No matter how much professional rock critics and casual cultural commentators may find the Grammy-winning alt-rock act Arcade Fire exhausting, the group shows no signs of fading away. Arcade Fire’s fifth LP, Everything Now, was released a few weeks ago to some of the most negative reviews the band has yet received,…

Welcome back to AVC Sessions. This week, Chicago’s own Broken Hope brought a little death metal to the A.V. Club studio. After being in hibernation for more than 10 years, the band returned in 2012. In the final performance from its session, the band performed “Swamped-In Gorehog,” the closing track from its 2017…

Film has been used as a vehicle to increase the popularity of particular songs as far back as the black-and-white musical days, when legendary songwriters like Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, and the Gershwin brothers penned tunes for movies that remain standards today. The popularity of the movie musical has waned over…

Kulap Vilaysack is a woman of many talents. She’s made a mark on comedy, both in front of and behind the camera, with appearances on Children’s Hospital and Comedy Bang! Bang! and as showrunner on Bajillion Dollar Propertie$. Earlier this year she also released her debut full-length documentary, Origin Story. She’s…

Welcome back to AVC Sessions. This week, Chicago’s own Broken Hope brought a little death metal to the A.V. Club studio. After being in hibernation for more than 10 years, the band returned in 2012. In the second performance from their session, the band performed “Womb Of Horrors,” a track from the 2013 album Omen Of…

Welcome back to AVC Sessions. This week, we’re switching things up as Chicago’s own Broken Hope brings a little death metal to the A.V. Club studio. After being in hibernation for more than 10 years, the band returned in 2012. In the first song from its session, the five-piece band performs “Mutilated And…

There are difficult follow-up records, and then there’s Rainbow. Since the release of Kesha’s second album, 2012’s Warrior, the pop shapeshifter’s music has taken a backseat to her contentious, complicated legal battle with producer—and accused abuser—Lukasz “Dr. Luke” Gottwald. Even today, the case is far from…

Oneohtrix Point Never, Good Time OST
Grade: B+

Chumbawamba’s ”Tubthumping” has had a surprisingly enduring life since it first emerged in 1997, flooding the airwaves with its “I get knocked down, but I get up again” sing-along refrain. It became the theme song of the FIFA World Cup ’98 video game. In 2003, it was remixed (in a more somber, minor key) by The…

Chicago band Twin Peaks first burst on the scene with 2013’s Sunken, and the band members been reinventing themselves ever since. Sunken was a colorful, low-fi outing, while the band brought polish and nuance to 2014’s Wild Onion. With the most recent LP, 2016’s Down In Heaven, the Chicago staple balances energy and…

It only took 12 years for Lilith Fair to become quaint. In the decade between when Sarah McLachlan ended the festival for the first time in 1999 and her decision to take the rebranded “Lilith” off of life support in March 2011, female musicians had made significant strides in genres from hip-hop to folk. The proudly…

Having fallen in love with Destroyer after hearing the soaring guitar-based melodies and shimmering atmospherics of 2006’s still-excellent Destroyer’s Rubies, I was initially put off when Dan Bejar and his band starting drifting into the corny adult-contemporary sheen of Kaputt. But the more I listened, the more I…

Sean O’Neal: In the topic of “Worst Music Year,” 1997 is a frequent contender. Some of this can be attributed to distaste for a single genre—boy bands and the Spice Girls, mostly, whose dominance was complete anathema to anyone who’d spend the earlier part of the decade convinced the alt-rock “revolution” was anything…

In 1997, CD Warehouses proliferated across suburban strip malls, sterile repositories of cheap, hard-plastic media where Joe Hedgetrimmer could methodically click-click-click through Eagles and Beatles greatest-hits albums in hope of making his 15-minute commutes easier to digest. It was an era of accessibility in…

Time has been kind to Wu-Tang Forever. The 1997 double album is sprawling and messy, the Wu’s nine-headed gauntlet of Staten Island talent holding together largely thanks to its shared fiscal interest in advancing the Wu-Tang brand. In hindsight, it’s the capstone of the collective’s golden age, and, in some ways, of…

I’d consider myself a “dinner party” jazz fan: In my 1,300-plus vinyl collection, I have a small shelf reserved for my just 30 or so jazz records, mostly composed of the universally respected artists that would be welcome as background music to all those sophisticated social gatherings I never have. Titans like Miles…

Dead Cross, Dead Cross
Grade: B+

Welcome back to AVC Sessions. This week, we’re getting a taste of Michelle Zauner’s solo project, Japanese Breakfast. A.V. Club contributor Brian Shultz recently commended her sophomore effort, Soft Sounds From Another Planet, calling out its “confidence and crispness,” and naturally, we were excited to have her share…

On its 2017 album The Incessant, Chicago band Meat Wave showcases a side of itself previously unseen. Largely inspired by the end of Meat Wave vocalist Chris Sutter’s 12-year romantic relationship, the album explores deeply personal themes of growth, loss, and self-loathing. Combine that with the band’s always…

Mary J. Blige has been through some shit. Depression, addiction, abusive relationships—not only is she not afraid to talk about these things, but she’s built a career out of it. Blige’s latest record, Strength Of A Woman, arrives in the middle of her acrimonious and much-publicized split from husband/manager Kendu…