and in the end it’s only my fault,” he sings, shouldering...
- 4/15/2019
- by Robert Crawford
- Rollingstone.com
“I believe that one can never leave home,” wrote Maya Angelou in Letter To My Daughter; “I believe that one carries the shadows, the dreams, the fears and the dragons of home under one’s skin, at the extreme corners of one’s eyes and possibly in the gristle of the earlobe.”
That said, there must be San Fernando Valley silt in Jenny Lewis’ lobes. The child SoCal film star came out as a singer-songwriter adept in the ‘00s with Rilo Kiley, flirted with Omaha’s indie scene for a hot minute,...
That said, there must be San Fernando Valley silt in Jenny Lewis’ lobes. The child SoCal film star came out as a singer-songwriter adept in the ‘00s with Rilo Kiley, flirted with Omaha’s indie scene for a hot minute,...
- 3/22/2019
- by Will Hermes
- Rollingstone.com
Christian Lee Hutson’s “Northsiders” is about memories that haunt. Hutson, an L.A.-based singer-songwriter who’s currently touring with Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst’s Better Oblivion Community Center, spends most of the Bridgers-produced song recounting a naive adolescence with nostalgic remove and striking specificity: “We were so pretentious then, didn’t trust the government,” he sings over an acoustic guitar in gentle, double-tracked vocals that recall mid-period Elliott Smith. “Said that we were communists, and thought that we invented it.”
Hutson fills “Northsiders” with similarly everyday scenes...
Hutson fills “Northsiders” with similarly everyday scenes...
- 3/15/2019
- by Jonathan Bernstein
- Rollingstone.com
Over the course of three albums, Rayland Baxter has sketched his own picture of lush Americana and oddball folk, singing songs about fishhooks and females along the way. With his latest release, Wide Awake, he presents his own version of classic pop-rock. It’s a sound that’s rich in tone, texture and the unique songwriting of a Nashville native who grew up watching his father, pedal steel legend Bucky Baxter, playing with some of the late 20th century’s most iconic frontmen.
As the guest on this week’s episode of Walking the Floor,...
As the guest on this week’s episode of Walking the Floor,...
- 1/28/2019
- by Robert Crawford
- Rollingstone.com
Jade Bird, the English singer-songwriter who is bridging the gap between country-folk and indie-pop, has announced her debut album. Jade Bird will be released April 19th via Glassnote Records.
The follow-up to the 21-year-old’s Ep Something American, the album includes the bouncy lead single “Love Has All Been Done Before,” whose chorus calls to mind the sing-alongs of early Oasis,” and her breakthrough song “Lottery.” Bird wrote all 12 of the album’s tracks, fulfilling the goal she shared with Rolling Stone in August.
“I’m hoping to write the album 100 percent by myself,...
The follow-up to the 21-year-old’s Ep Something American, the album includes the bouncy lead single “Love Has All Been Done Before,” whose chorus calls to mind the sing-alongs of early Oasis,” and her breakthrough song “Lottery.” Bird wrote all 12 of the album’s tracks, fulfilling the goal she shared with Rolling Stone in August.
“I’m hoping to write the album 100 percent by myself,...
- 1/7/2019
- by Joseph Hudak
- Rollingstone.com
The boozy new sing-along from the King of Country, the sad-eyed reinvention of an East Nashville staple and a lesson in love from a maturing country duo make up the 10 must-hear songs of the week.
Szlachetka, “Until That Echo”
Built around a chromatic guitar riff that spirals downward into darkness, “Until That Echo” is a roots-rocker for late-night drives and haunted hearts. Frontman Matt Szlachetka co-wrote the song with Scott Underwood, Train’s drummer of 20 years, resulting in a track that mixes deep-seated grooves with guitar heroics.
Maddie & Tae, “Die...
Szlachetka, “Until That Echo”
Built around a chromatic guitar riff that spirals downward into darkness, “Until That Echo” is a roots-rocker for late-night drives and haunted hearts. Frontman Matt Szlachetka co-wrote the song with Scott Underwood, Train’s drummer of 20 years, resulting in a track that mixes deep-seated grooves with guitar heroics.
Maddie & Tae, “Die...
- 12/14/2018
- by Robert Crawford
- Rollingstone.com
From Elvis’ “Blue Christmas” to Diamond Rings’ “Christmas in a Chinese Restaurant” to Merle Haggard’s “If We Make it Through December,” the holiday season has long served as a perfectly-fitting template for songs of the sad-sack variety. “I don’t mean to hate December,” Haggard sang on the latter, “it’s meant to be the happy time of year.” Christmastime gives songwriters already prone to deep despair an occasion to indulge their most morose tendencies, an excuse to provide a much-needed counter to the season’s otherwise incessantly cheery...
- 12/12/2018
- by Jonathan Bernstein
- Rollingstone.com
Rob Sheffield recently stopped by our SiriusXM studio to break down his definitive list of the 98 best songs of 1998 on the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast. To check out the full episode, press play below or download and subscribe on iTunes or Spotify.
Sheffield explained why he left off Britney Spears’ “…Baby One More Time” (it had its biggest impact in 1999), how he skipped Fastball’s “The Way” (it almost made it) and described the thinking behind his selection of Harvey Danger’s “Flagpole Sitta” as number one: “It felt...
Sheffield explained why he left off Britney Spears’ “…Baby One More Time” (it had its biggest impact in 1999), how he skipped Fastball’s “The Way” (it almost made it) and described the thinking behind his selection of Harvey Danger’s “Flagpole Sitta” as number one: “It felt...
- 11/30/2018
- by Brian Hiatt
- Rollingstone.com
Not many artists get to experience as many pop lives as Teddy Geiger. She was a teen idol by 16, with a mushy soft-rock hit, “For You I Will (Confidence),” on her hands. At 19, she starred as the romantic lead opposite future Oscar winner Emma Stone in the comedy The Rocker. After an early retirement at 21, she took a few steps back out of the spotlight and began writing songs for and with other artists, most famously becoming one of the names behind Shawn Mendes’ biggest hits (“Stitches,” “Treat You Better”).
“It was pretty natural,...
“It was pretty natural,...
- 11/14/2018
- by Brittany Spanos
- Rollingstone.com
On their last day at Los Angeles’ Sound City Studios this past June, Phoebe Bridgers brought a half-finished song to her new bandmates, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus. She had an acoustic guitar riff, a verse and half a chorus, but not much more, and she was hesitant to share her work-in-progress.
“We’re not recording this song. This is not happening,” she told Dacus and Baker at first. But they liked it so much that they began working on it with her, tossing out ideas — “What if the lyrics said this?...
“We’re not recording this song. This is not happening,” she told Dacus and Baker at first. But they liked it so much that they began working on it with her, tossing out ideas — “What if the lyrics said this?...
- 10/23/2018
- by Jonathan Bernstein
- Rollingstone.com
The 2018 Americana Music Festival and Conference gets under way in Nashville on Tuesday, with hordes of Americana artists, journalists and fans descending upon music venues, clubs and bars around Music City. This year, with an uptick in scheduled day parties and happy hours supplementing the requisite nighttime showcases, there’s a distinct SXSW vibe — proof that this hot-ticket festival is growing quickly.
More than 500 live performances are on tap, and while you won’t see them all, we suggest you make a point to catch these 21.
Fantastic Negrito (Tuesday, 11:00 p.
More than 500 live performances are on tap, and while you won’t see them all, we suggest you make a point to catch these 21.
Fantastic Negrito (Tuesday, 11:00 p.
- 9/10/2018
- by Marissa R. Moss, Brittney McKenna, Jeff Gage, Jon Freeman and Joseph Hudak
- Rollingstone.com
On September 14th, indie country-rock outfit Blitzen Trapper will release a 10th-anniversary expanded version of their breakout album Furr, which was ranked Number 13 on Rolling Stone’s 50 Best Albums of 2008. Today the Portland, Oregon-based band unveiled “Booksmart Baby,” one of 12 tracks added to the original album’s 13 to round out the upcoming double LP Furr: Deluxe Edition.
Different from the hazy, psychedelic Americana of Furr’s best-known songs like “Black River Killer” and the title track, “Booksmart Baby” is a mellow, finger-picked folk tune that runs for just under two minutes.
Different from the hazy, psychedelic Americana of Furr’s best-known songs like “Black River Killer” and the title track, “Booksmart Baby” is a mellow, finger-picked folk tune that runs for just under two minutes.
- 8/30/2018
- by Jedd Ferris
- Rollingstone.com
“I’m just an ordinary 20-year-old girl,” Jade Bird says with a shrug. “There’s nothing you can’t connect with about that.”
A quickly-growing audience seems to agree. The English singer-songwriter’s debut Ep, Something American, arrived last July on Glassnote Records, the indie label that launched Mumford & Sons, Phoenix and Chvrches in the U.S. Her recent single “Lottery,” a heartfelt romantic plea (“You used to tell me that love is a lottery…Are you still betting on me?”), hit Number 1 on Billboard‘s Adult Alternative Songs chart in April,...
A quickly-growing audience seems to agree. The English singer-songwriter’s debut Ep, Something American, arrived last July on Glassnote Records, the indie label that launched Mumford & Sons, Phoenix and Chvrches in the U.S. Her recent single “Lottery,” a heartfelt romantic plea (“You used to tell me that love is a lottery…Are you still betting on me?”), hit Number 1 on Billboard‘s Adult Alternative Songs chart in April,...
- 8/2/2018
- by Emily Zemler
- Rollingstone.com
It’s been nearly 15 years since Elliott Smith — one of the most influential singer-songwriters to emerge from the 1990s indie-rock boom — passed away in an apparent although mysterious suicide. He released just five albums during his life but most of them are great, and these days every time one hears a hushed, haunting singer-songwriter performing beautiful and incisive songs as if they were embarrassed by them, it’s hard not to note Smith’s influence on that artist..
Vanessa Carlton is a formidable artist herself — and a formidable person as well, as evidenced by her contribution to the harrowing recent New York Times accounts of victims of high-profile sexual harassers. After training as a ballet dancer, she pursued a career as a singer-songwriter and met mainstream success in the early 2000s, but has since embraced the indie route full force, releasing her most recent album “Liberman” in 2015. This year she...
Vanessa Carlton is a formidable artist herself — and a formidable person as well, as evidenced by her contribution to the harrowing recent New York Times accounts of victims of high-profile sexual harassers. After training as a ballet dancer, she pursued a career as a singer-songwriter and met mainstream success in the early 2000s, but has since embraced the indie route full force, releasing her most recent album “Liberman” in 2015. This year she...
- 7/19/2018
- by Jem Aswad
- Variety Film + TV
Cale Tyson’s last LP, 2017’s horn-adorned Careless Soul, was an exploration into fleshed-out arrangements and Muscle Shoals melodies, informed by the Texan’s love for classic honky-tonk as much as his teenage obsession with Bright Eyes. Tyson’s often discussed his desire to strip things back and veer even deeper into the Conor Oberst and Elliott Smith school of contemplation, which he does strikingly on his new song, “What Doesn’t Kill You.”
Trading horns and pedal steel for some simple, echoing acoustic guitar, Tyson finds tenderness in simplicity...
Trading horns and pedal steel for some simple, echoing acoustic guitar, Tyson finds tenderness in simplicity...
- 7/12/2018
- by Marissa R. Moss
- Rollingstone.com
The independent label sector is the wellspring of creativity in the music industry and fights hard for its market share, but for all that, it’s never really been big on celebrating itself. The annual Libera Awards, launched seven years ago by the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM) trade group, are a rare exception to that rule, and they’ve become a sort of cross between a low-key Grammys and a high-class party for the indie community — a place where you see people dressed up who you ordinarily never see dressed up except at a wedding or in a year when one of their label’s artists has a Grammy nomination. The event, presented by SoundExchange in partnership with BuzzAngle, was held Thursday night at the Best Buy Theater in New York’s Times Square, capped A2IM’s Indie Week conference and confab.
The crowd was treated...
The crowd was treated...
- 6/22/2018
- by Jem Aswad
- Variety Film + TV
Needle in the Hay is a perfect song for the Royal Tenenbaums, especially considering how messed up this family truly is. In the beginning it seems that things are going okay and that everything should be okay. But as the story progresses you can see the eventual downfall of each individual within the movie as the lies and the deceits start stacking up and finally reach levels that could just about cripple any family once they’re unleashed. Richie is a wreck since he loves his adopted sister Margot so much but can’t say it. Margot is cheating on her husband
Great Uses of Songs in Movies: Elliott Smith’s “Needle in the Hay” in The Royal Tenenbaums...
Great Uses of Songs in Movies: Elliott Smith’s “Needle in the Hay” in The Royal Tenenbaums...
- 3/2/2018
- by Wake
- TVovermind.com
Madonna‘s children get the best lullabies at bed time, if the singer’s latest video is any indication.
The Grammy winner, 59, shared a cover of Elliott Smith‘s “Between the Bars” on her Twitter page, where she’s softly singing and playing guitar during a late-night music session.
“Strumming my favorite song when everyone else is asleep,” she captioned the black and white video posted early Thursday, adding the hashtags #prayer #lullaby and #love.
This isn’t the first time Madonna has expressed her love for the track off Smith’s 1997 album Either/Or. In a 2006 interview with Q magazine,...
The Grammy winner, 59, shared a cover of Elliott Smith‘s “Between the Bars” on her Twitter page, where she’s softly singing and playing guitar during a late-night music session.
“Strumming my favorite song when everyone else is asleep,” she captioned the black and white video posted early Thursday, adding the hashtags #prayer #lullaby and #love.
This isn’t the first time Madonna has expressed her love for the track off Smith’s 1997 album Either/Or. In a 2006 interview with Q magazine,...
- 11/9/2017
- by Stephanie Petit
- PEOPLE.com
- 10/5/2017
- Pastemagazine.com
Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Cut to the Feeling” may be the song of this never-ending summer, but audiences in France and the UK have been grooving to this irresistible pop masterpiece since last December (about six months before it was available for digital download). Recorded during the creation of Jepsen’s monumental “E•Mo•Tion” LP, “Cut to the Feeling” was deemed “too cinematic” for inclusion on the record, and set aside for future use. For mere mortals, this euphoric jam would have been a career-defining milestone; for Jepsen, it was merely a B-side.
Fortunately, it wouldn’t be long before the song found a home, as its singer — one of post-Gretzky Canada’s finest cultural exports — offered it to a Montreal animation studio when she agreed to voice one of the characters in their animated feature, “Ballerina.”
Retitled “Leap!” for its impending U.S. release, the harmlessly inspirational kids...
Fortunately, it wouldn’t be long before the song found a home, as its singer — one of post-Gretzky Canada’s finest cultural exports — offered it to a Montreal animation studio when she agreed to voice one of the characters in their animated feature, “Ballerina.”
Retitled “Leap!” for its impending U.S. release, the harmlessly inspirational kids...
- 8/22/2017
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
The Notorious B.I.G. was shot to death 20 years ago on March 9, 1997. The rapper’s murder will be forever linked with that of his peer Tupac Shakur, though the pair are just in a long line of musicians who’ve shuffled off the mortal coil under less-than-clear circumstances. Even if the ink has dried on the official paperwork, rumors still abound about …
Sam Cooke (1964)
Possibly the greatest “pure” soul singer in American history, Cooke’s career was on the rise after a string of hits when he was shot to death in a seedy L.A. motel, allegedly by the hotel’s manager in self-defense.
Sam Cooke (1964)
Possibly the greatest “pure” soul singer in American history, Cooke’s career was on the rise after a string of hits when he was shot to death in a seedy L.A. motel, allegedly by the hotel’s manager in self-defense.
- 3/23/2017
- by Alex Heigl
- PEOPLE.com
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