Grammy Awards

The Mavericks - Bowery Ballroom - 2/25/13

[Note: The Mavericks also play City Winery tonight at 10:30 p.m.] Better Than: Pretty much all country music from the last decade. Last night Miami country band The Mavericks played a sold-out, two-and-a-half-hour show at the Bowery Ballroom. It was a triumphant return to form on the eve of their ... More >>

My Morning Jacket

The Grammys: Rock and Grohl

When past and future collide, does the present win?

Whitney Houston, R.I.P.

Whitney Houston, the big-voiced belter who dominated radio in the 1980s and '90s and whose cover of Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You" spent 14 weeks at the top of the Hot 100, passed away tonight at the Beverly Hilton, where Clive Davis's annual pre-Grammy party was about to take place. (Her c ... More >>

Q&A: Four Tet's Kieran Hebden On Having Music Around Him At All Times, Remixing Opera, And Sticking With Vinyl

​Springy electric-socket hair, dark droopy eyes—Kieran Hebden looks like a man who has spent untold time tinkering in front of a glowing computer screen late into the night. The depth of his production work as Four Tet, however, belies the physical man-hours necessary for such precision. ... More >>

Skrillex Gets Deep on the Cusp of the Grammys

Drop it like a rock

Etta James, R.I.P.

​Etta James used to tell a story about meeting Billie Holiday in which Holiday told her—fatherless wild child to fatherless wild child—not to let the bad men and drugs that were going to come her way destroy her. Something about that brief conversation must've stuck, because despit ... More >>

100 & Single: A Dozen Contenders For Billboard's Year-End Top 10, And Their Fight Against The "Last Christmas Effect"

​Later this week, Billboard is expected to announce its tallies for the biggest hits of 2011. And what a year for music it's been. Remember all those big hits: "Like a G6," "We R Who We R," "Raise Your Glass," "Fuck You!" and "What's My Name?" What's that—you say the songs I just rattle ... More >>

Q&A: Jason Aldean On His "Really Good Build," Making New Fans, And New York's Country Radio Drought

Jason Aldean uses the royal "we" so often that you're half-tempted to ask for whom else he's speaking. Yet Nashville's newest king comes by the grammatical flourish honestly: Barring a last-minute surge by Lady Antebellum or the kids in the Band Perry, Aldean's My Kinda Party is almost certain to en ... More >>

Pacifica Quartet

Happy Halloween: 7 Scary Movies With Pretty Good Soundtracks

​ It's almost Halloween, and if you're like me, you've been spending your free time watching scary movies and thinking up costume ideas. These sorts of movies are usually known for blood, boobs, and bad jokes, but the music that accompanies them is important, too. For instance, high-pitched s ... More >>

Lady Gaga Is Headlining Z100's Jingle Ball (And Kelly Clarkson's Playing Too)

Lady Gaga's Born This Way is old news in pop time—it came out a whole five months ago—which is why there's a remix album due November 21 that features revampings of the album's tunes by the likes of the Weeknd, Twin Shadow, the Horrors, and Goldfrapp. (Goldfrapp is on "Judas" duty, and ... More >>

Enslaved

Help! Blandness Has Taken Over Our Culture!

... and the bland plays on

Fashion Photos of Nicki Minaj

​That alone should be enough to attract your buggin' eyeballs. But here's the back story:

Michael Bolton & Kenny G Just Might Have Brought '90s Nostalgia Full Circle

Many people around your corner of the Internet will be giggling about the seeming waiting-room singularity epitomized by the just-announced Beacon Theatre show pairing Michael Bolton with Kenny G--set to take place on June 19; tickets go on sale next Monday morning and start at $45--but let it be ... More >>

Week In Review: Grade It On A Curve

​Five days! Many items! A look at the last week at Sound of the City is below. We weighed Salem and fake Salem and the Internet and the slippery notion of "truth" online We chatted with Mike Watt about being on crutches, taking naps, and "the Neutral Milk guy." We counted down Kool Keith's ... More >>

Gibberish Reporter Had Migraine, Not Stroke

​Serene Branson, a correspondent for CBS station KCBS-TV in Los Angeles, has gained viral infamy in the days since the Grammys last weekend, when her on-air speech devolved into an incomprehensible pile of gibberish. To many it was hilarious -- added to the canon of newscaster mishaps that fil ... More >>

Bonnaroo 2011 Announces Lineup, Starring Eminem, Arcade Fire, Lil Wayne, The Black Keys, And Buffalo Springfield

Star-studded lineup videos: now a thing. Yes, the Tennessee mega-festival, now in its tenth (!) year, has announced its initial lineup, the usual melange of rappers, rockers, and jam-band monoliths, this year headlined by Eminem and Arcade Fire, only one of whom won the Album of the Year Grammy 48 ... More >>

Happy Birthday, Mayor Bloomberg!

​Everybody knows that today is Valentine's Day. But did you know that it's also Mayor Bloomberg's birthday? Today he is 69 (Hey you, in the back of the class, what's so funny?). We contacted his press office to find out what 'ol Mikey will be doing, but they never got back to us. Don't worry, ... More >>

Mavis Staples Is for the Children

The soul icon/golden girl hooks up with Jeff Tweedy and charms the world anew

New York Jewish Film Festival: Twentysomething, Smart, and Available

The Five Best Songs of 2010

​Here they are, according to Keo Nozari, the popular DJ who spent 2010 spinning at Rockit, Club 57, the Fire Island Pines, G Lounge and more, and who releases his new album, "Love Boutique," in early 2011. 1. "DANCING ON MY OWN" by Robyn. Says Nozari, "The underappreciated European sensatio ... More >>

ICE CAPADES

Chillin' With Prince Paul and son

Let Soulja Boy Be Great

A rap pariah seeks legitimacy on The DeAndre Way, and nearly gets it

VIBES VIRTUOSO

Gary Burton commands the bars

Lynn Hirschberg's M.I.A. Profile Earns a Correction

​Lynn Hirschberg was adamant in an interview Tuesday with the Observer's John Koblin that, although M.I.A. had tapes that seemed to show that Hirschberg misquoted her in Sunday's now-famous Times Magazine profile, she'd gotten her reporting right. At issue? A disputed quote involving the Gramm ... More >>

Leonard Lopate Will Host a Cooking Smackdown

Leonard Lopate invites you to bask in the heat of culinary competition.​Matt Timms and the Food Experiment guys aren't the only ones with makeshift cooking competitions on the brain: on June 15, WNYC's Leonard Lopate will host the Great Lopate Hot Plate Cook-Off, in which Jacques Pepin and Mic ... More >>

Download Michael Leonhart & the Avramina 7's Funked-Out, Hallucinogenic Single "Scopolamine"

Yes In My Backyard is a semiweekly column showcasing MP3s from new and emerging local talent. ​Michael Leonhart is a weird afro-funk merchant, a psychedelic dreamer, a dusty Bollywood record found under a mysterious stack, a walking issue of Wax Poetics, a twisted funkateer ready to mesmerize ... More >>

Take Donald Glover, Aziz Ansari, and Das Racist's Joke Rap Seriously

A new generation of MCs grapple with how funny they're allowed to be

The San Francisco Symphony

Michael Jackson's Kids Come Out From Under His Shadow

​ It's only since the death of their father, pop legend Michael Jackson, that his children have been able to rip off their coverings and appear unashamedly in public. And I bet it's doing them a world of good!

Chuck Mangione

Estelle+LL Cool J

Asher Roth Sticks the Roots with Their First Ever Lousy Fallon Performance

Shades of the Stevie Wonder/Jonas Brothers Grammys debacle here--C'MON STEVIE! SHOW 'EM WHAT YOU GOT STEVIE!, etc. Back when Fallon's show started, we fretted about the eventual reality of the Roots--live rap royalty if there ever was such a thing--being forced to play hypemen for the Soulja Boys ... More >>

Throw Down Your Heart Places Banjo, and Béla Fleck, in Africa

A Quarter-Century of R.E.M.'s Murmur

Revisiting the debut they never quite topped

The Celtic-klezmer Connection

Seeking plausible explanations for an improbable hybrid

PARTY PROS

Have a ball with this Toronto duo

The Death of the Billboard Music Awards

Music

Stuff you need to know to avoid cultural ostracism

Beelzebabs

A harrowing look at Satanic motifs in the canon of Barbra Streisand

Mercury Positioning

England gives a New Yorker its prize, but Americans still wonder about the bands who also ran

Soft-Rock En Español Floridians Extend Roots

Ol' Dirty Bastard, 1968–2004

One of pop culture's great eccentrics bids goodbye to the gawking public eye

Many Famous Fans Let the Sun Shine Down on Daniel Johnston

NY Mirror

NY Mirror

New Abstract

Eat Their Poussière

Zydeco’s Louisiana Purchases Inch Toward Raunch