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499 items by Will Hermes Will Hermes’ Profile on
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"Wagon Wheel" | SONG REVIEW
The former Hootie frontman, now turned country singer, covers this old Dylan outtake, a song fragment Old Crow Medicine Show transformed into their signature. With rousing vocals from Lady Antebellum, Rucker may have just made it his,...
January 11, 2013 3:05 PM ET -
"Where Are We Now?” | SONG REVIEW
Well, it's about time. Posted out-of-the-blue on his website, Bowie's first release in nearly a decade – the first peek from a forthcoming LP, The Next Day, due in March – is a stirring melancholy ballad...
January 8, 2013 2:14 PM ET -
Song Reader | ALBUM REVIEW
Before cylinders or 78s, let alone mp3s, pop songs circulated as pamphlets, with notation, tablatures and lyrics that let people rock the hot new jams – provided they could play them. The latest in a run of...
December 28, 2012 10:55 AM ET -
Fall to Grace | ALBUM REVIEW
The ghost of Amy Winehouse haunts this hit LP, from Paloma Faith’s heady retro-soul vocals, to her Susan Sontag-in-Bride of Frankenstein bouffant, to the lyric “I know a girl who drinks herself to sleep at night/You can’t...
December 3, 2012 5:25 PM ET -
The Evil Empire of Everything | ALBUM REVIEW
"The youth is not youth for long/Rest in peace, Trayvon," declares Chuck D on PE's second 2012 LP, following Most of My Heroes Still Don't Appear on No Stamp. A predictably righteous volley of rhyme grenades on...
December 3, 2012 5:10 PM ET -
"Know Til Now" | SONG REVIEW
"Lost in the world," sings My Morning Jacket's frontman on this single from his solo debut, Regions of Light and Sound of God, due early next year. And lost he sounds, in the most ecstatic...
November 20, 2012 12:30 PM ET -
"Like the Morning Dew" | SONG REVIEW
Recalling a young Joan Armatrading with a taste for Beach Boys-cum-Animal Collective-harmony vocals, this U.K. soul-folk singer builds a swarming chorale punctuated with bell and brass tones, snare rolls and pizzicato bass notes. Like Christmas-pageant...
November 20, 2012 12:00 PM ET -
Three Chords Good | ALBUM REVIEW
One of the sharpest songsmiths of the U.K. rock scene in the late Seventies, Graham Parker always owed more to Dylan and Van Morrison than to his punk counterparts. On his first set in 31 years...
November 20, 2012 10:05 AM ET -
Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! | ALBUM REVIEW
The latest from this Montreal band arrives per usual like a cryptic, doom-saying tract from an off-the-grid art cult – more or less what it is. Also per usual, it uses low-fi sound bites, neoclassical strings and...
November 19, 2012 3:00 PM ET -
An Omen | ALBUM REVIEW
Nine Inch Nails fronted by a hot femme singer? Why didn't anyone think of it sooner? That's exaggerating the MO of this electro-pop collective (Trent Reznor, his wife, Mariqueen Maandig, NIN cronies Atticus Ross and...
November 13, 2012 12:15 AM ET -
"Untitled New Track" | SONG REVIEW
"The angel of love was upon me, and, Lord, I felt so small!" snarls Dave Gahan on the first taste of Depeche Mode's new LP, due next year; he slithers through some nasty analog synth squelching...
November 12, 2012 10:15 AM ET -
"Don't Rush" | SONG REVIEW
As Taylor Swift goes dubstep, Clarkson veers south with a squishy Eighties-style duet along the lines of Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers' "Islands in the Stream." It's a paean to extended foreplay with a slightly awkward vocal...
November 12, 2012 10:10 AM ET -
"Lysandre's Theme/Here We Go" | SONG REVIEW
This preview of the 2013 solo debut from the ex-Girls frontman is a Seventies soft-rock ballad that would do Gordon Lightfoot proud. "If your heart is broken/You will find fellowship with me," he pledges, and, verily,...
November 12, 2012 10:00 AM ET -
R.E.D. | ALBUM REVIEW
On "Cracks in Mr. Perfect," the confessional opener on his fifth LP, Ne-Yo is the sort of beautiful smoothie who fucks you without a condom, then shrugs sheepishly and says, "It's our imperfections that truly make us...
November 9, 2012 10:50 AM ET -
Quatro | ALBUM REVIEW
Rather than plumb an uneven catalog that's miles deep, this five-disc compilation of the drummer, bandleader and late Latin-music icon prudently gathers four golden-era LPs circa 1955-1960, plus a batch of outtakes and earlier tracks. On...
November 9, 2012 10:45 AM ET -
Rework: Philip Glass Remixed | ALBUM REVIEW
Co-curated by Beck, this two-CD set gathers genre outliers (Tyondai Braxton, Dan Deacon, Amon Tobin) to mutate music by Philip Glass, the composer who has probably impacted rock and pop more than Bach. The highlight is...
November 9, 2012 10:35 AM ET -
Rhythms Del Mundo: Africa | ALBUM REVIEW
The latest in a series of albums remixing A-list pop with regional styles (see Rhythms Del Mundo: Cuba), this has a Mali-centric house band, and the effect is sweetly disorienting: Chris Martin's "Viva La Vida" vocals meet...
November 9, 2012 10:25 AM ET -
The Return of the Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of | ALBUM REVIEW
The roots of the Avett Brothers and Mumford & Sons fill this connoisseur's anthology by America's foremost 78-rpm crate-digger label. It's 1920s folk music full of pop flash and drama; see "Sail Away Ladies," by Uncle...
November 9, 2012 10:10 AM ET -
Luxury Problems | ALBUM REVIEW
One good thing to come of the Auto-Tune pandemic has been a surge in fresher, weirder sorts of cyber-vocals. Here, Manchester's Andy Stott – whose EP doubleheader Passed Me By/We Stay Together was perhaps last year's most hallucinatory...
November 6, 2012 12:00 AM ET -
Will Hermes: My 2012 Playlist | ARTICLE
Hear songs from Carly Rae Jepsen, Bob Dylan, Kendrick Lamar and more:
November 1, 2012 3:20 PM ET
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