Features
Thursday, December 15 2011
The Best Alternative Songwriters of 2011
Some of 2011's best songwriting came from artists whose work could be broadly defined as "alternative". Few of these artists fit the mold of the traditional singer-songwriter, creating music the blurs the lines defining genres.
Thursday, December 17 2009
The Best Live Albums of 2009
This has been a year teeming with one of the most robust outputs of live recordings in recent memory.
Wednesday, September 2 2009
Who Are You: Tom Waits and ‘Lowside of the Road’ by Barney Hoskyns
Waits is a deconstructionist vaudevillian with a heart who rails against cynicism; a furious bluesman blaring unabashedly about the soul-- his words and music stretch into a bizarre land, where the light is slanted, eerie.
Wednesday, July 30 2008
The Innovators
Sometimes changing the course of modern music can be surprisingly easy. Though their names may not be laced in the stars right next to Sinatra and Dylan, these mavericks will always be remembered for breaking boundaries, stretching the definitions of genres, and rewriting what the very notion of a "pop song" is.
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
Thursday, April 18 2013
Saturday Night, Sunday Morning: Gospel Music in a Secular World
Critically, commercially and historically, gospel is the great overlooked American music, maybe because few genres of music force you to confront your beliefs so immediately.
Friday, March 8 2013
Everyone Lost: Protest Art and the Iraq War
While people were killing and dying, what did it matter whether there were decent songs being sung, insightful films being produced, appropriate art being inspired? When did poetry ever stop a war?
Reviews
Tuesday, April 24 2012
Duke Robillard Jazz Trio: Wobble Walkin'
Wobble Walkin' proves Duke Robillard's skill at his craft while maintaining an understated feel.
Wednesday, October 26 2011
Tom Waits: Bad As Me
Bad As Me is a bracing, defiant attack against things as usual. Its clash and clatter are combative, but in the end -- and here's what throws the suits off -- utterly beautiful.
Monday, August 1 2011
'Tom Waits on Tom Waits' Doesn't So Much Pull Its Subject in from the Shadows as Follow Him There
Much more than a poet of the streets, Tom Waits is the dharma bum who can transmute down at the heels grotesqueries into the lyrical and even the spiritually fecund.
Monday, December 7 2009
Tom Waits: Glitter and Doom Live
The idiosyncrasy with which the long-revered songwriter has built his legacy on transpires just as fascinatingly through a live venue as it does on his studio records.
Wednesday, December 6 2006
Tom Waits: Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards
If you hear the phrases, 'The female praying mantis devours the male while they are mating. The male sometimes continues copulating even after the female has bitten off his head, and part of his upper torso,' you are listening to a Bastard.
Blogs
Monday, May 13 2013
The Rolling Stones and Tom Waits Perform "Little Red Rooster" (video)
Tom Waits joins the Rolling Stones on a recent tour stop and the world rejoices (as it should).
Friday, February 1 2013
Counterbalance No. 114: Tom Waits' 'Rain Dogs'
Inside a broken clock, splashing the wine with the 114th Most Acclaimed Album of All Time. A 1985 cult classic is this week's Counterbalance. You'll never be going back home.
Wednesday, January 9 2013
The 15 Best Tom Waits Songs
From apocalyptic blues boasts to backwoods chant-alongs, here are 15 songs that encapsulate Sir Tom's incredibly varied career.
Monday, December 17 2012
Death's Head Lullabies: Tom Waits - "That Feel"
What better way is there to end a concept album about death than with a song that spits in Death’s face?
Monday, December 10 2012
Death's Head Lullabies: Tom Waits - "I Don't Wanna Grow Up" / "Let Me Get Up on It"
Who is more suited for conveying honesty than a child, uncorrupted and unconcerned with politesse and decorum? It’s that notion Tom Waits runs with here, playing a child who for the first time is wrestling with the concept of aging, and the mortality that inevitably ends it.
News
Friday, August 5 2011
The wit and wisdom of Tom Waits
Tom Waits doesn't exactly approach an interview as opportunity for self-disclosure. He's more the hepcat who likes to play with the interviewing mouse. Still, his…
Friday, November 17 2006
The always-eccentric Tom Waits hopes you'll adopt his 'Orphans'
About halfway through an hour-long conversation on phone lines that occasionally crack and fizzle as if they are being gnawed, the talk turns to moles.…
