music Archives -

CREATION STORIES MOVIE REVIEW Alan McGee is a Scottish businessman and music industry executive who fancies himself the godfather of modern rock music thanks to his independent Creation Records label, which gave the world My Bloody Valentine, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Primal Scream, and most notably Oasis, the greatest band that ever lived (in […]

RESPECT MOVIE REVIEW Aretha Franklin was, no question, the Queen of Soul, one incredible lady who had to deal with a LOT during her life to become the incredible legend she was. She hand-picked actress/singer Jennifer Hudson to portray her in this new biopic and honestly, we couldn’t imagine anyone else taking on this role; […]

SELENA: THE SERIES – PART 2 REVIEW The second and concluding part of Netflix’s “Selena: The Series” brings the story of Selena Quintanilla-Pérez to its sad, yet inspiring close. Christian Serratos continues her portrayal of the iconic Hispanic singer who was on the brink of global superstardom until her tragic demise that still resonates even […]

GENIUS: ARETHA SERIES REVIEW What you want? Baby, you got it! The third incarnation of National Geographic’s “Genius” series tackles one of the greatest singers to ever walk the earth, Miss Aretha Franklin. Cynthia Erivo stars in the title role, alongside Courtney B. Vance in an 8-episode journey that takes us from Aretha’s upbringing in […]

SELENA: THE SERIES REVIEW One of the greatest influences on the world of Latin music is introduced to a new generation with this new Netflix series that chronicles the life of Tejano music superstar Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, from her beginnings as child star to her emergence as a hugely successful crossover artist whose influence is still […]

THE EDDY TV MINISERIES REVIEW Netflix, Damien Chazelle, and Harry Potter & the Cursed Child author Jack Thorne (uh oh) come together to bring you a slice of the Parisian jazz scene in The Eddy. Revolving around the eponymous nightclub, the story deals with Elliott (Andre Holland) and the members of his band struggling to […]

BEASTIE BOYS STORY MOVIE REVIEW One of the big selling points for a lot of people who subscribed to Apple +’s new streaming service has been a single movie, a documentary, of sorts. But when it’s a filmed live stage show starring the two surviving Beastie Boys, with them telling the whole story of the […]

EYE ON THE PRIZE: EP. 44 PART 2 – REVIEWING THE BEST SCORE NOMINEES W/ LORENZO EMMANUEL The music review continues as Justin, Lexie, Nathan, and Lorenzo discuss the nominated scores. Did Joker‘s music fill them with dread? Did 1917‘s music stir them up emotionally? Find out! And like the last podcast, make sure to […]

EYE ON THE PRIZE: EP. 44 PART 1 – REVIEWING THE BEST SONG NOMINEE W/ LORENZO EMMANUEL Our yearly tradition continues as we gather together to render our verdict on the Oscar nominated music for the year. We start off talking about the nominated songs and…well, we had a few thoughts about these picks. Most […]

We all know the country music songwriter’s recipe: start with a stretch of hardscrabble backstory, mix in some bad luck with the ladies, stir the bottom of the bottle around, maybe sprinkle in a stint in the pokey for good measure. Rinse. Repeat. Your typical country artist could sing the blues, but somehow this feels […]

Years after crafting a sound so unique that a fledgling movement spun up around it, Portishead walked away from notoriety and their Trip-hop roots that influenced so many. Away from the dark corners and come-hither beats, punctuated by Beth Gibbons’ pained yarns of yearning and regret, away from all of it. Until they didn’t. Borne […]

It’s safe to say that if you have been pushing out music for the past 51 years, you’ve probably got a little something for everyone. It’s also a pretty good chance that not everything in your catalog is going to elicit the same enthusiasm from all audiences. For those of you who appreciate early Prog […]

It’s hard not to wax a certain amount of nostalgic about the year you’re born: it is, after all, what lights the candle of your days. That’s not lost on Josh Rouse, who reminds us that much is revealed by the concept albums an artist releases. Rouse has long revealed a wandering attention span, but […]

What do you say about Axl Rose? Where do you start? Tiny bike shorts? His interest in guitar players with interesting head gear choices (black top hat with silver conch shells/an upside down KFC bucket)? His Noel Gallagheresqe inability to properly use words when describing things (Noel-“SLOWLY walking down the hall, FASTER than a cannonball”/Axl-“wait […]

You’ll never accuse Archy Marshall (better known as King Krule) of waxing trite: Marshall, the artist by way of producer, has always been as versatile and fearless as he has been precocious. He forged a bumpy, art-indulged childhood into unpredictable, relentless artistic visions as a young adult, and it seems to be taking him places: […]

We figured out somewhere along the way that our Holiday Mixtape show wasn’t an annual tradition, actually. Mostly because we skipped doing it last year altogether. In retrospect, it’s probably better this way: Christmas songs tend to feel like abrupt departures from the norm, with a set of rules all their own, and a certain […]

As I write this, I am currently consuming the Jim Jarmusch documentary about the Stooges, Gimme Danger. This means nothing, other than the fact that it turns out the Stooges hung out with Nico, and that ridiculously beautiful German model had a hold (artistically!) with two massively influential bands. She is most known, of course, […]

Going to college—in and of itself, sans context—isn’t entirely remarkable. Literally thousands of people do it. But when you’re the lead singer of a coffee-infused punk band in the early 1980s, and your down time en route to picking up your Ph.D in Biochemistry is spent at the intersection of extended adolescence and minute-long thrash-centric […]

It’s kind of a trick question: when your band sounds a little gloomy to begin with, how can your audience tell when you’re despondent? Maybe that’s not fair. Maybe it’s possible that Bloodflowers, The Cure’s 2000 LP and, per Robert Smith, the end of a trilogy that began with Pornography and continued with Disintegration, is […]

Start by forgetting all you think you know. Every day is Christmas when you’re an LA Garage scene musician, and the songs are presents you can’t unwrap quickly enough: they tear through them with reckless abandon, and like musical easter eggs, there always seem to be more in waiting, right around the corner. That same […]

Let’s get into the Dream Syndicate (or perhaps not, as they didn’t get into much of anything from the years 1989-2012). Here in 2017, they’re back with new work, How Did I Find Myself Here? Spirited discussions ensue as to whether they have moved on from their previous incarnation (ca.1989), from the “Paisley Underground,” a scene […]

Wolf Alice…Wolf Alice? It’s one of those band names like 10,000 Maniacs that reminds you that band names are less about musical content and more about whats funny when you are having beers after band practice… Metallica=Metal+Vodka (not making this up) Was gonna show some more examples, but do I really need to? SO…podcast overlord […]

Are anthems nature or nurture? Maybe that seems a question easily answered, but think again: whereas so many of today’s musical tentpoles are crafted to be cranked up to Eleven at your local stadium du jour, Tom Petty’s highlighted catalog seemed birthed without the grandiosity later afforded to it by its audience. Petty tracks weren’t […]

By now, we’re familiar with the Blackalicious mojo: Gift of Gab throwing obsessive, complicated rhymes over the steady propulsive backbeat dropped by one Chief Xcel, a formula that’s earned the pair accolades. But all rocket ships launch from somewhere, and it’s clear word spread about the duo during production…how else might we factor the parade […]

Join us this week, as we discuss Band of Horses’ 2006 (turns out, debut LP, after an EP), Everything All the Time. If you love $29,000 refrigerators, majestic arpeggios, bizarre Gene Simmons infomercials, and mid-aughts sweet-sounding (if not-quite profound) proper debut for Ben Bridwell’s personal majesty, you should definitely tune in. Shane believes that this […]

Let’s be honest: Hug Of Thunder, for all of its good intentions, kind of sounds like something made by Hasbro: perhaps a giant, fluffy, crime-fighting machine—the likes of which, for all we know, could actually be one of the members of Broken Social Scene, the Toronto-based and terribly talented music collective that burst on the […]

Whatever you think of Cracker — they’ve been the subject of chart busting platitudes and some indie derision alike — it’s hard to understate the importance of David Lowery’s contribution to popular music. That’s a fact. Beyond his role in crafting earworms that burrowed their way into car stereos in the 90s, his determination to […]

SON! Pioneer of “trucker country,” Jerry Reed, turns out, falls in my sweet spot. The man was rapping (albeit with a country twang) before that was a thing, could finger-pick his way out of a wet burlap sack, and was pretty damn funny while doing so. I generally don’t care for my music and humor […]

I can sum up the way a lot of people feel about the Everly Brothers by telling you the props Ryan brought in to our show when we discussed It’s Everly Time by (wait for it) The Everly Brothers. Ryan shows up carrying a paper bag which he subsequently removed a loaf of Wonder Bread […]

In this case, buzz begat buzz when Oakland’s Melina Duterte drunkenly uploaded a batch of hastily recorded tracks to Bandcamp, and launched a sensation. Better known as Jay Som, her pop-up indie darling status seems only cemented since its home baked inception, an arrival marked by her legit label debut, Everybody Works. Duarte’s ascent, begged […]

Somehow I’ve managed to find myself concurrently watching the second installment of The Decline of Western Civilization (The Metal Years) whilst writing this up, which is pretty much apropos of nothing, other than if you haven’t seen this brilliant documentary, you definitely should. Another work worth investigating is Uncle Tupelo’s debut record, No Depression. Few […]

What a fucking tragedy. I’m not talking about when they took Surge soda off the market, or the final season of the A-Team, or even how all the eagles died because of all the DDT and shit. No, I am referring to Billie Holiday’s life. Essentially birth to death it was non-stop sadness, for no […]

We’ve been spending lots of time in the 70s, it seems, almost to the point of pricing shag carpeting. Oddly, Thin Lizzy’s Jailbreak, their undisputed US breakthrough record and the peak of their notoriety, takes me back…to 2009, when ‘Jailbreak‘ became my antidote to (or respite from) the endless cycle of Michael Jackson tracks on […]

Hi. Are you ready to be confused? Yes? Good, because I sure am. On this week’s Somebody Likes It, we cover The Yardbirds’ 1966 LP Roger the Engineer. Also known as Over Under Sideways Down. Oh, and also known as The Yardbirds. If that weren’t confusing enough, about half of this record is sixties ground-breaking […]

Lots of people go through a hippie phase. Usually in High School, or maybe Freshman year of college. Maybe you decide to drop out of college for a year, buy some kind of old van, and follow String Cheese Incident around the country selling burritos in the parking lots of their shows. I’m saying, it […]

If you peer into the festival hero shot of Michael D’Addario leaping through the roof of The Lemon Twigs’ SXSW showcase, you’ll note the giant X on his hand: despite the fawning praise, D’Addario, brother Brian and company might be primed to break big this year (they won SXSW’s Grulke Prize for Best New Act) […]

For as prolific and talented an artist as he was, this was an inscrutable man. We find him here, at the top of his talent (arguably, see also Jackson 5), and nailing it on every track. Also, this is super disco, which can play out however your mind leads you, given your leanings. Brilliant record, […]

At this point, it can be difficult to separate the legend of Joy Division from an honest account of either of their (intentional) releases, but here is what we know: on the eve of their first American tour with The Buzzcocks, frontman Ian Curtis hung himself in his kitchen. Technically, that’s where Joy Division ends. […]

Long time listeners may recall Matt Muñoz. He keeps popping up on the show, and is the person that first showed us our unofficial theme song Pink Pannies. Well ole Matt dropped on by the show this week, and took the whole damn thing over. First he picked Louder Than Bombs by the Smiths as […]

By any measure, mixtapes are always an exercise in nostalgia. In fact, whenever one of these milestone shows pop up and we start paddling the raft to Mixtape Island, we can’t help but share stories about the time when we made a mix for someone, and all the ensuing nuances: the sequencing, those tracks that […]

I’m not a sadist. Really. Just because every so often I bring out something like Slippery When Wet or Open Up and Say Ahhhh! that doesn’t mean I enjoy torturing the other show hosts, it just means I enjoy a lively discussion (after all, I have to listen to those albums too). But if you […]

Once you get past the intrigue of her backstory (PS Eliot drummer with her now Waxahatchee-fronting sister Katie, collaborator with her ex in the apostrophe sporting band Swearin’), Allison Crutchfield — freshly minted solo artist — weaves a tangled-by-way-of-intriguing tale on her first full length LP, Tourist In This Town. She may be angsty, but […]

Otis. In addition to being one of those artists that one can cite by first-name only, he can be included in the great pantheon of those that nobody doesn’t like. Possessing arguably the best voice of his generation (if not claiming the mantle “voice of his generation”), Otis Redding, tragically, left us way too soon. […]

What the hell is up with Sweden! Those motherfuckers know their way around a melody. You could spend all day making mix-tapes of Abba or Cardigans songs, but instead let me propose this. You should maybe consider listening to this episode of Somebody Likes It wherein we discuss the album Passive Agressive by Swedish band […]

Somewhere, embedded in the occasionally cracked warble of Evan Stephens Hall (which sounds like the name of a room they might play), Montclair, NJ’s Pinegrove caught stride with 2016’s Cardinal release. They presumably spent much of the rest of the year touring and floating on the accolades of reviewers’ laudatory sentiment; and to be certain, […]

It would be hard to overstate the prolific nature/work ethic/buxom beauty/absolute sweetheart nature of this week’s subject of Somebody Likes It, one Ms. Dolly Parton, with her 1973 record Jolene.  If anyone has any doubt as to the grandeur of what they’re about to encounter, just take a look at the cover–which if one weren’t […]

Prolific singer-songwriter Jason Molina released 19 albums, more than a dozen EPs, and many more singles between 1997 and his death in 2013. This week, we give a listen to the 7th and final release under the moniker Songs: Ohia; Magnolia Electric Company. For our first podcast of 2017, we welcomed special guest Matty Wishnow […]

Not all artists who grow up under dubious circumstances emerge as groundbreakers on the other side, but essentially, that’s at least one dimension of Anderson.Paak’s multifaceted rise. Paak — aka the erstwhile Breezy Lovejoy — has come a long way from a bumpy childhood that saw him crafting tracks in his bedroom, to a stunted […]

Outside of the empirical truism that ‘Bad Art & Weirdo Ideas’ is an amazing song title (and that’s not even arguable), Beach Slang are a study in certain contrasts and other constant consistencies. Lead singer James Alex fronts a punk act chiefly constructed of members half his age, and for all of his lyrical angst, […]

Hey remember that time Ronald Reagan tried to un-ironically use one of the most ironic songs of the Eighties Born in the USA (copyright Bruce Springsteen) as a campaign song? Well, the palm to forehead that followed for a lot of people 32 years ago became more like a GIF on an endless repeat this […]