Chuck Klosterman’s Rock* Makes Rock Music History Wobble
The further Chuck Klosterman’s alternative music history Rock* travels from its first impossible assumption, the more plausible its cultural logic becomes.
Jeremy McDonagh
Were Eric Burdon and Peter Green the greatest wits of the British Invasion?Did Sheila Jordan and Alice Coltrane invent trip-hop?Was grunge or shoegaze the greatest influence on post-rock guitar pop?I live in the UK and particularly enjoy listening to and writing about British rock, 1960s jazz, and 1980s hip hop, but my favourite band is Soundgarden. I am also interested in China and Chinese culture, and culture-adjacent topics such as music and climate change.
Mist and Raindrops Give Bayonne’s ‘Filters’ a Refreshing Glow
With Filter, Bayonne demonstrates how the lushness of adult pop can coexist with the modular logic of modern bedroom production.
The Strokes’ ‘Is This It’ Signaled the Death of Rock Journalism
Steven Hyden’s book on the Strokes, Is This It, is an entertaining and often amusing defence of a band whose importance has always been easier to understand as a cultural phenomenon than as a straightforward commercial success.
‘We Are the Beautiful Explores’ the Lasting Musical Vocabulary of Shoegaze
By extending its scope across two decades, We Are the Beautiful showcases how shoegaze dissolved into the wider vocabulary of alternative music.
Panda Bear and Sonic Boom Create Immersive Neo-Psychedelia
What feels missing from Panda Bear’s new LP is a greater willingness to let carefully chosen timbres lead to equally adventurous harmonic or structural destinations.
Xiu Xiu Successfully Evoke a David Lynchian Cinematic World
Eraserhead Xiu Xiu succeeds brilliantly as an evocation of David Lynch’s cinematic world, while proving less convincing as a recording intended to stand on its own.
‘Recomposed’ Performs a Fundamental Interpretation of the Music Industry
Recomposed explores how musicians and entrepreneurs of the “great recomposition” attempt to reconcile ecological responsibility with financial self-preservation, revealing the difficulty of pursuing climate action within market logic itself.
Croz Boyce Create Fragmentary, Beautiful Music
If Animal Collective records translated density into exhilaration, Croz Boyce work in the opposite direction, pulling things apart and seeing what remains.
Seefeel’s ‘Sol.hz’ Offers a Disorienting Clarity
Seefeel are less interested in constructing songs than sustaining a shifting field of texture, where familiar signposts dissolve as quickly as they emerge.
Joe Jackson Settles Scores on ‘Hope and Fury’
Joe Jackson’s finger-wagging and score-settling sound like a swansong. It leaves a distinctly bitter aftertaste on an otherwise remarkable career.
‘Rock of Pages’ Argues for the High of Literature in the Low of Heavy Metal
Rock of Pages makes a lively case that the theatricality of 1980s heavy metal concealed a more literate imagination than its critics would admit.
Alice Coltrane Knew No Boundaries
Rather than rescuing a forgotten figure, Cosmic Music enlarges the frame through which Alice Coltrane is seen.