Contributor
415 items by Jon Dolan
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"Numbers on the Board" | SONG REVIEW
Released the same day as Jay-Z's "Open Letter," this sounds like a pure-basics counterpoint to Jay's grandiose celebrity vitriol. "Thirty-six years of doing dirt like it's Earth Day" is about as autobiographical as Pusha gets. The...
April 29, 2013 10:10 AM ET -
"Alive" | SONG REVIEW
This Aussie duo's psychedelically smiling dance pop unfurls synth-y Eighties radiance without the moody undercurrent you get from Passion Pit or Foster the People. This ode to freshly found romantic bliss is a beach-ball-slapping lobotomy of the...
April 29, 2013 10:05 AM ET -
Bankrupt! | ALBUM REVIEW
Bands like Phoenix aren't supposed to make it on Main Street USA. Globally ambitious European acts from Abba on down have usually tried to sound as Anglo-American as possible, but these Versailles-bred indie-pop guys radiate continental...
April 23, 2013 12:10 AM ET -
Junip | ALBUM REVIEW
As a solo artist, Argentine-born, Sweden-based indie-folk auteur José González can massage your worried mind like Cat Stevens. With his band Junip, there's a dark, funky undercurrent pulling against the pastoral kindness. Here, he dangles tensile guitar...
April 23, 2013 12:00 AM ET -
Dear Miss Lonelyhearts | ALBUM REVIEW
Some bands are trendy. Cold War Kids are borderline schizophrenic. They began in the mid-'00s playing blues-gritty indie rock but ditched that sound for clumsy Springsteenian sweep. They've added a Bowie/New Order gloss for their fourth...
April 22, 2013 1:46 PM ET -
#willpower | ALBUM REVIEW
Will.i.am's fourth solo album is exactly the Death Star-size Jägerbomb you'd expect. On #willpower, the Black Eyed Peas rapper-producer compares himself to Mark Zuckerberg, rips off "Ni**as in Paris" and siphons Chris Brown, Bieber, Britney, Miley,...
April 19, 2013 5:31 PM ET -
Paramore | ALBUM REVIEW
"If I have to I'm gonna leave you behind," Hayley Williams sings on "Grow Up," from the first Paramore album since 2009. The singer has successfully powered through a very public, extremely not-nice split with...
April 15, 2013 2:50 PM ET -
Band to Watch: Parquet Courts | VIDEO
Hometown: Brooklyn Backstory: Austin Brown and Andrew Savage met at the University of North Texas in Denton, and met up again in New York, where they formed Parquet Courts with bassist Sean Yeaton and Savage's brother Max on...
April 15, 2013 9:00 AM ET -
Shaking the Habitual | ALBUM REVIEW
Swedish brother-sister duo the Knife's 2006 album, Silent Shout, was a micro-masterpiece of tensely brutal yet richly musical Euro-techno. Seven years later, they've released a 94-minute follow-up that explores even wilder styles of mordantly nutso android bleat:...
April 8, 2013 12:00 AM ET -
Above | ALBUM REVIEW
The short-lived mid-Nineties grunge outfit Mad Season was as much therapy session as jam session: Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready met bassist John Baker Saunders in rehab, and recruited Alice in Chains singer Layne Staley...
April 2, 2013 12:05 AM ET -
"She Makes Me Happy" | SONG REVIEW
Writing his 2012 autobiography inspired Stewart to pen 11 of the 12 songs on his forthcoming album, Time – his first to feature original material in nearly 20 years. The album might be an unexpected...
March 28, 2013 2:50 PM ET -
Delta Machine | ALBUM REVIEW
The 13th Depeche Mode album is foregrounded in blues and gospel influences that have often merely burbled beneath their synth-sad pop. "The angel of love was upon me/And, Lord, I felt so high," Dave Gahan growls...
March 26, 2013 12:15 AM ET -
The Chronicles of Marnia | ALBUM REVIEW
What's not to love about a blazing indie-guitar heroine who titles her album The Chronicles of Marnia? This New York singer-guitarist's records keep getting more nuanced and revealing, without losing a hint of the radiantly hyper...
March 25, 2013 3:50 PM ET -
Music From the Motion Picture 'Spring Breakers' | ALBUM REVIEW
Skrillex teamed up with seasoned film composer/ex-Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Cliff Martinez to score Spring Breakers, in which Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens go wild and James Franco plays a rapper-criminal. Along with previously...
March 19, 2013 12:15 AM ET -
The Lone Bellow | ALBUM REVIEW
"We're broke in New York City/The F train takes us home," sing these Southern transplants, who call their sound "Brooklyn country music." But anyone expecting funny-bearded fiddle jams about artisanal pickles might be disappointed. The trio shape...
March 15, 2013 3:25 PM ET -
Chelsea Light Moving | ALBUM REVIEW
Thurston Moore, the recently divorced Sonic Youth singer-guitarist, uses his new band to air some bathrobe-at-noon bitterness ("Sleeping Where I Fall," "Lip"). But he'd rather torture his guitar than himself or his ex – a...
March 15, 2013 3:20 PM ET -
The Messenger | ALBUM REVIEW
The massively influential Smiths guitarist finally makes the solid solo debut he should've recorded a quarter-century ago. It's relatively anonymous Brit rock, and some of his gripes about the rock scene are less than becoming for...
March 15, 2013 3:10 PM ET -
Yeah Right | ALBUM REVIEW
Philadelphia couple Rob Garcia and Sarah Everton made two bedroom-rock low-fi records in 2010 as Reading Rainbow. They've since adopted an evocative new name (apparently Carrie Brownstein didn't like the old one), added a real rhythm section...
March 15, 2013 3:05 PM ET -
"I Wonder" | SONG REVIEW
Howard, the Alabama Shakes frontwoman, steps into Jack White's Third Man Records lab to take on "I Wonder," a Vietnam-era tune by Seventies sugar-man Rodriguez. Backed by one of White's touring bands, she and soul singer...
March 14, 2013 12:20 PM ET -
"Smart Aleck Kid" | SONG REVIEW
One sweet minute of primal, radioactive blurt from this year's hot new old-timey post-punk wunderkinds. The caffeine-jabber lyrics fly by as if Parquet Courts are trying to cram a life's worth of annoyance into the time it...
March 14, 2013 12:10 PM ET
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