In I Made You A Mixtape, we ask our favorite musicians, actors, writers, directors, or whatevers to strut their musical savvy: We pick a theme, they make us a mix.

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, we’re picking some of our favorite songs about cowboys.

The Internet features more than its share of negativity and snark—sometimes you’ve just gotta vent. But there’s plenty of room for love, too. With Fan Up, we ask pop-culture people we admire to tell us about something they really, really like.

Jessie Ware proudly wears her influences—Sade, Whitney Houston, Prince, and any number of ’80s and ’90s R&B belters—on her sleeve. But her many strengths as a songwriter and singer outweigh any possible charges of imitation, and her willingness to apply subtlety, make unexpected choices, and take risks are what make…

Thurston Moore brought an end to some longstanding things in 2011: After being caught in an affair, he separated from Kim Gordon, his wife of more than 25 years and co-founder of pioneering noise-rock band Sonic Youth—which, in the aftermath of the split, met its demise as well. Such breaks in life are rarely clean,…

When news dropped earlier this year that drone-metal kings Sunn O))) were working on an album with enigmatic singer-songwriter Scott Walker—former member of ’60s pop group The Walker Brothers, current avant-garde innovator—the mega collaboration should have been a foregone conclusion thanks in part to each artist’s…

Permanent Records is an ongoing closer look at the records that matter most.

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, we’re picking some of our favorite songs about cowboys.

As an unexpected excursion into vocoder-enhanced electronica from a folk-rock star, Neil Young’s Trans is confusing. Mashed together with a few songs from a tropical-themed project recorded months prior in Hawaii, though, it becomes absolutely confounding: The two distinct projects have no business appearing on the…

It’s impossible to pin down exactly what makes one band obscure and another band one of the biggest-selling attractions in the world. Fleetwood Mac is conspicuously the latter—the group has sold tens of millions of records, and its current stadium tour was recently extended to accommodate the demand of fans, old and…

Like so many other fans, I was introduced to Underworld via Trainspotting. The group’s “Born Slippy (NUXX)” and “Dark & Long (Dark Train)” featured prominently in the film, which I absolutely loved as an Anglophile teen. But what really got me into Underworld was going back around that time to check out Dubnobasswithmy…

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, we’re picking our songs that highlight some of our favorite guitar riffs.

Attention all Sweet Carolines and Cracklin’ Rosies: The A.V. Club is giving away two copies of Neil Diamond’s new record, Melody Road, as well as two fairly hilarious Diamond-related tees, as seen here:

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, we’re picking our songs that highlight some of our favorite guitar riffs.

The craft of pop music is all about exploiting trends; the art of pop music is about exploiting popularity. This is the story of The Beach Boys. In the band’s early days, Brian Wilson and his brothers Dennis and Carl—joined by their cousin Mike Love, and pushed by their father Murry—capitalized on the surfing craze in…

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, we’re picking our songs that highlight some of our favorite guitar riffs.

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, we’re picking our songs that highlight some of our favorite guitar riffs.

In a largely positive Washington Post review of Pinback’s 2004 album, Summer In Abaddon, critic Elaine Beebe Lapriore wrote, “Indie guitar rock has lain fallow of late, bearing less fruit of interest than 10, 20, even five years ago.” These days Lapriore’s claim comes across as dubious in retrospect: After all, 2004…

Although R&B/pop starlet Jessie J is a massive superstar in the U.K., her U.S. profile is far more low-key. Part of that is due to industry shenanigans beyond her control; for starters, her last studio album, 2013’s Alive, wasn’t even released in America. But much of her underachievement here is due to a lack of…

When is musical excess—or more specifically a carefree recording style—a beautiful thing, and when is it purely over-indulgence? With today’s artists’ ability to record wherever and whenever they want and with more ways to create music than in the past, it can be easy to get carried away, adding every sound that’s…