Mp3 blogs will become your life. As you read these words, thousands of self-anointed music experts in thick plastic glasses and headphones are furiously posting, downloading, and analyzing fresh tracks from The Knife and Of Montreal, alongside deep cuts from dusty LPs of their parents' generation.
And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead have had an extreme career arc. Their 2002 major label debut Source Tags & Codes was an era-defining work of anthemic indie rock - one of those precious high school records I could blast for weeks on end in my '89 Mazda 323, driving from one South Jersey diner to another, getting home late at night and highly caffeinated, reading LiveJournals until 4 a.m.
Jay-Z famously rapped on Kanye West's College Dropout that he's "not a businessman" but a "business, man." Cocksure, of course, but kind of an insightful self-examination.
Across four albums, Mobb Deep's primal realism vaulted them amongst hip-hop's biggest names; they rap-battled with Tupac and rhymed alongside Nas, B.I.G.
John Medeski is definitely not a physicist. Still, the 41-year-old pianist has his own convincing theory of nature: "Everything is vibration and sound.
Paul Michel's fourth album, Quiet State of Panic, filled with tracks about loneliness and wistful romance, would make the perfect soundtrack for a sequel to Wicker Park.
The Rapture are back.
After their meteoric rise in 2003 on the strength of hit single "House of Jealous Lovers," the band spent a few years out of the public eye.
It's close to midnight at the Rotunda on 40th and Walnut. On the steps outside, a cypher of about 20 hip-hop heads huddle in close as a ghetto blaster thumps old school loops and two emcees in the middle face-off: "Common nigga, you don't think that's a lie / That's like saying when I spit it I don't spit fly / That's like saying you ain't you and I ain't I / Like this ain't the Gathering it's a street word fight." The crowd goes nuts, leaning back like witnesses of a car wreck to reward the verbal beating.
In 1974, drinking buddies John Lennon and Harry Nilsson decided to make a record. The Nilsson-penned, Lennon-produced result was Pussy Cats, equal parts riotous sing-along and nostalgic meditation.
Lady Sovereign is a girl who knows how to take her criticisms with a healthy grain of salt. "They can fuck off," said the 20-year-old British rapper of her detractors.