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

At just 26, Kacey Musgraves is already one of the most important names in country music. With influences including everyone from Willie Nelson to Dolly Parton to Miranda Lambert, Musgraves has made a name for herself crafting both pop-tinged country rockers like her latest single, “Biscuits,” while still maintaining…

It’s been 15 years since High On Fire released its legendary debut, The Art Of Self Defense. But, unlike most heavy bands that have been around for that long, High On Fire’s music has only become increasingly fierce, evolving from mid-paced stoner metal to its current sound, which pays homage to bands like Saint Vitus…

It’s been more than a decade since Desaparecidos’ first album, Read Music/Speak Spanish, and the intervening years have done little to improve the state of the sociopolitical issues that drove that record’s lyrics. American consumerism, militarism, gender politics, and the rapacious capitalism that underlines it…

Though it’s easy to forget, there was a moment in the mid-’90s when Hole was a well-respected alt-rock band. Live Through This was pop-rock with a punk perspective, but despite its commercial success, its influence has largely lain dormant, due, in part, to Courtney Love’s more tabloid-worthy exploits that followed.…

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week: We’re talking about songs we heard once and then had to seek out.

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, we’re featuring our favorite songs that only appeared on soundtracks.

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, we’re featuring our favorite songs that only appeared on soundtracks.

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, we’re featuring our favorite songs that only appeared on soundtracks.

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

Nate Ruess’ runaway mainstream success with Fun felt like a vindication of his years in the trenches co-fronting power-pop band The Format, as well as a victory for the ambitious music in which he’s always specialized. In turn, his solo debut Grand Romantic feels like his way of finding his own distinct voice separate…

Since first taking a stab at solo work with the Bandcamp-released I Am An Attic, Islands frontman Nick Diamonds (real name: Nick Thorburn) has explored some dark territory. Collaborating with members of Man Man and The Shins on the 2011 debut of Mister Heavenly, he helped concoct a grim, menacing take on early rock…

For most artists, the concept album is the one half your career has led up to. For Neil Young, it’s the thing he throws together in a few raucous-seeming weeks every three or four years.

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, we’re featuring our favorite songs that only appeared on soundtracks.

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

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.

Josh Modell: Okay Alex, I know that’s a dramatic headline, and a little misleading. But last night (June 10) we went to see the Pixies at Metro in Chicago. I had seen them many times before, but it was your first time even though you’re clearly a fan. The show was just announced yesterday morning; the band was…

The only Record Store Day exclusive I was looking to pick up this year was the first U.S. vinyl release of R.I.P., The Zombies’ lost follow-up to Odessey And Oracle. Since The Zombies had broken up before Odessey was even released, the story of how R.I.P. came to be is an odd one, but it explains the uneven musical…

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, in keeping with the site’s 1995-centric theme, we’re talking about songs from that year.

Be it through record sales, tour receipts, or merchandising, there’s always been an unavoidable commercial aspect to popular music. But the music industry’s profitization of popular music arguably reached its zenith in the ’90s, especially from a touring standpoint. Packaged touring existed long before the advent of…