The Last Donut of the Night
J DILLA WAS NOT well as he worked to finish his now widely heralded Donuts. Friends recall him frail, tirelessly tinkering with the final tracks from...
J DILLA WAS NOT well as he worked to finish his now widely heralded Donuts. Friends recall him frail, tirelessly tinkering with the final tracks from...
Nicholas MirielloJul 11, 2014
IN SPITE of their now relatively modest reputation, Welsh pop band Super Furry Animals were among the great countercultural heroes of the trans-millen...
Alex NivenJul 4, 2014
How It Feels to Be Free traces both the idea of “the Black Revolutionary” and the lived experiences of actual revolutionaries — particularly the...
Fiona I.B. Ngô Jul 3, 2014
IN 1966, when Leonard Cohen was recording his debut album at Columbia Records’s Studio E in New York, he was assigned a producer named John Simon...
Stephen DeusnerJul 1, 2014
This is and is not the book Ellen Willis fans asked for.
Lisa LevyMay 12, 2014
A MAN CALLED DESTRUCTION records the life of pop idol-turned-cult hero Alex Chilton. “In titling his 1995 album A Man Called Destruction — his last...
Robert ReaMay 10, 2014
Carl Wilson confronts a musical work he cannot understand the merits of: Céline Dion’s Let’s Talk About Love. Every critic should be attempting these...
Elias LeightMay 1, 2014
IF DOO-WOP music explored love, disco shimmied in sex, and punk fixated on rebellion, then 1980s new wave was all about place. Well, setting, really...
Gina VivinettoApr 29, 2014
IN HIS NEW BOOK, Joel Selvin describes three different recordings of the song “Twist and Shout.” Two were not simply big hits, but seminal contributio...
Stephen DeusnerApr 27, 2014
In his new collection of essays, Fagen pays tribute to the culture that spawned his sensibility and sound.
Lary WallaceApr 16, 2014
Records Ruin the Landscape: John Cage, the Sixties, and Sound Recording
Dave MandlMar 24, 2014
With scant primary documents to his name, Bach is nonetheless the most written-upon classic composer, which has led to a fluid historical identity.
Michael MarkhamMar 10, 2014
TO GET THAT QUIVER he wanted, he’d take the reed of his saxophone and make it just the right kind of fine, applying sandpaper, fire, and knife...
Lary WallaceDec 27, 2013
In his epic new biography, Johnny Cash: The Life, Robert Hilburn explores both sides of his subject and how they were in constant conflict.
Stephen DeusnerDec 23, 2013
MAYBE IT WAS playing piano on The Hollies’s 1969 hit “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” that set the stage for the global charitable impact the child...
John-Manuel AndrioteDec 22, 2013
The Runaways: punk icons, feminist icons, hard-rock icons.
Victoria PattersonSep 1, 2013
Van Dyke Parks remembers a 1957 train ride from Princeton to Pasadena.
Van Dyke ParksJul 25, 2013
IT’S ALWAYS BEEN EASIER to admire the idea of Prince than the music of Prince. Mastering every aspect of music — its making and its marketing — he...
Lary WallaceJul 1, 2013
ALVIN LUCIER'S MUSIC 109 is one of the oddest books about music I’ve ever come across. Lucier has been an acquaintance of or collaborator with nearly...
Dave MandlMar 2, 2013
Autobiography and memento mori from hip-hop's rising memoirist
Rachel Kaadzi GhansahJan 31, 2013
Bon mots abound.
Glen RovenFeb 1, 2012
Cage, so long associated with the New York avant-garde, now strikes me as quintessentially Californian, and more specifically, Angeleno.
Marjorie PerloffNov 2, 2011
Punk’s devotees had a lot invested in how things were turning out; one’s music of choice was a territory to be defended...
Grace KrilanovichAug 4, 2011
One of the most dynamic and least recognized songwriters of his time.
Greil MarcusMay 5, 2011