In 11 Questions, The A.V. Club asks interesting people 11 interesting questions—and then asks them to suggest one for our next interviewee.

I’ve never really gotten into adult coloring books, partially because I don’t have the time and partially out of a lack of motivation. But I can get down with Prince: The Coloring Book, the latest in independent publisher Feral House’s line of grown-up activity books dedicated to fallen rock gods. (Bowie and Lemmy…

As a teenager in the 1990s, I had two overarching career aspirations: to be a comedian and to play in a rock band. The fact that I suffered from crippling social anxiety and didn’t know a single guitar scale didn’t seem like a hindrance to either. The rising “alt” comics at the time—Janeane Garofalo, David Cross,…

Gwen Ihnat: The Cure didn’t exactly make a U-turn in 1987 with Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, but it was a hell of a reroute. The iconically mopey band, led by head goth/grump Robert Smith, all of a sudden had a cheerful horn section in “Why Can’t I Be You?” that threaded throughout the double album. And while its…

There’s a reason we form our closest affinities with rock and pop music during our youth. There’s something ineffably adolescent about our connections to our favorite musical artists. We may grow out of certain bands, genres, and even styles of art altogether, but the music we bond with at a young age rarely becomes a…

I’m going to be brutally honest: I think The xx is fine. I share neither the rapturous, openly weeping love for the band’s hushed pillow-talk murmurs that I’ve witnessed at its live shows, nor the rancorous, open contempt for its shy, minimalist mumbling that fills my social media feeds whenever the group happens to…

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 addition to his status as a soul-rock legend and Rock & Roll Hall Of Famer—the journey to which is chronicled in his fascinating new memoir, Change Of Seasons—John Oates is regarded as something of a mustache icon. He has sported that particular piece of facial manscaping from Hall & Oates’ earliest days: In fact,…

John Oates stopped by The A.V. Club recently on a tour promoting his new memoir, Change Of Seasons. We begged the Rock & Roll Hall Of Famer for the stories behind Hall & Oates classics like “Maneater” and “She’s Gone,” and he happily complied, but we weren’t expecting said stories to include a string of profanity and…

Unlike some of his Compton rap forefathers, Kendrick Lamar has rarely had to struggle for respect. He’s reached a level of acceptance and prestige almost unimaginable for any rapper a generation ago. Music publications and fans alike herald him as one of the most significant artists of his generation. The Grammys have…

We’ve expanded the definition of AVQ&A—our weekly thought-starter—by asking you (and us) a simple question each week: What pop culture did you consume this weekend, and what did you think of it? If you have suggestions for AVQ&A questions, big or small, you can email them to us here.

The correct response to the existence of The Chainsmokers is sheer, unbridled contempt. The proud frat boys of EDM don’t even have the gumption to just release more sledgehammer, mosh-pit friendly dubstep, à la circa-2010 Skrillex or Diplo; their specialty is instead wistful, featherweight EDM pop designed to be…

Editor’s note: Unfortunately, today’s biggest release, Kendrick Lamar’s Damn., wasn’t made available to press in advance, so we’re only hearing it today, too. Look for our review early next week. In the meantime, here are reviews of some of the other notable releases on this otherwise relatively quiet day.

For Ladytron fans, it’s been a long wait. Gravity The Seducer came out all the way back in 2011, and nothing from the band has given much reassurance in the intervening years, to the point that some have wondered if the group is even still together. (It is, officially.) But in the meantime there is the excellent solo…

There are many reasons to go to a music festival. There’s the joy of the outdoors, the endless expanse of food vendors, and lest we forget, the luxury (and the music, we guess). This year, instead of putting together a qualitative list of the year’s best festivals, The A.V. Club has opted to highlight the ones that…

Josh Tillman, a.k.a. Father John Misty, is both a journalist’s dream and worst nightmare. His press conversations are hours-long marathons, making transcription a royal pain and a focus tough to pin down. On the upside, these chats overflow with quips and sound bites, meaning that writers really can’t go wrong with…

It’s not entirely accurate to say that retro-technopop band Future Islands owes its success to one memorable appearance on The Late Show With David Letterman; but it’s true that everything that happened onstage during that four minutes at the Ed Sullivan Theater on March 3, 2014, illustrates how a band that toiled in…

You can’t overlook the voice of Dan Bejar, a nasal yowl that has a captivating way of meandering around a melody, often scrambling its way toward the end of a lyric as his tongue shoehorns more words between the remaining beats. But you might miss what an important service that voice provides to the first six albums…

John Darnielle is nothing if not deliberate with his words, so you could be sure that when The Mountain Goats announced an album titled Goths, goths were what you’d be getting. The song titles certainly deliver on that front, with references to Sisters Of Mercy, wearing black, and—more esoterically—Portuguese goth…