Photo Credit: Sophie Hur “I didn’t want to make something super depressing without any sense of magic,” said Sophie Allison (a.k.a Soccer Mommy) when asked about the creation of her third studio album Sometimes, Forever. The push-and-pull between lightness and heaviness is something the Nashville singer-songwriter has wrestled without across her career. While her breakthrough… Read more
Photo Credit: Kizzy O’Neal Jack Johnson has already amassed a huge following (which has directly translated to chart success) over the past two decades. On the surface, he’s probably easy to compartmentalize, the epitome of a singer-songwriter who works largely either acoustic or with minimal accompaniment, creating laid-back and mellow grooves (as suggested by a… Read more
Photo Credit: Randee St Nicholas In the nearly two decades since winning American Idol, Carrie Underwood has established herself as the rare country star that everyone can root for. She’s consistently found a tactful balance between pop and country that leaves fans of both genres largely satisfied and has steadfastly avoided wading into politics –… Read more
Photo Credit: Greg Williams Liam Gallagher’s solo work, – c’mon, you know the guy who was once voted “The Greatest Frontman of All Time” in a reader poll by Q Magazine only weeks before host Peter Kay called him a “knobhead” during the 2010 Brit Awards after throwing away his award for “best album of the past 30 years”… Read more
Photo Credit: Chuck Berry via Universal Attractions (artist management) “Hail, hail rock and roll // Deliver me from the days of old.” – Charles Edward Anderson Berry Rock and roll always had a problem orienting itself from the beginning. It is the musical product of a dozen styles of American music blended through time and… Read more
Photo Credit: CBS.com Have you ever heard the song “McFlurry” by the Sleaford Mods? Banging track. The outro consists of vocalist Jason Williamson mockingly chanting “I’ve got a Brit Award, I’ve got a Brit Award // No Surrender, No Surrender // Animal, five-day bender,” imitating the attitudes of overblown rock stars celebrating dubious awards in a played… Read more
Photo Credit: Jordan Kelsey Knight Harder Than It Looks is veteran Canadian emo rockers Simple Plan’s first new album of all-new material in six years (it follows 2016’s Taking One for the Team, which in turn was their first new album in five years), and starts with what’s probably the shortest musical psych-out in recent memory: there’s a brief… Read more
Photo Credit: Oliver Halfin Few bands have mastered the art of still being exciting after 30 years together as a band without beginning to tread water. While there might be flashier, more original, and more forward-thinking groups, Spoon has remained a reliable source of swaggering, Southern-influenced blues-rock. 2007’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, featuring the hit… Read more
Photo Credit: Paige Sara Back in 1999, as we were just on the brink of the new millennium, Jack White seemingly came out of nowhere (actually Detroit) to save rock ‘n’ roll. Or at the very least, strip it down to its basics, as in his band the White Stripes he used only an electric… Read more
Photo Credit: Getty Images for The Recording Academy (All Photos) Award show attendance has been reliably falling year-on-year and this year, the Recording Academy seemed less concerned than ever about doing anything to revert that trend, with an overlong, self-indulgent ceremony that ran for a seemingly never-ending 2 hours and 33 minutes. Beyond making a… Read more