Cotton Mather’s Kontiki sports almost relentless invention, vitality, toughness, brightness, and irrepressible exuberance—a powder keg full of the joy of making music.
Carly Simon’s No Secrets established what’s known as the “Carly Simon Principle”: the bond we feel with singer-songwriter music and how fans map their own meaning onto popular songs.
Carly Simon’s literate, confessional songwriting opened the door for other artists to do the same, including Olivia Rodrigo, Sara Bareilles, and Taylor Swift.
Brisk, dreamy, achingly plaintive: Rarely has such a ghostly character been maintained so steadily, and so well, as on the Judybats’ ephemeral masterpiece.
One Direction’s Take Me Home proved that masculinity is not just based on toughness, stoicism, or any of the qualities traditionally associated with it.
In Bala Desejo’s SIM SIM SIM I hear a lack of self-awareness and embarrassing naiveté that only the wellborn can afford to experience.
Mexican pop-rock and folk singer-songwriter Natalia Lafourcade releases her first album of original songs in seven years and tells PopMatters all about it.
If Chicago’s Born For This Moment is the last album of new material from the group, they exit with a welcome collection that imparts their worthy reputation.
The sonic expansion in Rayland Baxter’s If I Were a Butterfly makes for exciting and curious listening, but it also leads to a record that feels scattered.
John Oates of Hall & Oates talks about “Pushin’ a Rock” and his other new music, men’s health charity work with Movember, and the film Gringa
Indie rockers Louden Swain let their optimism shine on their victorious new single, “There’s the Rub”.
Hard to find and largely overlooked, Mary Jean & 9 Others‘ romantic pop innocence outshines some of Marshall Crenshaw’s best-known work. Crenshaw discusses the record.
