Arcade Fire

Local Natives on New Album Hummingbird: "It's A Very Personal Record For Us"

Mushrooms and vines: those were the things poking through cracks in the walls and crawling out from underneath the sink when Local Natives began to clear out the abandoned bungalow on Sunset that would eventually become their new studio space. Formerly a tattoo parlor, the seemingly forsaken spot ... More >>

Toronto's Metz: The Complete Inversion of the Post-Arcade Fire Canadian Music Glut

We caught up with Toronto punks Metz just after they crossed the border of their Canadian homeland down toward New York where they play Wednesday night at Music Hall of Williamsburg. They had just been pulled over, which they say happens a lot when they border hop. So far they haven't had any major ... More >>

The Best Albums Pitchfork Hated This Year

Since Purity Ring, Death Grips and Tame Impala didn't exactly take off this year like Arcade Fire or Animal Collective, Pitchfork's cultural influence might be cooling off, which is bittersweet since their writer stable is probably better now than it ever was (some of us don't miss those novelty rev ... More >>

These Album Covers > Death Grips' Dick Pic

Jesus Frankenchrist, here we go again! Sacramento cacopho-rap outfit Death Grips--whose music roughly approximates the sensation of ramming your head through a plaster wall while on bath salts and blue meth, then flailing around for 45 minutes (but with bassbeats!)--put a big hairy boner on the cove ... More >>

Which Album Will Pitchfork's Readers Crown As The Best Since 1996?

In an effort to stanch the flow of stale complaining about its "elitism" invite its readership into the magical world of music-publication listmaking, the online-tastemaker behemoth Pitchfork is putting together The Pitchfork List, which purports to count down its readers' favorite albums released b ... More >>

Andy Samberg is Newest SNL Cast-Member to Leave

First, Kristen Wiig. Now... Andy Samberg?According to the New York Times, after seven full seasons and almost a hundred Digital Shorts of his own creation, Andy Samberg has confirmed that he will no longer appear on Saturday Night Live, leaving behind him a legacy that is comparable to som ... More >>

White Riot at Webster Hall

Jack gets filmic with his Blunderbuss

100 & Single: Gotye And fun. Help Alternative Rock Go Pop Once Again

Consider this six-pack of rock acts: Siouxsie and the Banshees, Big Audio Dynamite, the Psychedelic Furs, U2, R.E.M. and Julian Cope. My dream Rock & Roll Hall of Fame? Not quite—it's a list of the first six artists to go to No. 1 on the chart Billboard launched in the fall of 1988, then call ... More >>

Live-Blogging The 2012 Grammys: Tributes, Tribulations, Skrillex, And The Return Of Adele

via Cats Who Look Like SkrillexWill this cat win Best New Artist?​Welcome to Sound of the City's liveblog of the 54th Annual Grammys, coming to you live from a couch in Astoria. There are quite a few questions lurking around tonight's ceremony. Will Adele sweep the three major categories in wh ... More >>

Jay-Z and Kanye West Guard the Throne

And try to bring back the group listen

20 Questions Brought Up By The Grammy Nominations

Last night's Grammy nominations show was full of pomp, eyeliner, and people on Twitter becoming very confused. Here's the complete list of nominees; below, 20 questions that we're still wrestling with some 14 hours after the broadcast signed off. 1. "Super Bass": Robbed or totally robbed? 2. Now t ... More >>

Matt Pinfield And 120 Minutes Return To TV; Will The Audience Follow?

MTV turns 30 on Monday. To celebrate, we're running a bunch of pieces on the channel, its legacy, and its future. ​Back when he was a music-obsessed teenager growing up on Long Island, and long before he started the influential music website Stereogum, Scott Lapatine never missed an episode o ... More >>

Ice-T's Newest Role: The Voice Of Reason On Ice Loves Coco

​ Who knew Ice-T was a role model? Ice Loves Coco, E!'s new reality show about the rapper/actor and his model/fashion designer wife, makes them look like such a perfect couple that you almost expect them to turn into anime characters and see little cartoon hearts popping above their heads as t ... More >>

Live: Fucked Up, JEFF The Brotherhood, And Iceage Sweat It Out

​ Fucked Up w/JEFF the Brotherhood, Iceage 285 Kent Ave Saturday, June 25 Better than: Seeing Fucked Up at, say, Terminal 5. After playing the middle slot between two legends of indie in a cavernous Manhattan concert hall this past Thursday, Fucked Up shared Saturday night's bill at the Will ... More >>

Radio Hits One: The Foo Fighters Foster The Alternative Generation Gap

​ The Foo Fighters' seventh album Wasting Light became the band's first No. 1 on the Billboard 200 upon its release in April, following a mountain of pre-release hype that included some of the best reviews of the band's career, a documentary about the making of the album, and the inevitable pu ... More >>

Q&A: The Antlers' Peter Silberman On Working Out Demons, Playing More Guitar, And His Favorite Dogs

​Back in 2009, the Antlers burst onto the scene with an explosive, utterly sad album called Hospice, which vocalist/guitarist Peter Silberman wrote about the relationship between a hospice worker and a terminally ill patient. They garnered a handful of Arcade Fire comparisons (which kinda bugg ... More >>

Rock-Critic Pop Quiz: How Well Do You Know Anthrax's Back Catalog?

​Get ready to be caught in a proverbial mosh, New York, because The Big 4 of thrash--that's Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax--are coming to Yankee Stadium, and tickets go on sale this morning! To all you non-headbanging SOTC readers, this event is essentially as important to metalheads ... More >>

Download: Laura Stevenson & The Cans, "Master of Art"

Yes In My Backyard is a semiweekly column showcasing MP3s from new and emerging local talent. ​Brooklyn's Laura Stevenson & The Cans make the good kind of indie rock: the beaming, soaring, cloud-gazing, theatrical kind; the nu-sensitivo version of "all killer no filler." Their hooks never pus ... More >>

Justin Bieber Is Your New Chart Overlord

​Good news: The music industry is starting to sell more records in 2011. Bad news: They're Now compilations and Justin Bieber remix records. The latter takes Billboard's top spot from the former this week, with Never Say Never: The Remixes selling a brisk 161,000 copies, and why not, since Nev ... More >>

Rock Critic Pop Quiz #3: How Many Members Of The Clash Can You Name?

Left to right: Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, Tre Cool, and Steve Mason​In celebration of Pazz & Jop 2010, we are more than happy to explore the sinister reality that most of us rock critics are completely ill-equipped to do our jobs properly. Our ongoing column "Are You Smarter Than a Rock ... More >>

Kanye West Wins One For the Douchebags

Our poll winner and his runner-up James Murphy turn their private flaws into public triumphs

Rob Harvilla's Top 10 Singles of 2010

​Not every great song this year was released by Katy Perry. From a snarling avant-electro NPR lecture to a haunted-house posse cut to a ludicrously profane viral sensation, here are 10 examples. "Teenage Dream" might still be better than all of these, though. Better get this started before I c ... More >>

Robert Christgau's Consumer Guide Lives

Fred McDarrah​We'd be remiss, after noting with some sadness its momentary demise, in not mentioning the contingent return of Robert Christgau's Consumer Guide to MSN. This time around, it's called Expert Witness--"Forty years ago I dubbed myself the Dean of American Rock Critics," writes the ... More >>

Live: James Achieve Jubilant Transcendence At Webster Hall

Tim Booth, a/k/a Skeletor the Barista. Pics by Sarah Sellars, more below.​James Webster Hall Tuesday, September 28 Better Than: Pretty much any other band from the '90s the general public would regard as a One-Hit Wonder. Tim Booth began his band's Tuesday-night show at Webster Hall in the b ... More >>

Live: Superchunk Are Just Great at Bowery

At Other Music on Sunday Superchunk Bowery Ballroom Saturday, September 18 Better than: The entire genre of chillwave. Let's start with "Driveway to Driveway," the first song of Superchunk's first of two encores this Saturday night, and overwhelmingly triumphant for a onetime landmine that seem ... More >>

Live: The Williamsburg Salsa Orchestra Turn Arcade Fire, Santigold, And LCD Soundsystem Hits Into Latin Big-Band Anthems

They do a mean "Keep the Car Running," honest. More pics below. ​The Williamsburg Salsa Orchestra Cameo Gallery Wednesday, September 1 It's tremendously cheering to see that people actually dance during Williamsburg Salsa Orchestra shows -- unadulterated, mildly erotic, not at all ironic sals ... More >>

The Best Tweets of Wayne Coyne's First Two Days on Twitter

Wayne's caption for this photo: "The trees in Lisbon are old and wicked."​Lost in the shuffle of a certain mega-celebrity joining the increasingly indispensable social networking site that is Twitter was the fact that Wayne Coyne, weirdo crown prince of the Flaming Lips, had also finally caved ... More >>

Live: Public Image Limited Reunite, Attack a Cameraman at Terminal 5

Public Image Limited Terminal 5 Tuesday, May 18 Maybe, just for a second, it was hard to believe that the doughy 54-year-old on stage at Terminal 5 was once the most dangerous man in music. Ironic Jesus Christ poses, Frankenstein dancing, robot moves, double earrings, button-down shirts, and kind ... More >>

Download MiniBoone's New-Waving, Arcade Fire-Vibing "Devil In Your Eyes"

Yes In My Backyard is a semiweekly column showcasing MP3s from new and emerging local talent. Marielle Solan​Taut New York five-piece MiniBoone are an enchanting mesh of old-school energy and new-school melody. The band mixes the dervish energy of '78-era post-punk with the super-hooks of mod ... More >>

"Planet Rock" Producer Arthur Baker Breaks Down Production Techniques at the M for Montreal Festival, Announces Collabo with Cold Cave

Arthur Baker, sans crazy stomach flu​Producer and DJ Arthur Baker helped change the sound of New York in the early '80s, producing the pioneering Kraftwerk electro-twurk of Afrika Bambaataa's 1982 single "Planet Rock" and running early hip-hop label Streetwise. He was ready to spout about all ... More >>

Fashion Week: Reem Acra Gives Sophia Bush Jet-Lag; Thuy Skips a Beat; Erin Fetherson Has a Rhinestone Menagerie

Stacey AndersonBling bling! Silk is good. Flat champagne is bad. We are learning many rules at Fashion Week, but one seems more ironclad than all the rest: namely, the rage inside the photographer pit is inversely proportional to the playfulness of the clothes on the runway. Style photogs, it appea ... More >>

O'Death: The Sound of 1,000 Banjos Overtaking Brooklyn

POP Montreal Day 4: The D'Urbervilles, Adam & His Amethysts, PUCE Pop

Rainer Maria Alums Plot a Brooklyn Takeover

Inventive, idealistic rockers stick it out in BoCoCa

Coldplay's Insurmountable Fire

Chris Martin and those other guys' wild, desperate attempt to top U2, the Arcade Fire, life, death, and all death's friends

Tapes n' Tapes' Walk It Off

Slovenly young Turks fight backlash with pulverizing volume

Sun Kil Moon's April

Sad-folk preacher delivers a really long sermon

Hugs and Kisses #17: An Examination of Everett True's Desktop, Pt 2

This Is an Essay About Okkervil River. Kinda.

Provincializm: Vic Chesnutt's North Star Deserter

Everyone's Gone to the Dentist

Downtown kids chill out, kick back, discover yacht rock, soak in the good life

Live: Wolf Parade at the Warsaw, 08.19.07

Lowlifes of the High Line

On the crabby hypnosis of Lou Reed, and the WTF delight of Ken Nordine

Mellow Troubadour Wallows in Whimsy

Noise From the Front

A musical valentine for the week of February 14-20, 2007

The Killers: Not Enough Like Def Leppard

Rehearsing His Choir

Psych-country old-timer gets inspirational

Indie Bedwetter Dweebs Maybe Not So Bad

Harmonies and Abysses

Across the sky sheet the impossible birds in a steady illiterate movement homewards