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The Best Musician Appearances on ‘The Colbert Report’

By Tom Hawking on

Iggy and the Stooges were in cracking form on The Colbert Report last night, making them the latest in a long line of bands who’ve appeared as guests on Stephen Colbert’s long-running satirical chat show. Of all the late-night hosts on TV, Colbert seems to get the most amusing interviews and performances out of musicians; here are a selection of The Colbert Report‘s very best musical moments. You’re more than welcome. … Read More

Music

The 10 Albums You Need to Hear in May

By Tom Hawking on

As ever, we’re starting out a new month by poring over the schedules of upcoming album releases and distilling the slew of new music on offer into the form of a convenient list of the ten records you really, really should hear over the next four weeks or so. May looks like a particularly strong month — there are at least two albums that might well end up on our year-end Top 10 list (Savages and Majical Cloudz), along with a bunch of other good stuff from the likes of The National, Beaches, Standish/Carlyon, and plenty… Read More

Music

A Selection of the Most Insanely Long Live Performances in Music

By Tom Hawking on

You may have heard that The National, bless them, will be at P.S. 1 in New York this weekend, performing the same song — “Sorrow,” from their album High Violet — for six hours straight, as part of a collaboration with artist Ragnar Kjartansson. According to the gallery, the show “continues [Kjartansson's] explorations into the potential of repetitive performance to produce sculptural presence within sound.” That’s all very well, but where does this fit into the hierarchy of insanely long shows? Read on to find out. … Read More

Music

8 Defining Beastie Boys Moments That Need to Appear in Ad-Rock and Mike D’s Memoir

By Alison Herman on

Michael “Mike D” Diamond and Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz, the two surviving members of the Beastie Boys, are co-authoring a memoir of their time in one of the most important hip-hop acts of the past three decades. According to the New York Times, the book will be less of a conventional tell-all and more of an “oral history,” complete with a “strong visual component.” It’s not clear exactly what that will entail, but there are some standout moments from the Beastie Boys’ career that fans will no doubt be expecting to hear about in Diamond and Horovitz’s account. Here’s a selection of hot topics the Beasties need to address in their memoir, tentatively due out in late 2015. … Read More

Music

Four Generations of Punks: Iggy and the Stooges Electrify New York’s Le Poisson Rouge

By Tom Hawking on

Seeing Iggy and the Stooges in 2013 is a curious experience — you tell yourself not to expect too much, that there’s no way they could ever rival the greatness of their glory years (which were, after all, 40 years ago), that you should just go and appreciate the experience. And then, against all odds, they prove to be not just competent but genuinely amazing. … Read More

Music

The 10 Best Songs We Heard This Week: Kelis, Janelle Monáe

By Tom Hawking on

It’s Friday, which means we are contemplating the weekend ahead and also, as ever, rounding up the best songs we’ve heard this week. This week we heard not one but two great new pop songs in the space of seven days — from Kelis and Janelle Monáe (with some help from Erykah Badu) — something that happens once every decade or so! We also celebrated the returns of Carter Tutti and Kode9, got even more excited about upcoming records from The National and Pure X, listened to Owen Ashworth (he who was once known as Casiotone for the Painfully Alone) doing gospel music, and more. Click on through and get a-listening, dear readers! … Read More

Music

A Selection of Snoop Animals We’d Like to See

By Tom Hawking on

Snoop Dogg’s tranformation into rap game Rastafarian and possible reincarnation of Bob Marley was completed this week with his release of Reincarnation as Snoop Lion. His conversion has been the subject of some debate — is it for real? Is it just a marketing ploy, like almost everything else he does? — but for those who’d could care less about the genuineness of Snoop’s religious conversion, the most interesting bit is the transition from Dogg to Lion. And why stop there? There are so many more spirit animals that Snoop could adopt in this ongoing taxonomical transformation! Here are some other Snoop animals we’d like to see. … Read More

Music

10 of the Most Underrated Bands of the 21st Century

By Tom Hawking on

This week sees the release of a new album by The Veils, who have a special place in our hearts as one of those bands that we absolutely, wholeheartedly believed at one point would be massive. Everyone has a band like this — a band they tipped for greatness, a band that they can’t quite believe the world never cottoned onto. And sadly, the best part of a decade later, The Veils remain a band whose charms are appreciated by a select group of fans but have largely evaded the rest of the world. So in the interest of celebrating their music and other, similarly under-appreciated groups, here are some of the most overlooked bands of the 21st century; make your additions in the comments.
… Read More

Music

A Selection of the Flat-Out Dirtiest Songs in the History of Music

By Tom Hawking on

The good folk at Dangerous Minds are great at unearthing amazing YouTube rarities, and they outdid themselves last week with a 1971 performance by Ike and Tina Turner, which goes down in history as one of the most subtly filthy live performances we’ve ever seen — it’s basically one long allusion to oral sex, with Tina spending most of her time doing very, very suggestive things to the microphone, and while Ike’s ophidian glare still gives us the creeps, he does make some glorious slurping noises into his own mic. The crowd clearly knows exactly what’s going on, sniggering throughout, and the whole thing’s a testament to just how filthy music could be, even in an era that was still comparatively conservative. Anyway, the spectacle got us thinking about our favorite dirty songs, the best of which we have shared after the jump. Don’t play these while your boss is around. Obviously. … Read More

Music

Beyond “I Touch Myself”: Chrissy Amphlett’s Punk Rock Legacy

By Tom Hawking on

To American audiences, Chrissy Amphlett was the one who sang “I Touch Myself,” with her band Divinyls. But Amphlett, who died in New York of breast cancer and multiple sclerosis this week at only 53, was much more than that.

“I Touch Myself,” was a remarkable song, of course — looking back, it’s still amazing that it was such a big hit here, given its subject matter and its utter lack of ingenuousness. Where, say, Cyndi Lauper’s “She Bop” was oblique, “I Touch Myself” was as frank as frank gets. It’s just a shame that it remained Divinyls’ only US hit, because while it was certainly representative of their work and general aesthetic, it seems a pity for Amphlett to be remembered as a one-hit wonder when she and her band were influential in so many other ways, both in her native Australia and beyond. … Read More