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Music

The 80 Best Albums of 2015

Travel back five years ago when the release calendar was rife with stellar albums. 2015 offered such an embarrassment of musical riches, that we selected 80 albums as best of the year.
Recent
Music

The Best Indie Rock of 2017

The indie rock genre is wide and unwieldy, but the musicians selected here share an awareness of one's place on the cultural-historical timeline.

Interviews

Fact and Fiction: The Mountain Goats' John Darnielle on Wrestling and the Creative Process

The prolific songwriter and now acclaimed author John Darnielle tells PopMatters how he created his wrestling-themed album Beat the Champ, what he calls the Mountain Goats' "most musically interesting record by a country mile".

Books

Human Interaction Is Nailed Down in 'Wolf In White Van'

John Darnielle's debut novel is an exploration of self-reliance, pain, and acceptance. Isn't that enough?

Music

The 100 Best Albums of the 2000s: 80-61

In this next segment of PopMatters' look back on the music of the 2000s, we examine works by British electronic pioneers, Americana legends, and Armenian metal provocateurs.

Music

All Hail the Mountain Goats: 20 Essential Songs

The 2002 release All Hail West Texas marked a turning point for the Mountain Goats, as John Darnielle went from underground home recording cult hero to wider acclaim. With this week's reissue of All Hail West Texas, we review essential tracks from the Mountain Goats' back catalog.

Mike Noren
Reviews

The Mountain Goats: 27 October 2012 - Chicago

The Mountain Goats end their Transcendental Youth tour on a triumphant note.

Music

Just Stay Alive: An Interview With John Darnielle of Mountain Goats

The Mountain Goats' John Darnielle, named by several as one of the greatest contemporary songwriters, reveals what happens behind the scenes for the new release Transcendental Youth, among many other topics.

Music

Merge Is Streaming the Mountain Goats' 'Transcendental Youth'

The latest Mountain Goats album 'Transcendental Youth' drops next week and, as is becoming traditional with indie rock, it's streaming in full this week.

Music

The Mountain Goats: All Eternals Deck

The ever-prolific and always compelling John Darnielle returns with another batch of songs haunted in ways both literal and metaphorical.

Jer Fairall
Music

The Extra Lens: Undercard

Franklin Bruno proves himself an integral part of this collaboration with John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats.

Music

Various Artists: Stroke: Songs for Chris Knox

Jeff Mangum, Yo La Tengo, Will Oldham, Stephin Merritt, the Mountain Goats, the late Jay Reatard, and dozens more pay tribute to one of the best songwriters no one has ever heard of -- and what a joy it is to listen to.

Music

Get Holy: An Interview With John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats

Upon the release of the Mountain Goats' latest album, the band's founder and songwriter talks about the literary influences on his prolific output and the biblical theme of his latest opus.

Jer Fairall
Music

Into the Void: John Darnielle on Sabbath, Extreme Metal, and Indie Rock

Begrand dives into metal fandom with the Mountain Goats' John Darnielle, who discusses the Mighty Riff, the uneasy relationship between indie and metal camps, and the life experiences behind his new book on Black Sabbath's Master of Reality.

Music

The Mountain Goats: Heretic Pride

John Darnielle has always been excitable, but on Heretic Pride he busts at the seams, giving us a record as infectiously frantic as it is dark and brooding.

Music

Searching for John Darnielle

The details of the Mountain Goats leader's life remain surprisingly vague for a confessional singer-songwriter.

Brian Heater
Music

The Mountain Goats: Get Lonely

Do goats get lonely? John Darnielle attempts to explain on the latest bucket drawn from his bottomless song well.

Music

The Mountain Goats: The Sunset Tree

John Darnielle tears into his past and paws through the bloody remains, creating a powerful set of songs from the viscera.

Peter Funk
Music

The Mountain Goats: We Shall All Be Healed

Mountain Goats have just added a further chapter in an ongoing saga of (micro) relationships examined against a backdrop of (macro) global concern, We Shall All Be Healed being the most explicit yet.

David Antrobus

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