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 talking about songs we’ve discovered via TV shows.

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, we’re talking about songs we loved from our first favorite bands.

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, we’re talking about songs we loved from our first favorite bands.

As with many strains of music, the ’80s U.K. synth-pop scene can be traced back to David Bowie. In 1976, Thin White Duke-era Bowie released Station To Station, which embellished his soul-boogie shambling with flourishes of Moog and Mellotron keyboards. The following year’s Low and “Heroes” dove into full-blown…

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.

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, we’re talking about songs we loved from our first favorite bands.

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, we’re talking about songs we loved from our first favorite bands.

Dan Deacon probably had a vision of making an accessible album when he sat down to do Gliss Riffer. The first half of the record plays to the cheap seats, with slices of catchy, hummable melodies and baldly commercial vocals seemingly designed for maximum pop appeal. This isn’t shocking—Deacon has always been a…

Often cited as pioneers of the late-’70s and early-’80s post-punk scene, The Pop Group emerged from the U.K. in 1977; its artistic peak occurred during the early days of the Thatcher administration, her politics providing the kindle for the cantankerous act’s formidable powder keg. The band bristled with a kinetic…

By some accident of genetics, Mark “BBQ” Sultan and Arish Ahmad “King” Khan are two garage-rock scuzzballs blessed with incredible soul. Sultan can sing like a genuine doo-wopper, even when he’s parked behind a jerry-rigged drum kit and supplementing his scratchy guitar with primitive kick drum, tambourine, and snare.…

Screaming Females are almost the Wes Anderson of rock at this point. Their albums, like Anderson’s films, are a repository of disparate influences and tropes, yet so completely appropriated into a form all their own that they become a highly idiosyncratic and singular vision, unmistakable for anyone else’s work. You…

When bands lose a vocalist, it’s not necessarily a mortal wound—just ask Genesis, Van Halen, or Journey, who all soldiered on with replacements and continued to find success. But Gang Of Four losing frontman Jon King in recent years felt like a mighty blow; the vocalist’s discontented howls and pointed delivery had…

If the narrative of TheeSatisfaction’s career thus far has been consistently intertwined with its Sub Pop labelmates and frequent collaborators Shabazz Palaces, then Earthee is the duo breaking free of that narrative and crafting one for itself. Earthee is in many ways a natural follow-up to 2012’s Awe Naturale, in…

In We’re No. 1, The A.V. Club examines a song that went to No. 1 on the Billboard charts to get to the heart of what it means to be popular in pop music, and how that has changed over the years. In this installment, we cover Nas’ It Was Written which spent four weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

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.

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, we’re talking about bands we thought should have been bigger than they were.

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.

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, we’re talking about bands we thought should have been bigger than they were.

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, we’re talking about bands we thought should have been bigger than they were.