Singles out this week
| The Phenomenal Handclap Band. | PICK OF THE WEEK | Baby (Tummy Touch) | One hesitates to use words like "authentic" as a compliment because normally they get applied to coffee-table facsimilisers li...
One last thing... LL Cool J
| LL Cool J has gone from rapping about cops to playing one in NCIS. Rich Pelley talks to him about Mamma Mia, Murdoch and music | LL Cool J. Photograph: Rex | Hi, LL! You're in NCIS: Los Angeles. Er,...
Leonard Bernstein: 'charismatic, pompous - and a great father'
| Had you been fortunate enough to be in the company of the most charismatic American conductor-composer- teacher-broadcaster of all time for long enough, it is likely that you would have heard this e...
Public Enemy's Chuck D still fighting the power
| LOS ANGELES (Billboard) – At the end of "Pirate Radio" -- the 2009 feature film about a '60s illegal rock 'n' roll radio station in Europe's North Sea -- an array of ...
Goo-goo for Gaga, but how long?
| Lady Gaga, now in 3-D -- of course. | The 23-year-old pop star who shot from wannabe to international idol in about 18 months is jumping on the "Avatar"/"Alice in Wonderland" tra...
CD reviews: Gorillaz, Broken Bells, Goldfrapp
| ARTIST: GORILLAZ | ALBUM: PLASTIC BEACH | NEW YORK (Billboard) – Gorillaz may have originated as a way for Damon Albarn to sidestep the limelight, but on the cartoon group's third album, &...
Plastic Beach
GORILLAZ | Plastic Beach (EMI) | Damon Albarn doesn't need an escape hatch or some pressure-relieving outlet any more. When Gorillaz were created, the main writer and singer for Blur was desperately s...
Sounds to savour
| The Sydney Cellar Door marks a homecoming for the Hipstones, who have just returned to Sydney to promote a new album they mixed and mastered in New York and Los Angeles during the past few months. |...
Music: N. Philly's Thee Phantom is taking hip-hop Bach to the future
| By JAMES JOHNSON | For the Daily News | Sometimes, giving up your dream isn't an option. For North Philadelphia native Jeff McNeill, also known as producer/MC Thee Phantom, these have been words to ...
Sound check: songs from the underground
12.03.10 | More articles by David Smyth | The dream of performing a gig in London is a common one for aspiring bands, but for those in Iran it raises more serious issues than dodgy vans, shared drum k...
Jay Electronica (No 745)
| This rapper is hailed in the US as a fast-rising urban legend, but his music hardly bowls you over with lyrical or musical invention | Jay Electronica ... he’s saying nothing to invoke a Professor...
Weekly music agenda: South by Southwest hits Austin, Texas
| Beginning March 12, film, interactive, and music professionals are gathered in Austin, Texas for the annual South by Southwest Conference and Festival. The music component, which begins March 17, in...
Album Review: Pavement - 'Quarantine The Past: The Best Of Pavement'
They nicked it all off The Fall, could barely carry a tune in an industrial excavator and sounded like they recorded everything in a studio made from rusty tin buckets under Stockton, California’s b...
Smells like toon spirit
| Are Gorillaz - an animated band living in a virtual world - the ultimate 21st-century pop group? | GORILLAZ may have sold 12 million albums, conquered America, scored No. 1 singles and won Brit and ...
Listed: Mary Halvorson + Home Blitz
| Mary Halvorson | Jason Bivins named guitarist/composer Mary Halvorson as one of Dusted's Destined for 2009, and she's done nothing to prove us wrong yet. Since studying with Anthony Braxton at Wesle...
Ludacris hits a new 'Low' in hip-hop
| It's Super Bowl weekend, and Ludacris is onstage at Miami's Fontainebleau hotel, where he's co-hosting a pool party with NFL stars Chad Ochocinco and Terrell Owens. At the moment, though, no one is ...
Jay-Z shows he's not the retiring type
| When Jay-Z announced he was retiring back in 2003, eyes rolled. It made no sense at the time, and even less so now. His so-called retirement lasted barely three years, and last night's sold-out show...
Clubs: Put on some green and get out there: St. Patrick's celebrations kick off today
| Celebrating St. Patrick's Day. (CP | KEVIN FRAYER) | St. Patrick's Day may be on a weekday, but that's no excuse to take it easy. | Instead, nearly everyone is moving the partying to this weekend. W...
Best Shows this week, 3/12/10
| Flobots struck gold in 2008 when Universal Republic re-released their album "Fight With Tools," which helped push the Denver hip-hop/rock band's single "Handlebars" past the platinum mark. It remain...
Music critics' picks
| Philadelphia Daily News | staff POP . . . PLUS | If there's a Guiness Book of Records entry (or beer variety) celebrating "hardest working" Irish/Celtic musician, the honor might go to Joh...
Jay-Z dazzles in diamond of show
| Jay-Z seems to defy natural law. At 40, he stands at the helm of a youth-oriented hip-hop culture, commands followers less than half his age and dares them to keep up. | His two-handed diamond sign ...
Michael Bolton performs at State Theatre in Easton
| Michael Bolton is a huge fan of Ne-Yo and Lady Gaga. That may seem surprising, given their different styles. Though he started out with a heavy metal band, Bolton has spent the last three decades fi...
Sound off
| When an 8.8-magnitude earthquake shook Chile to its core late last month, Tomas Cookman, founder of Nacional Records, was in the seaside city of Via del Mar with Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, one of the...
Lupe Fiasco Reaches Out To Jay Electronica, Explains Jay-Z Comment
| Celebrity Favorites | Please respect our exclusive game. Just a couple of weeks ago, we told you how one of the underground's favorites, Jay Electronica, said he wanted to make an album with Lupe Fi...
Why poetry and pop are not such strange bedfellows
| What is it about Yeats that is so attractive to rock stars, and why does Auden have the crowd moshing at the Forum? Graeme Thomson meets the musicians turning poetry into pop | 'Putting Yeats to roc...
'World's biggest' Latin street party will take over Miami Sunday
| Calle Ocho will conga-line its way through the streets of Miami Sunday. | The 16-block-long festival of Latin culture, music and food will attract thousands -- organizers say even millions -- of rev...
Canadian artists join in Wavin' Flag for Haiti
Musician K'naan performs Wavin' Flag during the Canada for Haiti benefit. (CBC) | A remixed version of K'naan's anthem Wavin' Flag that will be available for download Thursday at midnight pulls togeth...
Item World: Local news and views
| 'Serious' consolation | Though they didn't win best picture for "A Serious Man" at Sunday's Oscars, the Coen brothers can console themselves on a couple of counts. Their suburban farce's w...
The Big Gigs: Umphrey's McGee, Norah Jones
POP/ROCK | For the second consecutive year, Chicago's Umphrey's McGee will do a three-night stand, in support of "Mantis," its fifth studio album, featuring carefully constructed tunes with ...
John Storm Roberts obituary
| Ethnomusicologist and an early champion of world music | John Storm Roberts in 1992 at the offices of Original Music, the mail-order company he founded. Photograph: Alan Zale/New York Times | The et...
311 Talk Plans For 'Ultimate' 311 Day Show In Las Vegas
| Are you at work today? You totally shouldn't be. After all, it's 311 Day, which is practically a national holiday at this point. | Ever since March 11, 2000 - when 311 decided to perform an extended...
