The Decemberists

Of Monsters and Men

Education Supplement: Class Action Listings

Laura Gibson

COASTAL COOL

Although East is still better, amirite?

The New Adventures of Old R.E.M.

Collapse Into Now finds our wizened heroes sounding more like themselves than ever

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 >>

Nicki Minaj Has The #1 Record In The Country

​It's true. Pink Friday sold 44,000 copies this week to top the Billboard charts. It would've set a record for the worst-selling #1 record of all time, except Cake already hit that number in January, and last week Amos Lee ruled the charts by selling a mere 40,000. (Your 2011 one-week sales le ... More >>

Top 10 Super Bowl 2012 Halftime-Show Possibilities

Let's all do our best to keep this from happening​So another enjoyable terrible Super Bowl Halftime Show is in the books, and as we wash "I Gotta Feeling" out of our eyes and ears for the thousandth time, the question becomes: Who will grace the stage in 2012? How old will their most famous al ... More >>

Week In Review: We'll Never Get Over The White Stripes

​We started out the week on a positive jam. Riding high off Bob Dylan Week, we spent the weekend paying tribute to all those bands who came before with Craig Finn at Music Hall of Williamsburg and trying with all our hearts to sing along while the Dismemberment Plan flailed around on stage at ... 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 >>

Week In Review: Bob Dylan Is Waiting In A Van Outside Your House

Photo via Fred W. McDarrah, there from the start.​Yes, it was Dylan Week here at SOTC, a veritable orgy of Greenwich Village-scouring videos (with installments covering Cafe Wha?, Jones Street, the Gaslight, and Washington Square Hotel, or just enjoy the whole thing in one shot here), along wi ... More >>

Presenting Your 2011 Billboard #1s: Taylor Swift...Cake...the Decemberists?

We defy you not to laugh, really.​This morning, music industry executives awoke with a sigh of relief: the third full sales week of 2011 did not end with historic Soundscan lows. After Taylor Swift set a historical nadir by selling 52,000 copies of three-month-old record during one of the slow ... More >>

Everybody Panic: Taylor Swift's Speak Now Scores the Lowest-Selling Billboard #1, Ever

"Peace, suckers." Photo via MySpace.​Bad news for anyone hoping to make a living off of selling recorded music ever again: after 2010 brought us such lovely milestones as the worst week for music sales in all of SoundScan history and the Kanye West record that wouldn't go platinum, 2011 has al ... More >>

The Decemberists

MADE IN PORTLANDIA

Three nights with the Decemberists

Mountain Man

Black Prairie

INDIE POD

Rejoice for Freelance Whales!

Interview: Heartless Bastards on Erika Wennerstrom's Huge Voice, Male Groupies, and Hookers in Flip-Flops

Erika Wennerstrom: "I want to sound like Nico and Lou Reed." photo by Cambria HarkeyDave Colvin, Erika Wennerstrom, Jesse Ebaugh Heartless Bastards are having an incredible year: a spot on The Late Show with David Letterman, great reviews for their latest record The Mountain, and an appearance on ... More >>

News Roundup: The Decemberists, Death Row Records, Neko Case, Monty Python

​ --The Decemberists have added a New York date to their "A Short Fazed Hovel" tour. The band hits Terminal 5 on September 19th. Colin Meloy and Co. will take a break from playing the epic Hazards of Love in its entirety, instead planning a "special lottery show." In an e-mail, the band said: ... More >>

News Roundup: Leonard Cohen, The Decemberists, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Guitar Hero

​--Tickets for Leonard Cohen's October 23rd gig at Madison Square Garden are now available via Fan Club Pre-Sale: the password is CENTRALPARK. Regular seats for the Garden show go on sale August 10th at 10 a.m. through Ticketmaster for all the general public schmucks. The 74-year-old legend re ... More >>

Tonight! Gil, Elvis, and, If You Must, the Decemberists

The poetry of Gil Scott-Heron spoke for the wretched of the earth-- his concocted third-world revolution was fearsome enough to stand in for the real thing. Since denying the addictive properties of cocaine in 2001, the spoken-word artist has been in and out of prison on drug-related charges, resu ... More >>

In Praise of Marc Ribot...

...style-morphing guitarist icon extraordinaire

GOOD VIBRATIONS

Your favorite compilation is now a live show

SXSW 2009: Futuristic Nostalgia with Janelle Monáe and Phosphorescent

Janelle Monáe (Stubbs) Phosphorescent (Club De Ville) SXSW Wednesday Night, March 18 I would declare that a bunch of Decemberists fans crowding the front of the stage four hours before the sea shanties etc. even begin just to insure their spot is not exactly Atlanta r&b space-cadet Janelle Moná ... More >>

SXSW 2009: Getting Off on the Good Foot with Marnie Stern and Heartless Bastards

Heartless Bastards (Radio Room) Marnie Stern (Club De Ville) SXSW Wednesday Afternoon, March 18 Erika Wennerstrom's bandmates give her a tremendously wide berth onstage, three grizzled gentlemen crowding demurely to our far right as she holds court on the left, the sort of blast radius you'd give ... More >>

Live: Tokyo Police Club Politely Headline at Webster Hall

Tokyo Police Club Webster Hall February 25 Tokyo Police Club are "really good at ending songs," says a friend. At Webster Hall, this is indeed when the band seems happiest: guitar necks levitate, keyboards tessellate, and then--next song. They're the tidiest bunch of undersized, shallow-chested, ... More >>

The Best of Showpaper "I Saw You," Edition One

Decemberists' "Obama Worship Service" Annoys Reviewer

Okkervil River's Sweetly Sung Songs of Meta Self-Loathing

Live: Dark Meat's Freakout Circus

Colin Meloy Sings Live!

Bookish tunesmith enthralls meatheads

Please Ignore the Embroidered Dog Sweater

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

You Can Protest This Administration With Chords

Death Cab for Cutie’s sonic architect gets awkwardly, verbosely political

Breihan vs. Harvilla: Does Indie-Rock Need Rhythm?

Pinback's Autumn of the Seraphs

Still depressed and slightly confusing, but no longer incapacitatingly so

Great Lakes Myth Society's Compass Rose Bouquet

Greetings from Michigan, again, but a lot less fey this time.

Addicted to L.A.

A doomed heroine speeds down the road to ruin

One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even These

Random obsessions and vexations, born of both young tyros and inexplicably still-rocking old people

Expectations Too Narrow

Pity the Shins, a good band now plagued by ubiquitous claims of greatness

Clipse: Critical Love Doesn't Mean Pop Success

Taynted Love

On the Decemberists' faux-wordly false humility

CMJ Music Marathon Highlights

Dare to Be Stupid

In defense, praise, and unrelenting awe of the increasingly vital Weird Al

Extraordinary Machines

We didn't get what we wanted but we haven't entirely lost what we had

Indie Bedwetter Dweebs Maybe Not So Bad

Flu Season

A talk with disease-nerd novelist, banjo player, and indie-rock muse Myla Goldberg

Rimbaud II: First Love

In Richard Hell's new novel, 'godlike philosopher poets' crash parties and go to Veselka

Meant for the Stage

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

Seamen and Booty

Mutiny on the Bounty's what these stevedores are all about