LATEST BLOG POSTS

• December 22, 10:34 AM EDT

  Remembering D. Boon and the Minutemen By Rob Sheffield

  

  It's always the right day to listen to the Minutemen, but especially this week, since it was 25 years ago today that the band's singer and guitarist D. Boon was killed in a van crash in Arizona. He was just 27. The Minutemen, one of the all-time great American punk bands, hailed from the blue-collar port town of San Pedro, California -- Boon, bassist Mike Watt and drummer George Hurley. As D. Boon sang in the band's most famous song, "History Lesson Part 2," "Our band could be ... | MORE »

• December 20, 1:50 PM EDT

  Rob Sheffield's Top 25 Singles of the 2010 By Rob Sheffield

  

  1. Far East Movement, "Like a G6" Proof that God is a DJ, except sometimes the DJ is a drunk girl, which is how songs like this happen. This Number One smash is the essence of electro-thump, a gloriously trashy ride through Eighties Miami freestyle beats, with four synth-geek dudes from LA's Koreatown and their sassy Latina hype girl. (Drink up, Dev!) In a year when dance music went crazy and the whole pop world flipped for shiny-shiny club sounds, "Like a G6" topped the charts from Seo... | MORE »

• December 20, 12:07 PM EDT

  Rob Sheffield's Top 10 Albums of 2010 By Rob Sheffield

  

  1. Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy Look, life is unfair. Nietzsche died alone and forgotten in an insane asylum. Khloe Kardashian is still on television. I get why you wish the gods had given Kanye's talent to somebody smarter than Kanye, humbler than Kanye, or maybe even just somebody who doesn't get his feelings bruised every time he sees a DON'T WALK sign. He probably wishes the same thing. Kanye's struggle with his own douchebaggery, a struggle he loses ... | MORE »

• December 16, 9:09 AM EDT

  Prince's Night of Divinely Inspired Madness By Rob Sheffield

  

  Every now and then, Prince decides to try being a normal rock star. You know, the kind who does a professional arena tour where he plays the hits. But part of what makes him such an eternally fascinating star is that he lives in his own private purple world, even when he sets out to make the house quake. He never surrenders his fundamental weirdness. Like his Minnesota homie Bob Dylan, he knows in his heart that nobody wants a standard greatest-hits revue — the mystique is that on any g... | MORE »

• November 16, 2:13 AM EDT

  Nick Cave Proves His Demented Durability With Grinderman By Rob Sheffield

  

  When Nick Cave announces "This next song is for all the womanfolk in the audience," the feeling seems very mutual. In his current incarnation as the werewolf blues preacher of Grinderman, he sings about the same fatal woman who's been shooting sex-holes in his heart for his entire career. With his stern brow, half-open black shirt and slicked-back hair, Cave is like the Neil Diamond of an evil alternate universe where Caroline is not so sweet and Rosie rarely crackles, and he inspires th... | MORE »

• November 9, 3:36 AM EDT

  Steven Tyler, 'American Idol' and the Certain Disaster That Can't Come Soon Enough By Rob Sheffield

  

  How are we supposed to stand the wait? There's still a couple of months to go before Steven Tyler debuts on American Idol, but the world is already impatient to view the carnage. And those first few audition rounds don't count, because those get taped and edited, and what we're itching to see is Steven Tyler on live TV. This has the potential to be a spectacular disaster of Hindenburg proportions. I mean, this is the guy who sang the National Anthem at the Indy 500 a few years ... | MORE »

• October 4, 7:32 AM EDT

  Matador's 'Lost Weekend,' Day Three: Guided By Voices Blowout Caps Festival for the Ages By Rob Sheffield

  

  By Sunday, the revelers at "Matador at 21: The Lost Weekend" were showing signs of strain. After three days in Vegas with no sleep, no oxygen, and no food that wasn't swimming in grease and sucrose, the fans on hand for this historic indie-rock blowout were not exactly at peak freshness. In fact, most of us looked like Robert De Niro just escorted us into the back room and slammed a desk drawer on our knuckles. And right across the street from the Palms Casino, there was a billboard adve... | MORE »

• October 3, 7:49 AM EDT

  Matador's 'Lost Weekend,' Day Two: Belle & Sebastian, Cat Power and More Bring Home Label's Range By Rob Sheffield

  

  It's day two of the "Matador at 21: The Lost Weekend," the three-day festival bringing several thousand of America's most indie to the Palms Resort Casino, partying it up in an increasingly red-eyed haze. As we all learned from Robert De Niro in Casino, they pump thin air into these places to make the players light-headed enough to keep playing, even when they're losing. The same principle seems to apply to the festival, since Saturday's lineup was an eight-band marathon... | MORE »

• October 2, 9:00 AM EDT

  Matador's 'Lost Weekend,' Day One: Sonic Youth and Pavement Set the Bar Fantastically High By Rob Sheffield

  

  Welcome to Las Vegas: the first thing you see as you pull up to the Palms Casino Resort is the gigantic neon marquee proclaiming “Palms Welcomes DJ Pauly D!” But on the inside, it’s the Matador “Lost Weekend,” a three-day festival celebrating the 21st birthday of the world’s greatest rock label. The swank casino floor is swarming with indie rockers, which is oddly appropriate since the senior citizens playing the Mr. Cash-Man slot machines are dressed exa... | MORE »

• September 28, 3:41 AM EDT

  It's Official: Pavement Reunion Exceeds All Expectations By Rob Sheffield

  

  After the glow, the scene, the stage, the set, Pavement’s reunion tour begs the question: Is this the greatest reunion ever? Tonight they play Austin, after hitting Atlanta and the Virgin Free Festival over the weekend, plus five nights in New York last week where they splattered awesome all over the crowd. Even heading into the final shows, after being on the road since March, they keep slipping surprises into the set list, with Stephen Malkmus’ bitchy wit (“This song rem... | MORE »