Indie Rock and Indie Pop

SHARE THE JOY AGAIN

Vivian Girls return from 
the realms of the unreal

The Hold Steady Stay in the Key of E Street

The bar band looks to rebound after first stumble

Live: The Shins Grow Teeth At Terminal 5

The Shins w/St. Lucia Terminal 5 Sunday, April 29 Better than: A Shins concert five years ago. Halfway through the Shins' show at Terminal 5 on Sunday, the Portland indie rockers found their groove. Maybe it was the generous clang of cowbell or the strobe lights that ushered in new song "No Way ... More >>

Radio Hits One: fun.'s "We Are Young" Brings Indie Pop To The Super Bowl And The Hot 100

Last week Billboard published the Hot 100 chart covering the post-Super Bowl week, and unsurprisingly the most notable leap on the chart was made by a song featured on the telecast. The surprise was that it wasn't "Give Me All Your Luvin'," Madonna's new single, performed during her halftime show pe ... More >>

Live: Yo La Tengo Light The Menorah At Maxwell's One More Time

Lee Ranaldo & Steve Shelley w/Yo La Tengo, "Mote" Yo La Tengo: Hanukkah Shows Maxwell's December 20-27 Better than: Christmas. Hanukkah doesn't technically end until sundown Wednesday, but Yo La Tengo unplugged their electric menorah at Maxwell's last night, just after a post-midnight sign-of ... 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 >>

Coming To The Local Sheds This Summer: Lots Of "Heritage Acts" And Country Stars (And Yeasayer)

Yeasayer. Here's hoping things are a bit warmer than this for their shows this summer. ​Today Live Nation announced a slew of shows at Long Island's Nikon at Jones Beach Theater and New Jersey's PNC Bank Arts Center, and in addition to the many classic rock acts (with "classic rock" now being ... More >>

Q & A: Come's Thalia Zedek and Chris Brokaw On Van Halen, Chavez, and Reunions (Including Codeine!)

​ The prospect of post-blues dirge shredders Come reforming with all four original members didn't exactly trigger an earth-shaking ruckus akin to what ensued when Guided by Voices and Dinosaur Jr schlepped their "classic" lineups on the road. But the reunion of singer/guitarist/badass Thalia ... More >>

Staten Island's PS22 Chorus Were The Only Remotely Competent Performers At The Oscars

Oh my dogg, the Oscars were terrible this year: Anyone who is not Trent Reznor, Randy Newman, or Cate Blanchett ("That's gross") is invited to take a seat. The only other entity that came out ahead: Staten Island's own PS22 Chorus, taking a break from prettying up tunes from Katy Perry, MGMT, Arie ... More >>

The Great 2011 Grammy Postmortem: Even If Arcade Fire Made It, "We" Probably Didn't (Right?)

This picture is from Arcade Fire's Tumblr, where it's captioned "Win jumping up and down, thanking the world." Because why wouldn't it be?​Radiohead may have already surpassed last night's Grammys as the au currant news of an indie-rock world that is all of a sudden drowning in good tidings, b ... More >>

Five Takeaways From The 2010 Grammy Nominations

Behold, the future of music.​The Grammy Awards are a bit of a punchline in music nerd circles, a place where, say, MGMT battles Hall & Oates for a trophy that will inevitably be won, and then dropped on the ground, by the more telegenic and industry-saving Taylor Swift. The Grammy voters hate ... More >>

'CMJ: Lissie+Dylan LeBlanc'

Williamsburg's Relish Diner Has Closed

plate of the day/Flickr​The summer has claimed another classic railcar-style diner: Williamsburg's Relish, a fixture of Wythe Avenue for years, has closed.

CHICK FACTOR

The guys of Girls play with actual girls

Primal Scream+Kuroma

Lykke Li+Wildbirds & Peacedrums

HANUKKAH IN HOBOKEN

Light the Menorah with Yo La Tengo

TIGHTEN UP

Vetiver gains new focus on what's outta sight

SOUNDS PERFECT

Built to Spill play their most elegant album

BECK AND CALL

Mr. Hansen shows us his serious side—again

ROOFTOP OASIS

A tiny gathering of vast proportions

JUST SAY NO TO ITUNES

A special day to visit your lonely record-store pals

PARTY PROS

Have a ball with this Toronto duo

Lightspeed Champion's Falling Off the Lavender Bridge

White Music for Wry People

Please Ignore the Embroidered Dog Sweater

Vampire Weekend’s jaunty, wordy pop is meant to inspire joy, not rage

The Black-Rock Revolution, and How We Rebooted It

Using YouTube to beat back critical malaise and bullshit race-baiting arguments

Grow Up Like a Rock Star

LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy sheds his cool and unites the Guitar Hero III–addled masses

Marathon Men

Eno's Music for Airports at a 26-hour fete; Bright Eyes triumphantly caps a seven-night run

Nickelback U.K.

The press-fattened Arctic Monkeys roll loudly, wittily, competently on

The Unforgettable Fire

Joyously overwrought arena rock often sounds even better in church

CMJ Music Marathon Highlights

A Month on the Town

The man who's reviewed 12,000 records reviews 32 shows in 30 days

Plugged In

Plug Awards push play; Bright Eyes wins Artist of the Year

Listening in Real Time

Eclectic neoclassicism versus childhood-oriented avant-primitivism as global warming swamps our history

Mirror, Mirror

Looking at you looking at them, two indie semi-icons call in the reinforcements

Gas Propelled

Jack White dreams up a dumb new reason to cover a song

Where the Wild Things Are

Out of the woods and out of their shell, semi-local foursome Animal Collective deliver an album for the unconverted

CMJ Music Marathon

Meant for the Stage

Theatrical indie heartthrobs the Decemberists give gawky drama-club girls something to dream and blog about

In From The Cold

Young indie Canadians make a life together before their own lives can tear them apart

Evolution of Man

Brooklyn sibling duo proves that shy adolescence is ageless

Lollapalost

Where to catch your favorite bands now that the big show is canceled

Carry Your Torch

By the time they make Albuquerque, she'll be modeling

Listings

Emotional Rescue

Sad Emo-Punk Boys Pull on Strings, Unravel Sweaters, Shiver ’Til Spring

Talk About the Passion