Our friends over at Dark Matter Coffee were kind enough to help us make it through the busy holiday season by sending us five bags of coffee. Because we at The A.V. Club believe in spreading the holiday cheer—but also in murdering adorable puppets—we’re giving away 12-ounce bags of Black Blood coffee to five lucky…

In HateSong, we ask our favorite musicians, writers, comedians, actors, and so forth to expound on the one song they hate most in the world.

Everything about Rick Ross is big. This has been the story since his first record—big voice, big man, big appetites. It’s no coincidence, then, that his artistic apex was also the moment he finally made a record as IMAX-sized as his persona, 2010’s Teflon Don. An atomic bomb of a single like “B.M.F.” had the feel of…

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This time around, we’re picking our favorite songs about giving thanks.

As far as reasons for saying thanks go, being given the single greatest day of your life seems legit, second only to either saving someone’s life or making them a parent, though either of those could account for the whole “best day of your life” thing. And while Dido’s reasons for thankfulness in 1999’s “Thank…

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This time around, we’re picking our favorite songs that feature s-p-e-l-l-i-n-g.

Being authentic is really, really hard when it makes you look uncool. In the stories we make up about ourselves—to project who we are and how we want to be perceived—we often gloss over the uglier, messier parts. Teenage girls, especially, are taught that many of their feelings and thoughts are silly, insignificant,…

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This time around, we’re picking our favorite songs that feature s-p-e-l-l-i-n-g.

On October 22, The A.V. Club and Target welcomed Phantogram to Chicago’s Thalia Hall for the first installment of a concert and video series called “It’s All Around You.” For the videos, we didn’t just rely on our crack team of pros—we also called on our readers to film the show from the audience’s perspective. The…

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This time around, we’re picking our favorite songs that feature s-p-e-l-l-i-n-g.

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This time around, we’re picking our favorite songs that feature s-p-e-l-l-i-n-g.

TV On The Radio’s fifth album, Seeds, takes its name from the chorus lyric of its last song, sung by Tunde Adebimpe: “Rain comes down like it always does / This time I’ve got seeds on ground.” It’s a thesis mantra for an album that’s foremost about unapologetic optimism, the kind of line that could be repeated eight…

The early-’00s rivalry between Backstreet Boys and ’N Sync was ostensibly ridiculous frivolity, even if it continues to have a prickly side rooted in actual sour feelings. Still, the perceived competition had the effect of pushing each group to step up its pop game, whether with juggernaut radio singles (Backstreet…

Ariel Pink was probably the prototypical home recorder of the ’00s on his Haunted Graffiti series of albums. He swore allegiance to R. Stevie Moore while nodding to Daniel Johnston and Guided By Voices by virtue of his melodic instincts alone. He favored inchoate pop gems obscured by tape hiss and rudimentary…

Being pushed into the spotlight on the back of Luxury Problems’ critical acclaim was an unlikely place for Andy Stott to end up. For nearly a decade, the Manchester-based producer made music that dwelled most comfortably in murk—dub techno that softly knocked and rolled, as though echoing from six concrete floors…

Washington, D.C. has been in the spotlight more than usual lately, and it has more to do with the recent midterm elections. The city’s music scene—in particular, the punk and hardcore scene that’s revolved for decades around the independent label Dischord Records—has been featured in the second episode of Dave Grohl’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 time around, we’re picking our favorite songs that feature s-p-e-l-l-i-n-g.

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This time around, for Sesame Street Week, we’re picking our favorite songs from the much-loved show.

No band has coaxed as many different emotions out of me over the course of 15 years as Alkaline Trio—my first and longest musical obsession. When you fall in love with a band, your affections are unalloyed. But even if you don’t know it yet, your passion will be tested. After following any artist for long enough,…