Maybe it was these tough economic times -- the sinking music industry, everyone downloading shit for free, rising unemployment. Or perhaps folks just are getting stir crazy from lack of fresh air, sitting in front of their laptops/4-tracks while their... CONTINUE READING THE 14 BEST BAND BEEFS OF 2009»
Posted on December 22, 2009 in , (50 comments)
Tags: Alice Cooper | Beck | Black Lips | Cat Stevens | Chris Cornell | Coldplay | Courtney Love | Ed O'Brien | Eminem | Fiery Furnaces | Get Up Kids | Jay Reatard | Joe Satriani | Lily Allen | Mariah Carey | Miley Cyrus | Nick Mason | Pink Floyd | Psychedelic Horseshit | Radiohead | Ryan Adams | Soundgarden | The Cure | The Flaming Lips | Trent Reznor | Vampire Weekend | Wavves | Weezer
Each year when Pitchfork posts their annual Top 100 Songs Of XXXX you can be sure to find a number of hip-hop and popular radio tracks filtered into the electronic and indie stuff. Makes sense: Those genres and/or sensibilities can... CONTINUE READING PITCHFORK'S TOP 100 SONGS OF 2009»
Posted on December 15, 2009 in (189 comments)
Tags: Smith Westerns
Halfway through the year SPIN tipped their hand by offering the 20 Greatest Albums Of 2009 ... So Far. If you remember, the list wasn't in any specific order. Their 40 Best Albums Of 2009 are, and it's interesting to... CONTINUE READING SPIN'S 40 BEST ALBUMS OF 2009»
Posted on December 8, 2009 in (170 comments)
Tags: Animal Collective
Remember how I made a few comments about the relative Britishness of NME's 50 Greatest Albums Of The '00s? Well, Q's 50 Best Albums Of 2009 takes that Britishness and raises NME a pound of bangers and mash. (Thanks for... CONTINUE READING Q'S 50 BEST ALBUMS OF 2009»
Posted on November 25, 2009 in (94 comments)
Tags: Happy Hollows
Remember every list is like a snowflake. So far this year folks have been focused on the bigger picture, offering their thoughts on the best albums of the decade. Amazon's Editors, though, clearly getting ready for the Holiday season, have... CONTINUE READING AMAZON EDITORS' BEST ALBUMS OF 2009»
Posted on November 5, 2009 in (115 comments)
Tags: The Golden Filter
Muse won "Best Act In The World Today" at last night's Q Awards, so you may not want to pay attention to what else went down in London, but Lilly Allen, Lady Gaga, and Sonic Youth also took home prizes.... CONTINUE READING 2009 Q AWARD WINNERS»
Posted on October 27, 2009 (0 comments)
Tags: Amy Winehouse | Lady Gaga | Lily Allen | Muse | Sonic Youth
You might remember when, last September at London's GQ Man Of The Year Honors show, Lily was tipsy and got into a barb-throwing spat with Elton John at the podium: The Brit queen chastised Allen for being drunk, Lily responded... CONTINUE READING LILY ALLEN - "WHO'D HAVE KNOWN"»
Posted on October 19, 2009 in (10 comments)
Tags: Elton John | Lily Allen | Mayer Hawthorne
London duo the Big Pink recently offered some of A Brief History Of Love's dusky electronic post-new romantic magic to Allen's "22," a song that could use it. Their dramatic face lift shows up as the b-side of the It's... CONTINUE READING LILY ALLEN GETS BIG PINK REMIX, CALLS OUT ED O'BRIEN»
Posted on September 15, 2009 in (36 comments)
Tags: Ed O'Brien | Interpol | Julian Plenti | Lily Allen | Radiohead | The Big Pink
As you may have noticed, Pitchfork launched their P2K: The Decade In Music feature this week, opening the gate with The Top 500 Tracks Of The 2000s. Before you complain the decade isn't done just yet, the folks at Pitchfork... CONTINUE READING PITCHFORK'S 20 GREATEST SONGS OF THE '00S (AND 15 GREATEST SONGS OF 2009 SO FAR)»
Posted on August 21, 2009 in (305 comments)
Earlier this morning, British DJ/television presenter Lauren Laverne announced the dozen 2009 Mercury nominees at London's Hospital Club. The prize, of course, is for the UK's album of the year award. First things first: In order to be eligible, the... CONTINUE READING MERCURY PRIZE 2009 NOMINEES»
Posted on July 21, 2009 in (65 comments)
Tags: Bat For Lashes | Florence And The Machine | Friendly Fires | Girls | Glasvegas | Kasabian | La Roux | Led Bib | Lisa Hannigan | Mercury Prize | Speech Debelle | Sundance | Sweet Billy Pilgrim | The Horrors | The Invisible
In this clip, Lily Allen at 22 is a cute girl with perfect hair and fantastic lipstick application technique that any guy would hit on in a bar. And the 30-year-old version of herself she sees in the mirror is... CONTINUE READING NEW LILY ALLEN VIDEO - "22"»
Posted on July 13, 2009 in (8 comments)
Tags: Lily Allen | Mercury Prize | Speech Debelle | Tanlines
You first heard her anti-homophobia anthem as (the ostensibly George W-referencing) "Guess Who Batman?," but when the song resurfaced on It's Not Me, It's You, it came with some blunt "Fuck You" titling. Now it has a video sung and... CONTINUE READING NEW LILY ALLEN VIDEO - "FUCK YOU"»
Posted on June 22, 2009 in (10 comments)
Tags: Lily Allen
"Why" is an It's Not Me, It's You b-side. It is also Lily at her most vulnerable, aww. She could be a better person, maybe that's why you don't love her? The first lines say it all: "Why aren't I... CONTINUE READING NEW LILY ALLEN - "WHY"»
Posted on May 11, 2009 (27 comments)
Tags: Dirty Three | Green Man Festival | Lily Allen | Weezer
As festival-lineup announcement season (yes, it's its own season now) continues, the most entertaining game to play with respect to headliners is "What year is this, 1991?" I thought Lolla had it wrapped with their zeitgeist grabbing spread of Tool,... CONTINUE READING 2009 AUSTIN CITY LIMITS LINE-UP OFFERS PEARL JAM, DAVE MATTHEWS BAND, BEASTIE BOYS IN CASE YOU MISSED THEM THE FIRST TIME»
Posted on April 28, 2009 (49 comments)
Tags: Austin City Limits
Before he was racking up kudos from Lykke Li, Lily Allen, and every music critic's year-end list, Bon Iver's Justin Vernon was a member of Eau Claire Memorial High School's jazz band. Last night the folk singer returned to his... CONTINUE READING BON IVER GOES BACK TO SCHOOL»
Posted on April 20, 2009 in , (18 comments)
Tags: Bon Iver | Mahalia Jackson
Music biz microblogging can be sure silly, with its potential for overblown beefs and identity theft. But it's hard to get mad at @LilyRoseAllen's cryptic concert ticket hunts or @METALFACEDOOM reviewing the new Eminem video. Yesterday we were retweeted by... CONTINUE READING WE GOT THE TWEET: THE STREETS TWEET AN EP»
Posted on April 16, 2009 in , (7 comments)
Tags: The Streets
We'll settle for Battery Park, but this Independence Day weekend, there is nowhere we'd rather be than Denmark. Lily Allen, Nick Cave, Fever Ray, Fleet Foxes, Fucked Up, Gang Gang Dance, Lil Wayne, Micachu, Oasis, Pains Of Being Pure At... CONTINUE READING KANYE, COLDPLAY, NIN HEADLINE ROSKILDE 2009»
Posted on April 16, 2009 (6 comments)
Tags: Coldplay | Kanye West | Nine Inch Nails | Roskilde | Thee Oh Sees
Following in the footsteps of Lily Allen, All-American Rejects, Fall Out Boy, Ladyhawke, and thousands of teens on YouTube, the boys in Franz Ferdinand have put a debonair spin on Britney's ubiquitous comeback single. No surprise, they make it sound... CONTINUE READING FRANZ FERDINAND COVER "WOMANIZER"»
Posted on April 7, 2009 in (31 comments)
Tags: Britney Spears | Franz Ferdinand
Microblogging service Twitter has signed up countless celebrities in recent months, and among them are some of our favorite musical artists: Trent Reznor! Colin Meloy! Ed Droste! Diddy! Stereogum Tweets too! But who can keep up with all that lunch... CONTINUE READING WE GOT THE TWEET: THE WEEK'S 50 BEST ROCK STAR TWITTERS»
Posted on March 24, 2009 in , , (50 comments)
Tags: Akron Family | Amanda Palmer | Beach House | Calvin Harris | Coldplay | Damien Jurado | Dave Matthews | Dave Navarro | Diplo | Glass Candy | Islands | Jane's Addiction | Lost | Mandy Moore | Neil Diamond | Nick Thorburn | Peter Bjorn And John | Q-Tip | Robin Pecknold | Saul Williams | Solange | Sonic Youth | SXSW | Ted Leo | Thom Yorke | Tricky | Yoko Ono
I've always found Lily's briticisms (e.g., "on a blag," "get a Chinese," etc.) even more charming than her potty mouth, so it's fun to see the pop star get an over-the-top Americana makeover. Here she's a guest on the fictional... CONTINUE READING NEW LILY ALLEN VIDEO - "NOT FAIR"»
Posted on March 21, 2009 in , (38 comments)
Tags: All Points West | Lily Allen | Mauro Refosco
After a good run on The Magic Position which netted one fake live-retirement and one junkie-drummer ouster, Patrick Wolf has reemerged from his glam cocoon with two albums worth of material (featuring a Tilda Swinton guest spot), hair gone Lily... CONTINUE READING PATRICK WOLF @ HEAVEN, LONDON 3/12/09»
Posted on March 13, 2009 in , (6 comments)
Tags: Clipse | Kanye West | Patrick Wolf | Vampire Weekend
As noted after Lily's stop at Bowery Ballroom last week, a good chunk of It's Not Me, It's You is given over to directly textual, emotional confessionals wrapped in melancholic (and occasionally drab) electro-pop garb. If she wasn't so charming,... The Tonight Show With Jay Leno'">CONTINUE READING LILY ALLEN BRINGS "THE FEAR" TO THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO»
Posted on February 17, 2009 in (16 comments)
Tags: Jay Leno | Lily Allen | The Mars Volta
When you think about it, these MySpace Secret Shows really reached their logical conclusion last night. You can just shut it down now. A few songs into a set that was all new but for "LDN" and "Smile," Lily Allen... CONTINUE READING LILY ALLEN/MATT & KIM @ BOWERY BALLROOM, NYC 2/10/09»
Posted on February 11, 2009 in , (7 comments)
Tags: Japandroids | Lily Allen | Matt And Kim | Suicide | Trouble Andrew
We've given you the Heroes comp in bits and pieces -- the Hold Steady covering Springsteen, Elbow's U2, Lily on Clash duty, Hot Chip's Joy Division, etc. Now you can stream it from start (Beck covering Dylan) to finish (Franz... CONTINUE READING STREAM WAR CHILD: HEROES»
Posted on February 10, 2009 (0 comments)
Tags: Atlas Sound | Bradford Cox | Deerhunter | Spank Rock