Queen Hit the Dance Floor on ‘Hot Space’ 40 Years Ago
Many Queen fans might not want to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Hot Space, but the album checks too many quirky boxes to ignore it.
Music Features
Frank Sinatra on Top of the Heap: Revisiting ‘Sinatra at the Sands’
Sinatra at The Sands is my favorite Frank Sinatra performance – cocky, charming but not oily, warm but not soppy. Each listen lays bare the sheer “cuckoo calculation” of it all.
Radiohead Became Worldwide Rock Stars 25 Years Ago With ‘OK Computer’
The Bends hinted at Radiohead’s potential, but OK Computer allowed Radiohead the freedom to experiment and started their progression to forward-looking music.
‘The Colour and the Shape’ Found Foo Fighters’ Peaking in Their Adolescence
Conceived under fraught circumstances and rife with youthful passion, Foo Fighters’ most cherished album, The Colour and the Shape, is also a relic, never to be replicated.
Tortoise’s Doug McCombs Untangles His Band’s Cobwebbed Past
Chicago-based post-rock icons Tortoise get nostalgic with a remix re-release, with Doug McCombs telling tales of missing tapes and giving us new updates.
Our Unknown Topography: Psych Rockers Abronia on ‘Map of Dawn’
Lyrically and sonically, psych-rock band Abronia’s Map of Dawn explores an ever-shifting landscape of creases, caves, and unreliable ground.
Janis Joplin on the Outskirts of Town
Janis Joplin didn’t just play the blues or even live the blues, she was the blues – a figure of interminable longing and loneliness: the blues incarnate.
Rain Parade’s Matt Piucci: Paisley Underground Royalty
Even four decades later, the druggy Rain Parade still sound out of time – like an immunocompromised violation of the New Wave space/music continuum.
The Case for Country Music and Its Poetry of Pain
One has to go along with the flow of existence, no matter what suffering it brings. These country music artists give form to sadness and beauty to despair.
Adam Levine’s Vanity Project: Reassessing Maroon 5’s ‘It Won’t Be Soon Before Long’ at 15
Maroon 5’s sophomore album, It Won’t Be Soon Before Long, pivoted away from their pop-punk beginnings and set them up for a decade of pop culture omnipresence.
Wilco’s Wisdom in ‘Sky Blue Sky’ Resonates 15 Years After Release
Is there such a thing as middle-aged rock? If so, it would sound like Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky with its measured simplicity and reflective intensity.