Taylor Swift

How Random Are NFL Drug Tests? Is Your Grandmother's House Random Enough For You?

Washington Redskins quarterback Kirk Cousins probably thought his most embarrassing moment in sports was losing the 2011 Capital One Bowl to Alabama, 49-7. That was until the NFL made him take a urine test in his grandmother's house. Naturally, this odd arraingment has inspired a veritable golden s ... More >>

The Most Overused Terms In SXSW Band Bios

By Craig Hlavaty Before I take any trip to Austin and SXSW, I always take more than a few days to peruse the schedule and check out a few of the hundreds of names on the roster and read their bios. Some years there are more bands with "wolf" and "space" in their monikers than usual, and some year ... More >>

I Watched The Grammys And I'm In Love!

I totally fell for the roots rock band Alabama Shakes, particularly lead singer/guitarist Brittany Howard. To me, she's Kate Smith crossed with Tiny Tim crossed with everything else I like. And she can sang! Brittany even gave Mavis Staples a run for her money in the Levon Helm tribute. And how ... More >>

Defend Your Ballot: Drew Millard, Pazz and Jop 2012 Contributor

You can't really know where you're headed unless you know where you've been. For that reason, we're taking a look back at Pazz & Jop 2012 to drill down into the ballots of contributors and voters who participated. Maybe amongst the rubble we'll find clues about what lies ahead for music lovers in 20 ... More >>

The Ten Best Concerts in New York This Week, 1/28/13

Here are the ten best concerts to check out around the city this week, in no particular order.

Anya Marina and Friends - Rockwood Music Hall - 12/1/12

By Alan Scherstuhl Better Than: A rock show without comedians. It's rare that a singer/songwriter/performer possessed of a huge mess of facets has that one killer song that unites the host of them. But sprightly Anya Marina, whose pop you may remember from such gotta-break-through cross-promotiona ... More >>

The Ten Best Concerts in New York This Week, 12/3/12

Here are the ten best concerts around the city this week, in no particular order.

Paper's Nightlife Awards Were Dazzling, As Usual

Last night at Webster Hall, Paper brought together a wealth of shimmery, hipstery lovers of stars and bars to celebrate the joys of NYC nightlife (and also to toast the mag's Mickey Boardman's birthday with vats and vats of Hennessy). I was there to add my typically sour note as presenter of the Pe ... More >>

Fan Landers: How Can I Bootstrap My Way To Pop Stardom?

Are you a musician? Is your band having issues? Our advice columnist Fan Landers (a.k.a. Jessica Hopper) is ready to give you Real Talk about any problems your musical outfit might be having—whether professional, practical, or sartorial. Send your problems to sotc at villagevoice dot com; conf ... More >>

Radio Hits One: Bruce Springsteen And Mick Jagger Stop Making Pop Hits, Start Inspiring Them

It's been a busy year for Bruce Springsteen. In March, he released Wrecking Ball, his seventeenth studio album and tenth release to top the Billboard 200, and after packing in arenas across America throughout the spring, he took the E Street Band to Europe. His name is also in a top-40 entry on the ... More >>

Asshattery In 140 Characters Or Less: Which Musicians Are The Biggest Klouchebags?

If you're on the Internet you might have heard of Klout, a pseudo-scientific way for measuring the slippery ideal of "online influence." Taking into consideration a variety of factors, it has (despite its often being utterly gameable and as a result off the mark) turned into a way for people online ... More >>

53 More Great Songs From 2011

Earlier today, Maura offered a list of the 47 songs on her "2011 Awesomeness" Spotify playlist; to complement that, here are the 53 songs from my less cleverly named playlist, "2011." As is the usually the case with these mega-lists, I compiled mine a bit haphazardly, throwing together a substantial ... More >>

Sound Of The City's 11 Clickiest Posts Of 2011

We're about to close up shop here until 2012, and what better way to send out the year that birthed trollgaze than to run down the 11 posts on Sound of the City that generated the most pageviews over the course of the past 52 weeks? Enjoy this look back on the psyche of our readers, and have a happy ... More >>

The 10 Best Cover Songs Of 2011

Tell your children not to walk Wye Oak's way. ​2011 was a year of looking back relentlessly, whether you were awash in Remember The '90s nostalgia or getting down at a New Kids On The Block show or watching Lady Gaga try to bring back the variety-hour era with her whacked-out Thanksgiving spec ... More >>

Lady Gaga, Born Superstar

Rewriting the pop record at Jingle Ball

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 >>

Four Potential Special Guests For Taylor Swift's Two New York Shows

As you might have heard, Taylor Swift has been crossing the country touring behind 2010's Speak Now and performing a new cover song, often with a surprise guest, at each city along the way, leaving in a trail of camera phone YouTube videos and exclamation point-filled tweets in her wake. In Atlanta ... More >>

The Seven Worst Songs Of All Time

​Whenever these tunes get played, I hide under a rock for four minutes--actually, five, just for safety's sake. They are easily the seven worst songs in history. (7) Mr. Roboto by Styx. I would have ranked this a little higher, but its sheer kitschy audacity, pulled off in a sort of nouvea ... More >>

Is It Time To Say "Thank You And Good Night" To The Pro Forma Encore?

​Near the end of A Perfect Circle's Beacon Theatre show earlier this month, Maynard James Keenan asked the audience to engage in a thought experiment of sorts. "We're going to pretend we all left the stage for a few minutes," he told the crowd. "We're just going to stay here and do a couple mo ... More >>

100 & Single: Lady Gaga Gets Ready To Join The Million-Weeker Club

​The phrase "the calm before the storm" appears in virtually every chart-related story this week. That's because the latest edition of the Billboard 200, which covers sales from the week ending May 22, is topped by Adele's 21. That album is No. 1 for the ninth and (presumably) final week befor ... More >>

Lady Gaga's Born This Way Is 99 Cents At Amazon Again

​If you missed Monday's super-deep discounting of the MP3 version of Lady Gaga's Born This Way over at Amazon--whether due to the retailer's server-capacity problems or your calendar being full--the retailer has put the album back on sale for the day. Lest you think this is all part of a ploy ... More >>

Urlesque Bids Us a Sad Farewell With a Meme-Packed Video

Urlesque is officially closing up shop today. In an appropriate goodbye post, Jason Newman strung together the most popular memes of the last three years into a video backed by "The End of The Road" by Boyz II Men. Can you identify all of the memes in the video? Don't worry, we've got you covered wi ... More >>

Out of Four Full Music Sales Weeks In 2011, Three Have Hit Historic Lows (Congratulations, Amos Lee!)

"Kneel, industry, kneel!"​We'd graph it, but sadly, it's too simple for that. Your 2011 Billboard #1s, in chronological order: Taylor Swift, Speak Now, 52K; Cake, Showroom of Compassion, 44K; the Decemberists, The King Is Dead, 93.5K; Amos Lee, Mission Bell, 40K. That last number is the lowest ... More >>

American Idol, Season 10: No One Cares That Your Cousin Has Cancer

This man may or may not be running an organ farm. Credit: Michael Becker/FOX.​Midway through tonight's Nashville-set American Idol audition show, there's a mid-montage moment where some big gumpy white guy is singing "Papa Was a Rolling Stone," and all three judges are singing along at the top ... More >>

Cee Lo Green and the Year of "Fuck You"

Summing up 2010 in two little words

Pazz & Jop Voter Comments: Rick Ross Lies, the Rolling Stones Plunder, and Taylor Swift Triumphs

How To Write a "How To Date An Other" List

​Perhaps recalling the strange success (?) of their not-so-vaguely-racist "How to Date an Indian (Advice for the Non-Indian)" column by Andrea Miller, which beget a mini-online uproar, including the oddly aggressive, nearly misogynistic but well-received parody "How To Date A White Bitch (Advi ... More >>

Carlos Santana Needs To Be Stopped

​If you happened to watch last night's American Music Awards, well, I'm very sorry. If you didn't, our good friend Maura provides an in-depth live-blog summary over at the Awl, but here's the gist: Justin Bieber reigned supreme, Katy Perry wandered so far off key she made Taylor Swift sound li ... More >>

Kanye West, Finally Unraveled

Plumbing the gorgeous nightmares of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

People Are Snubbing Iranian Dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the United Nations Right Now!

​How's Iranian-by-way-of-Jersey-Shore dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad doing today at the UN general assembly? Not..so..well.

Are Babies Really Blogging? If So, Do We Care?

Tavi Gevinson, 14​Sunday's Independent is trying to tell us that babies are not only blogging, but making money. Is this believable? The evidence is anecdotal, at best. It sounds like a case for Mr. Jack Shafer. And yet! TotallySonny, quoted in the article is nine-years-old. The fact that thes ... More >>

A Photographic History of 'Hipsters' on MTV

​On Friday, Crushable and Guest of a Guest noticed an MTV casting call on Craigslist. "Do you own skinny jeans, old school chucks, cabbie hat, the 70's vest, an ironic t shirt or hat, a fitted sweater, flannel shirt, or chunky lens-less glasses?" it reads. "Do you drink PBR, have an ironic mus ... More >>

Barack Obama Turns 49 And A Lot Of Things Are Right With The World

​Birthdays should be spent in happiness and celebration, and the news cycle did just that for our Nation's President today. Causation vs. correlation be damned! We lay all the day's good news in one blog post in honor of the 44th President's big day. Think of it as our version of a birthday card, ... More >>

Kanye West Performs at Facebook, Disses Twitter

Yesterday, Kanye West traveled to tech world, baffling a crowd of cellphone-toting Facebook employees by performing in their Palo Alto cafeteria, a cappella, in a sharp suit and matching scarf. Why they couldn't get him some sort of beat-delivery apparatus is unclear, though these raps sound more ... More >>

Justin Bieber Played a Secret Show in Queens

​Seriously. While the softer section of the hipster demographic is waiting around for the Schumer-approved Williamsburg Pool Parties, Justin Bieber is holding it down all the way out in Queens. Like LCD Soundsystem before him, pocket-sized pop star Justin Bieber is doing it for the fans. So wh ... More >>

American Idol Season 9: Live-Blogging the Top 12 Results

Michael Becker/ FOXTim Urban, not the worst this week.​ Even though we've been watching this show for three months, Idol apparently only began last night. The contestants got to sing on a bigger stage, and had to make something out of the Rolling Stones songbook instead of the total freedom to ... More >>

John Mayer Shuts Up and Sings

Which is a really great idea, actually, and yet also kind of a drag

Lady Gaga Was in a Broadway Show!

​Well, a high school version of a Broadway show. When she was 18. See, as a senior named Stefani Germanotta, she played Adelaide, the blond showgirl in love with the gambling schnook Nathan Detroit, in Guys in Dolls. The same show I played Benny Southstreet in as a high school junior!

Bad Girls Gone Worse: Rihanna, Mariah Carey, and Lady Gaga

While they seethe and snarl, Taylor Swift emasculates with a smile

Parsing the Record Sales of Pitchfork's Top 10 Albums of the Year

​Matthew Perpetua posts the numbers behind one of the more visible/influential year-end lists out--so what do they mean? Well, for one thing, the once and future Brooklyn triumvirate of Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear, and Dirty Projectors really sold records. About 300K of them, to be exact-- ... More >>

Boo to Homophobic Buju Banton!

Would a musical artist who sings "Jews must die" or "black people need to be killed" get a Grammy nomination? I really don't think so, and if I am somehow off-base in assuming that, please look through this year's list of nominees--Beyonce, Taylor Swift, and so on--and let me know.

We Live In A World Where MGMT Could Lose A Grammy To Hall & Oates

​Hey the Grammy nominations were announced. Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Black Eyed Peas, Taylor Swift, Maxwell (!!), etc. Best Male Solo Rock Performance is staggeringly old (Dylan, Young, Springsteen, Fogerty, Prince). Best Metal Performance ain't so youthful neither (Slayer, Megadeth, Judas Priest, ... More >>

Susan Boyle Is the New Eminem

​And so the 2009 Taylor Swift Memorial Award for single-handedly saving the record industry goes to Susan Boyle, who last week sold north of 700,000 copies of her debut, I Dreamed a Dream. Boyle easily racked up the year's best sales week and the runner-up, Eminem's 600K-selling Relapse, ain't ... More >>

Speaking of Wale, Bon Jovi's The Circle is #1

​Sometimes there's just not a lot to live for when it comes to the week in record sales. Bon Jovi's The Circle took #1 with a pretty lackluster 163,000 copies sold (about half of what Carrie Underwood sold last week)--it's their fourth and most underwhelming #1. Underwood's Play On is down at ... More >>

Local Man Disrupts MTV Awards Show 10 Years Ago

All in all, you've got to admire the restraint shown by Gothamist editor John Del Signore, who waited 10 years and--more impressively, though one supposes this wasn't exactly ever going to accord with Gothamist's VMA coverage plan-- nearly two months after the whole Kanye/Taylor Swift melodrama to ... More >>

Week in Review: Those Guys Could Bring the Funk

Alison, one of many CMJ street fashion stars shot by Sam Horine. Find the rest here.​In the week Jay-Z made it all about him, we made it all about Jay-Z, from the first deplorable word that he'd be attempting to demoralize the Phillies at Yankee Stadium all the way though his overshare-y and u ... More >>

Lady Gaga and Kanye Rumors

​Today's hot rumor is that Lady Gaga might perform at Out magazine's bash at the LES club the Box tonight. It could happen, seeing as she's on the mag's cover and she's in town, having just done the VMAs and Marc Jacobs's after party last night. If she doesn't materalize, that's OK, seeing as ... More >>

Kanye West Ruins Everything at MTV Awards

​Fond as we are of his music, Kanye West is such an egomaniac that we are unsurprised to learn he interrupted Taylor Swift's Best Female Video award at the stupid MTV Awards last night, grabbing the mic and explaining to the nonplussed honoree and audience that Swift's fellow nominee Beyonce ... More >>

Another Free iTunes Single of the Week: Gloriana's "Wild at Heart"

Last week's prediction: Nothing like this again, unless iTunes wants a revolt. Sometimes, you get a real child-slavery vibe from these young, recently formed Nashville acts. From the official Gloriana bio: "We spend most of our time rehearsing and writing at our band house in Nashville. Most nigh ... More >>

The Academy of Country Music Awards: A Running Diary