If there had never been such a thing as Chrissie Hynde someone would certainly have needed to invent her: The Ohio born singer-songwriter and frontwoman of the Pretenders emerged from the teeming…   Read Story »

Last year in the U.K., Carol Morley released Dreams Of A Life, a documentary about a woman who died in her North London apartment and was not found for three years. No one came looking. Police found…   Read Story »

If the past two weeks haven't made it clear, we are officially headlong into list season! Nothing says "holidays" quite like the internet's month-long quest to quantify standards of taste. And while…   Read Story »

When I wrote about Decibel's list of the year's best albums, I talked more about what was missing than what made it, and in a way, that was inevitable: It was a weird year for metal. I'm hesitant to…   Read Story »

In the final analysis, the first wave of British punk rock left us with a brief, fractious cacophony. The Sex Pistols imploded quickly and with a famously ferocious violence. Sham-69 and X-Ray Spex…   Read Story »

The music website FACT, which typically focuses on leftfield electronic stuff, always puts out a fascinating end-of-year list, and this year is no exception. The site has just made its contribution…   Read Story »

A brief taxonomy of prolific musicians, in terms of popularity. We have the obsessed cranks, those who toil in underground music caves without the usual industry strictures to condense their output:…   Read Story »

I swear to Christ, lists like this exist entirely to drive me nuts. Rolling Stone, apparently not done with list season even after unveiling their mesozoic best-albums list, has now dedicated an…   Read Story »

Hot on the heels of our own list of 2012's 50 best albums comes the grandaddy of 'em all, Rolling Stone. And I'm not kidding about the grandaddy thing: Their top five includes a 63-year-old dude and…   Read Story »

NPR Music has become an invaluable resource over the past couple of years, streaming a ton of great albums before their release on its website and employing some very good music writers, queen O.G.…   Read Story »