In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, like the sheep we are, we’re picking songs by the first bands we loved because a significant other loved them.

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, like the sheep we are, we’re picking songs by the first bands we loved because a significant other loved them.

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, like the sheep we are, we’re picking songs by the first bands we loved because a significant other loved them.

For the past few years, Wu-Tang Clan rapper Raekwon has leaned heavily on the classic gritty, cinematic sound and aesthetic that first made him a star back in the days when he was an unknown underground artist coming up out of the slums of Shaolin. It’s not like anyone has been complaining. Only Built 4 Cuban Linx Pt.…

Faulty Superheroes, Robert Pollard’s first solo album since the latest dissolution of Guided By Voices, is yet another fascinating chapter in one of rock ’n’ roll’s strangest trips. After toiling away in relative obscurity in the late ’80s, Pollard led GBV to bigger things in the ’90s, though the band’s prodigious…

That Blur’s first studio album in 12 years saw the light of day is something of a minor miracle: The initial sessions for the full-length—which is also the group’s first record consistently featuring guitarist Graham Coxon since 1999’s 13—occurred in Hong Kong in mid-2013, and did nothing but gather dust until late…

When major labels started buying up alternative rockers by the bushel in the 1990s, few would’ve expected that two who’d hang around the longest would be The Flaming Lips and Built To Spill—and both still on the same label, Warner Bros. The two bands have remained successful in large part because they draw crowds when…

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

Fellow folk-rockers and A.V. Undercover veterans Vetiver and EDJ (Eric D. Johnson, formerly of Fruit Bats) are gearing up for a run of tour dates together next month in support of some brand new music. On Friday, May 8, the tour will make a stop at Chicago’s historic Old Town School Of Folk Music, where Johnson was…

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, like the sheep we are, we’re picking songs by the first bands we loved because a significant other loved them.

Last Tuesday, Terius “The-Dream” Nash, one of the most important figures in the past decade of pop music–the guy who helped to bring “Single Ladies,” “Umbrella,” and Justin Bieber’s “Baby” into the world–released the first half of a diptych of EPs, entitled Crown. (The second half, Jewel comes out July 7.) The general…

December means a lot of things, but for The A.V. Club it means an onslaught of year-end features that require weeks of preparation and inevitably enrage people who think something deserved to be ranked higher or lower or not even in consideration. But there’s one year-end feature that unites people with disparate…

Any conversation about the mercurial singer-songwriter Damon Albarn begins with Blur. His longest-running outfit—whose hotly anticipated comeback album, The Magic Whip, will be released this week—not only launched Albarn’s career in the early ’90s, it cemented his position as one of the most recognizable and vital…

If you enjoyed what you heard while tagging along on Jason Heller’s guided tour of fuzzy, filthy garage rock, might I suggest Crypt Records’ series of Back From The Grave compilations for your next trip? Unlike Nuggets, the prototypical garage comp, and the many series that followed, Back From The Grave never drifts…

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, we’re talking about the songs we like most when the weather gets warm.

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, we’re talking about the songs we like most when the weather gets warm.

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, we’re talking about the songs we like most when the weather gets warm.

On November 9, 1993, a fully formed collective of outer-borough underground rappers calling themselves the Wu-Tang Clan released their debut record, Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). Loaded with an array of gritty beats, kung-fu film snippets, and masterful flows that alternate between over-the-top hilarious and…

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, we’re talking about the songs we like most when the weather gets warm.

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 Salt-N-Pepa’s “Shoop,” which spent five weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Rap Songs chart in…