Phoenix has never been a straight guitar-pop band, but its sixth album, Ti Amo, is the first that puts those important six-stringed instruments fully in the backseat. Given the late-’70s/early-’80s vibe, maybe the guitars are even in the way-back of some wood-paneled station wagon. They’re replaced by believable,…

[Partisan]

This week’s question comes from A.V. Club copy editor Laura Adamczyk:

The summer is upon us, and everywhere you go, you can expect to hear songs from Drake, Lorde, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, and the like blaring from the stereos of convertibles bound for the beach, soundtracking backyard cookouts and sweaty dance floors alike, and generally heating things up wherever you find open air and…

It won’t surprise Waxahatchee fans that the upcoming Out In The Storm (out July 14) is great; the question is more about the form Katie Crutchfield’s new album will take. 2015’s Ivy Tripp—No. 8 on The A.V. Club’s best albums of 2015—nicely balanced what my colleague Alex McLevy described as “hushed, spare…

When Bonnaroo bopped onto the festival scene in 2002, it was just another big jam-friendly fest, with performers like Ween, Trey Anastasio, and The String Cheese Incident and two back-to-back nights of sets from Widespread Panic. Over time, the Tennessee-based festival has become more than just a gathering for…

Here’s one for those among you that love Mick, Keith, and the rest with all your heart. Exhibitionism, an exhibit dedicated to the history of The Rolling Stones, is now at Chicago’s Navy Pier, and we’re giving away three pairs of tickets. The endeavor boasts 500 rare pieces of memorabilia, including costumes and…

The eponymous album of the ’80s British new wave pop band A Flock Of Seagulls, featuring the single “I Ran (So Far Away),” debuted in 1982. Thirty-five years later, the band is most remembered for the band members’ dramatic style and flamboyant hair. On the inaugural episode of The A.V. Club’s new series How To Do…

Rap music is full of big personalities, and their occasional clashes have created scenes that encapsulate larger epochal shifts. Think Suge calling out Puffy at the Source Awards, or pretty much anything involving Soulja Boy. More recently, take the case of Joe Budden yelling at Lil Yachty.

[Columbia]

There’s an inherent, delicious contradiction in Selena Gomez’s infectious new single, “Bad Liar.” It’s specific and confessional in nature, but it’s also wildly theatrical. Gomez is truly performing on this in the sense that she almost feels like she’s playing a character—and having great fun doing so. Her delivery is…

Welcome back to Mailbag, a series about the sometimes weird, sometimes fun stuff we get in the mail. Today, indie band Rozwell Kid sent an actual potato in the mail. It turned out to be a pitch for their latest record, Precious Art, which will be out June 23. A potato is certainly a bold way to pitch someone on a…

Every Friday, dozens of new records are released into the wild. Some make big splashes, and others sink almost immediately. For most music consumers, it’s almost too much information, and save for those precious few who spend their hours glued to review sites and release calendars, it’s hard to know what’s coming out…

I was pretty sure I’d had enough Band Of Horses a decade ago, after the group’s second album, Cease To Begin. It wasn’t that they’d gotten worse or anything. It just felt like their chill, occasionally twangy indie rock wasn’t going anywhere new. So I slept on Why Are You OK, the band’s fifth album, when it came out…

We took a break from all the national parks and gorgeous beaches the Big Island of Hawaii has to offer to visit the good folks at Kona Pub And Brewery. Performing in front of a small audience of Kona patrons, Thao Nguyen displays complete mastery over the mandolin as she shreds through this performance of “Departure.”

We found some breathtaking locations while visiting Kona, Hawaii, including this beautiful beach house in downtown Kona. With majestic waves crashing behind her, Thao Nguyen performs an acoustic version of “Kindness Be Conceived,” a song off of The Get Down Stay Down’s 2013 album We The Common.

For our latest Little Fridays Acoustic Session, we invited Thao Nguyen of The Get Down Stay Down out to the Big Island in Hawaii. In the video above, Senior Editor Marah Eakin chats with Nguyen over an ice cold Kona Brewing Co. brew about family, the inspiration for her music, and the joys of performing solo.

For the latest installment in our Pickathon video series, we’ve got Ezra Furman tearing up “Body Was Made,” a body-positive anthem that features plenty of sax-y saxophone.

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

I have a feeling that one day Francis And The Lights’ collaboration with Chance The Rapper “May I Have This Dance” will become the wedding song of choice for musically savvy couples. It is the most unabashedly romantic track I have heard in quite some time, but it crucially also manages to avoid being grossly…