Punk rock and hip-hop (if not John “Working Class Hero” Lennon) brought four-letter words into the music mainstream, but it was Liz Phair who reclaimed “fuck” as active verb for the undersexed indie-rock generation. Arriving in the cute and coy wake of Juliana Hatfield, the soft-willed infantilists and a million wimpy boy bands fearful of…
At the outset of his career, Jonathan Richman was considered a radical trailblazer, precociously exploring minimalist rock years before such behavior became popular (or even acceptable). Not only was his unique approach enormously influential on later bands, original members of the Modern Lovers went on to become successful in such groups as Talking Heads (Jerry…
Sexy chanteuse Alison Goldfrapp first gained attention as a guest vocalist on Tricky’s Maxinquaye. Her honey-drenched voice caught the ear of other musicians, leading to guest spots on albums by Orbital and Add N to (X) and eventually resulted in a partnership with musician Will Gregory. The two formed Goldfrapp (the band) and together began…
Sexiness is, of course, subjective: different guys are turned on by Jenna Jameson, Tina Fey and the Olsen twins. One never knows who or what will float the boat of desire. For some, Merrill Nisker, the Canadian-born, Germany-residing electroclash provocateur known as Peaches, pushing a sex-obsessed, hip-hop-inflected update of minimalist synth bands like Suicide and…
The village of Pocahontas, Illinois (population 770) is little more than a speed bump on the Interstate at the eastern rim of the St. Louis metro area, a spot where the weaker big city radio signals begin fading to static on the car radio, replaced by sporadic country stations, farm and funeral reports and ranting…
Hard as it is to imagine in retrospect, for a brief time in the mid-’90s, America’s notoriously staid country music industry not only embraced but made stars of the Mavericks, a literate, retro-countrypolitan Florida band of R.E.M., Beatles and Cheap Trick fans fronted by a Cuban crooner of the Roy Orbison / Chris Isaak school.…
R.E.M. didn’t reinvent the wheel or demolish any stylistic barriers when the quartet popped its curly little head up from the collegiate fields of Athens, Georgia, at the beginning of the 1980s; the power pop underground already had other Byrdsian bands with jangly guitars and mumbly singers. Of course, no other band had a mumbly…
Based on Hooray for Now, few would’ve pegged Viva Voce, the Portland-based husband and wife duo of Kevin and Anita Robinson, as a band to watch. It’s not a bad album, but there’s nothing especially distinctive or memorable about it. Anita’s vocals are nice, she stirs up some decent noise with her guitars, and a…
When held up against the monumental public art installation that is Courtney Love, Hole’s records seem like measly artifacts. No other modern musician has bumrushed stardom with as vehement or desperate a sense of personal destiny. Against reason and the odds, La Love has managed to make her group the sine qua non of rising-up-angry…
In the late ’60s, when celebrities first began exploring the possibilities of multi-media fame extension, actor William Shatner, famous as Star Trek‘s Captain James Tiberius Kirk, tried his hand at expressing himself in the recording studio — with extraordinary results. The Transformed Man reveals a large ego running amok, mixing and matching melodramatic readings from…
Kathleen Edwards insists that her primary influences are Aimee Mann and Ani DiFranco, and that any resemblance to Lucinda Williams is purely coincidental. If true, it’s quite a coincidence that the Ottawa native would develop the exact same overdone, Southern hick drawl that Williams has annoyingly sported in order to aid the uninitiated in discerning…
As a lyricist, Damien Jurado is no Elvis Costello; he has yet to turn a particularly clever or inventive phrase. As a vocalist, his voice falls somewhere between that of a frightened donkey and a forlorn Labrador retriever. Yet, when Jurado’s earnest, awkward voice sings his simple, plainspoken tales of average folks caught in events…
If Ferris Bueller had taken his day off in Berlin instead of Chicago, the music on his car stereo would’ve sounded a lot like Klee. The Cologne trio offers a perfect soundtrack for German-language versions of John Hughes’ ’80s teenage films. The band is heavily indebted to the danceable rock of the 1985-’87 configurations of…
It’s probably a little unfair to complain that a cover song is the best track on an album when that song is Wire’s “The 15th” — just about the only albums that song wouldn’t be the best cut on are Revolver and The Velvet Underground and Nico. However, it’s a cause for concern when the…
Contemporaries of the electroclash movement but not truly a part of it, Soviet rank among the very best of the synth-pop revivalists. This is almost entirely due to the songwriting skill of Keith Ruggerio, a New Yorker possessing a deliriously faux-Neil Tennant English accent and the inability to pen an unmemorable tune. Ruggerio claims it…
Where other members of New York’s turn-of-the-century new wave resurgence (the Rapture, !!!, Interpol) zero in on and review aspects of one or two beloved ’80s bands, My Favorite’s sound is a crazy-quilt of elements from various sources. Love at Absolute Zero might best be described as Grant McLennan of the Go-Betweens jamming with Rio-era…
“Furtive” is the best adjective to describe the sound of the xx. On their self- titled debut, the young London band conjures up the image of shy teenagers attempting to shag in her room while her parents stubbornly stay up, watching late-night TV. Their blend of the Passions’ angular post-punk and the hushed minimalism of…
If one were to triangulate the exact point where lines drawn from Jonathan Richman, Rivers Cuomo, Robyn Hitchcock and Joe Jackson intersect, they’d find that spot occupied by a Toronto-born resident of New York City named Dan Bryk. Bryk excels in tuneful piano-based pop that combines Richman’s disarming, sometimes self-lacerating, honesty with Cuomo-styled snark and…
That Blondie may be remembered as perhaps the best singles band to emerge from the new wave era — in fact, a world-class hitmaking powerhouse — is extraordinary for those who recall the group’s humble genesis and occasionally appalling early efforts in the mid-’70s. Even after the New Yorkers had secured a recording contract, few…
In Shivaree, LA-area guitarist/bassist Duke McVinnie, keyboardist Danny McGough (from Tom Waits’ touring band) and the improbably but wondrously named vocalist Ambrosia Parsley stake out ground somewhere between the Cowboy Junkies and Sparklehorse — moody, moderately psychedelic, sometimes spooky Americana music with strong, distinctive female vocals. I Oughtta Give You a Shot in the Head…
