Features
Friday, December 24 2010
The 60 Best Songs of 2010
Sixty slices of musical greatness highlighted by one of the most delightful expletive-ridden hits in pop music history.
Friday, December 19 2008
The Best Albums of 2008
PopMatters presents our 60 best albums of 2008, highlighted by the return of British trip-hop legends and some infectious American indie rock by way of the Cascade Mountains.
Saturday, December 23 2006
Best Albums of 2006
At long last, the annual rite of passage, the "best of" list... Here's PopMatters picks for the best 60 records of 2006.
Columns
Friday, January 29 2010
Indie Ambition: Hold Steady
Can Craig Finn pull his bandmates with him and lift them up to his arena tour in the sky? The Rockist ponders the future of the Hold Steady.
Reviews
Monday, January 23 2012
Craig Finn: Clear Heart Full Eyes
On his first solo record, the Hold Steady frontman is backed by a more somber bar band, the kind that gets the drunks slow dancing instead of fist pumping.
Thursday, January 19 2012
Slouching Towards Brooklyn: The Hold Steady - 17 December 2011
Part of the reason it is so fun to see these guys live is because they all look like they belong to completely different bands.
Tuesday, September 13 2011
The Hold Steady + The Donkeys: 31 August 2011 - Carrboro, NC
Lead singer Craig Finn dances like a 12-year-old who has forgotten his Ritalin.
Wednesday, February 16 2011
The Hold Steady: iTunes - Live from SoHo
An acoustic session that tilts understandably towards a playlist of deflated and sadly-knowing ballads.
Tuesday, December 7 2010
The Hold Steady + Company of Thieves: 6 November 2010 - Houston
Despite the departure of keyboardist Franz Nicolay at the beginning of the year, the band still more than lives up to their reputation as a great live act.
Blogs
Wednesday, October 26 2011
The 10 Best Hold Steady Songs
The Hold Steady's music represents a delightfully perverse amalgamation of the Rolling Stones’ unbridled sexuality, Jack Kerouac’s open-road spirit, and the Replacement’s independent sensibility. No doubt, any of these 10 songs would make a great “gateway drug” for anyone interested in discovering the charms of the group for the first time.
Tuesday, November 23 2010
The Hold Steady + Company of Thieves: 19 November 2010—Dekalb, IL
Without a doubt, the Brooklyn-based Hold Steady are one of the most consistently rewarding live bands performing today.
Friday, April 30 2010
First Impressions: LCD Soundsystem, the Hold Steady, the New Pornographers and the National
A "gut reaction" to four upcoming big releases.
Monday, April 5 2010
The Hold Steady - Heaven Is Whenever (new album / stream)
The Hold Steady Heaven Is Whenever (Vagrant) Releasing: 4 May The Hold Steady have been dropping pre-release tracks from their forthcoming album, Heaven Is Whenever,…
News
Wednesday, February 1 2012
Separation time for the Hold Steady's Craig Finn
MINNEAPOLIS — Just a few weeks before he headed to Texas to make his first-ever solo album last summer, Craig Finn snuck back home to…
Tuesday, September 28 2010
The Hold Steady plays to its strengths
Usually, when a pioneering popular music force is asked to come clean about his musical heroes, the answer becomes a bit of a balk. Maybe…
Tuesday, July 22 2008
The Hold Steady enjoy their status as the world's biggest bar band
Tad Kubler says it happened backstage at England's mammoth Glastonbury Festival last summer, when 177,000 attendees were introduced to the Hold Steady. 'We walked off-stage…
Wednesday, June 6 2007
The Hold Steady hoist a beer to the art of rock 'n' roll storytelling
Talking as much as he sings during songs, Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn is like the neighborhood storyteller who draws a crowd as soon as…
