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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.
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Pop Culture

Staff Picks: Flavorwire’s Favorite Cultural Things This Week

By Julia Pugachevsky on

Need a great book to read, album to listen to, or TV show to get hooked on? The Flavorwire team is here to help: in this weekly feature, our editorial staffers each recommend the cultural object or experience they’ve enjoyed the most in the past seven days. Click through for our picks, and tell us what you’ve been loving in the comments. … Read More

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Music

10 MP3s You Need to Download for Free This Week: Chromatics, Hype Williams

By Tom Hawking on

It’s Friday, which means that another week is over — cue wild cheers! — and also that it’s time for another installment of our regular roundup of downloadable MP3 goodness from around the web. This week there’s a new track from the ever-prolific Johnny Jewel and Chromatics, along with Hype Williams’ suitably strange tour EP, various material from Australia, covers of varying quality from Wall and Nite Jewel, our very own Silent Drape Runners getting all Christmas-y, and various other action as well. Since all this costs precisely nothing, what are you waiting for? All the download links await after the jump. … Read More

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Music

10 Albums Recorded in Fascinatingly Exotic Locations

By Tom Hawking on

Piramida, the new album by Danish five-piece Efterklang, is out this week. The album continues Efterklang’s march away from the experimental weirdness of their early recordings toward a more conventional sound, and it’s also a pretty somber-sounding piece of work — perhaps because it’s based on field recordings that the band took in a crazy-looking abandoned mining town in the Arctic Circle. Indeed, the backstory to Piramida is pretty fascinating, and it got us thinking about albums that were recorded in similarly exotic locales. We’ve put together a selection, and as ever, we’re open to suggestions. (Just please for the love of god don’t mention Bon Iver and his damn cabin.) … Read More

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Music

10 of the Best Political Songs You’ll Ever Hear

By Tom Hawking on

Last week we published a list of what we considered to be some of the worst political songs ever — the trite, the mawkish, the hopelessly naïve. Predictably enough, the feature generated plenty of comment section debate, including one call for a corresponding list of good political songs. We actually ran a feature a while back about good 21st-century political anthems, but still, your wish is our command — so without doubling up any, here’s a selection of songs we consider to be as moving and effective as those other songs are banal and ineffective. Your comments are, as ever, welcome. … Read More

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Music

New Music for a New Movement: An Occupy Wall Street Playlist

By Judy Berman on

“What is the music of #OccupyWallStreet?” NPR music critic Ann Powers asked on Twitter over the weekend. As the movement rolls on after a weekend that brought hundreds of arrests and lots of publicity, we think that’s an excellent question. From the hippie ’60s to the riot grrrl ’90s, every great political struggle has had a soundtrack of its own. And while past anthems like Crass’s “Do They Owe Us a Living?” and Dead Kennedys’ “Kill the Poor” are certainly applicable to Occupy Wall Street’s critique of economic injustice and capitalism run amok, we think new music is vital to new movements. With that in mind, we’ve taken a stab at compiling some great politically conscious songs that have come out in the past five years. Add your suggestions (or, you know, gripe about “kids these days”) in the comments. … Read More

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