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

In Hear This, The A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, in honor of Amanda And Jack Palmer’s covers album, we’re picking some of our favorite cover songs.

Whatever you might think about sampling others’ music rather than making your own, The Avalanches’ Since I Left You is arguably the apex of the art form/act of wanton criminality. The Australian group’s 2000 debut made even the expertly crate-digging DJ Shadow look like a bored Sam Goody browser. Its surgical…

At the end of The Punk Singer, 2013’s excellent documentary about Kathleen Hanna, the former Bikini Kill frontwoman is shown struggling to cope with chronic illness yet emerging from an extended hiatus to find strength in assembling pop tunes with her new band, The Julie Ruin. Catharsis and recovery often generate…

It’s been 13 years since bassist Jared Warren and drummer Coady Willis founded Big Business, a crushing sludge-pop venture built on the cornerstones of simplicity, heaviness, and blackened hooks—and white lies. Don’t let their frequent power-duo categorization fool you; while the Seattleites employ the same top-heavy…

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.

When Los Lobos loaded into City Winery in Chicago back in February, it was equal parts rock show and commemoration. The East L.A. band was in town to perform and be interviewed for a special live taping of Sound Opinions, the venerable rock/talk radio show hosted by Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot. Musically the band was…

When Limp Bizkit didn’t show up for a rumored show at a Dayton, Ohio, gas station in late April, the results were anticlimactic. No wrecked Sunoco, no riots in the streets. Media outlets reported that a few hundred Bizkit fans showed up and quietly went home, disappointed at what turned out to be a hoax. Shit was not…

There must be a German word for something that is both a little silly and a little awesome. For the past 20 years, the lame nightclub act still using the name Guns N’ Roses was merely the former: A ridiculous shadow of its former self, the “Axl plus hired guns” lineup ran through the group’s standards with all the…

Eazy-E: I’m slightly tempted to keep the mostly subpar It’s On (Dr. Dre) 187um Killa for its ridiculous dis track “Real Muthaphuckkin G’s” and for the artwork, which includes a photo of Dr. Dre in his glammed-out Wreckin’ Cru days. But Eazy’s solo stuff doesn’t hold up nearly as well as N.W.A’s, and even that’s pretty…

Her music earns frequent comparisons to Kate Bush—how could it not, with her soprano voice and theatrical flair?—but Natasha Khan’s fourth album as Bat For Lashes, The Bride, is more reminiscent of Tori Amos. (Not that there’s a huge difference between the two, to be fair.) Amos mined similar thematic territory on her…

Love it or hate it, Blink-182 was always best when it was writing pop songs. Sure, data may claim that it’s the punkest band ever, but it was always putting emphasis on the first part of the pop-punk equation. After Tom DeLonge was kicked out—or left to work on alien-related projects for the government—Alkaline Trio’s…

In an Instagram post three weeks ago, Devonté Hynes, better known as Blood Orange, explicitly declared who his third record is for: “everyone told they’re not black enough, too black, too queer, not queer the right way, the [underappreciated]… it’s a clapback.” It’s for those who, like Hynes, find themselves at odds…

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

Having officially passed 2016’s midway point—look for a catch-up guide on the year’s best releases soon—the new music train just keeps on rolling. On first glance, July seems slight, but it’s stuffed in ways other months haven’t been. Featuring reissues from icons such as David Bowie and R.E.M. and new albums from…

Evan Dando: Evan Dando is like the poster child for squandered talent. Is that too harsh? Maybe he’s a test case for drugs not being good for creativity? That’s not true, either, since clearly Dando was doing some drugs when he made his best music with The Lemonheads. (We’ll get to that later.) But his solo career, if…

The Hitman games are cruel black comedies of Rube Goldberg carnage, like playable Final Destination movies starring a bald dude with a barcode on his head as the angel of death. Since the 2000 original, this series has put gamers in the black suit and tie of a skilled assassin and unleashed them in mundane,…

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 the mid-’00s, while most of its fellow post-punk revival acts were glooming out to Joy Division riffs and Gang Of Four beats, Hot Hot Heat was ready to party. That was the Canadian foursome’s chief defining characteristic. On its excellent first two albums, 2002’s wonderfully nervy Make Up The Breakdown and 2005’s…

“Hi.” This simple utterance kicks off “The Mountain Will Fall,” the leadoff track from DJ Shadow’s new album of the same name, right before a swell of operatic sound (reminiscent of the theme accompanying the THX logo prior to a movie screening) rises from the silence. This coupling, of the slight and unobtrusive with…