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48 items by Nick Catucci
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Tape Deck Heart | ALBUM REVIEW
The onetime singer of U.K. hardcore band Million Dead, Frank Turner is a grown-ass Englishman who turns out highly quotable, sometimes deliriously catchy rants about life after punk. His fifth LP blooms with crisply enunciated patter about...
May 8, 2013 10:35 AM ET -
"S.D.S." | SONG REVIEW
For the first single off his forthcoming second album, Miller – the pop-rap phenom and MTV2 reality dude – unspools a hushed version of his usual garrulous chatter over an artfully percolating beat furnished by Flying Lotus...
May 8, 2013 10:10 AM ET -
"Girls Love Beyoncé" | SONG REVIEW
Leave it to Drake to burrow into a ladies' anthem like Destiny's Child's "Say My Name" – which provides the chorus moaned here by James Fauntleroy – and discover a gooey, placenta-like sac of male feelings. And...
April 29, 2013 10:30 AM ET -
"The Bear and the Maiden" | SONG REVIEW
How's this for codpiece-busting fantasy fulfillment? The quintessential bar band shoulders through a drinking song written for Game of Thrones – with bear-meets-girl lyrics by George R.R. Martin himself. The show's composer, Ramin Djawadi, wrote the music,...
April 29, 2013 10:25 AM ET -
Give Up: Deluxe 10th Anniversary Edition | ALBUM REVIEW
Today you can't toss a guitar pick without clipping a synth-tickling indie-rock softy. But in 2003, when Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard traded tapes through the mail with Jimmy Tamborello (dance handle: Dntel), the one-off...
April 22, 2013 2:02 PM ET -
Wakin on a Pretty Daze | ALBUM REVIEW
Kurt Vile's sweetly slack fifth LP kicks in with a nine-and-a-half-minute song about taking a walk, hits peak stoner wonder in a song called "Air Bud" and fills in the spaces with trank-darted Dinosaur Jr. licks. But...
April 15, 2013 3:45 PM ET -
"The Way" | SONG REVIEW
"You a princess to the public but a freak when it's time," Mac Miller guest-raps on this linen-weight summer jam. Grande, a 19-year-old Nickelodeon star with Broadway chops, is more flirty than freaky, but her Mariah-esque vocals...
April 15, 2013 2:00 PM ET -
"Crying" | SONG REVIEW
Roy Orbison's classic is a tough chestnut to crack, an everlasting fusion of quavery emoting and plush instrumentation. Bethany, an early-rock fetishist with a normally dominating voice, comes off more bratty than stout in this...
March 28, 2013 2:40 PM ET -
Du Flocka Rant 2 | ALBUM REVIEW
Waka modulates charisma and id like a great comedian, giving his money-and-mollies routines a strident – or archly silly – edge. This mixtape unites dumb-deadpan lines like "Nigga fuck with me: R.I.P." with the anguished "Bad...
March 15, 2013 3:00 PM ET -
"The Rise of the Ghostface Killah" | SONG REVIEW
A spaghetti-Western-flavored origin story delivered with typical irresistible flair – from the strangulated sample of Ol' Dirty Bastard calling Ghost's name to lines like, "Colombian neckties from a black Gambino/Bodies get dumped in the black El Camino." Listen...
February 22, 2013 3:00 PM ET -
"Demon to Lean On" | SONG REVIEW
The greatest song yet by these twentysomething San Diego surf punks treats Nirvana like a killer thrift-shop find, with the guitars set to "mudslide" and an oh-well Nathan Williams drawling (possibly accidental) Kurt Cobain allusions...
February 12, 2013 2:50 PM ET -
Heartthrob | ALBUM REVIEW
These twin sisters from Calgary worked the jittery end of the coffeehouse throughout their twenties, crafting a sharp folk-rock sound that was a touch emo, but still Canadian-modest. But now, at 32, the Quins have decided to...
January 17, 2013 2:20 PM ET -
"I Got a Boy" | SONG REVIEW
It took the most beloved of all Korean girl groups (and a handful of Euro writers) to finally deliver a song as sharply plotted and blindingly razzle-dazzle as the K-pop machine itself. Harmonizing, speed rapping, and belting...
January 11, 2013 3:10 PM ET -
"Sugar and Spice" | SONG REVIEW
Willow Smith is 12, with the withered soul of a 15-year-old – on this fabulously gloomy ballad, anyway. Cooing her own aching melody over a chunk of Radiohead's "Codex," she wishes to "inject my soul with...
January 11, 2013 3:00 PM ET -
Finally Rich | ALBUM REVIEW
For a 17-year-old YouTube champ with a co-sign from Kanye West (who refashioned the Chicago rapper's viral hit "I Don't Like" for radio), Chief Keef is weirdly lacking in irony. Beyond "I Don't Like," which inverts...
December 28, 2012 11:10 AM ET -
True | ALBUM REVIEW
As Beyoncé's kid sister, Solange has perhaps had no choice but to work the weird-little-sibling angle, making the Brooklyn scene as a DJ and releasing two albums where she tried on "disco queen" and "R&B kitten"...
December 3, 2012 5:20 PM ET -
Rage Against the Machine - XX | ALBUM REVIEW
Rage Against the Machine's 1992 debut is a grenade that keeps exploding; among Nineties albums, only Nevermind and The Chronic rival it for cultural impact. Rage made hip-hop-tinged funk metal the new rebel music,...
November 27, 2012 12:05 AM ET -
"AK47" | SONG REVIEW
On this supremely pleasurable, ultraplush track, the sure-shot producer and R&B balladeer solemnly but not quite seriously compares an ex to a famously cheap, easily available assault rifle. Even R. Kelly wouldn't go there. But The-Dream...
November 20, 2012 12:10 PM ET -
"Boy Division" | SONG REVIEW
Ditched during the glitter-glam reinvention that produced 2009's Danger Days, this punky outtake smokes like an imminent burnout (it's one of 10 orphaned tracks the band is releasing over the next five months in a kind...
November 12, 2012 10:20 AM ET -
"Ball" | SONG REVIEW
On the new single off his forthcoming Trouble Man, T.I. – whose post-prison enterprises have included a crime novel and a role in the cable drama Boss – barrels for the dance floor, elbows flying....
October 28, 2012 10:10 AM ET
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