Tennis, “Robin” find it on Young & Old (2012) Tennis is never going to win any awards for variety. They’ll play their la la shit for you anytime, and you’ll like it or…you won’t. But their new album has a little bit more of what the French call production, and said production comes from Black [...]

I wasn’t much into Saint Etienne before about 1998. I hadn’t yet developed a taste for treacly pop or learned how to forgive bluntly shallow lyrics, and the songs I’d heard of theirs like “He’s On The Phone” were more pop than I could take at the time. I can’t remember why I gave their [...]

First Aid Kit, “Emmylou” get it on The Lion’s Roar (2012) We first heard about First Aid Kit (didn’t we?) when the Swedish teenage sisters popped up on YouTube singing Fleet Foxes’s “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” smack dab in the middle of the forest. Four years later, and we realize that these sisters still love [...]

Justin Townes Earle, “Harlem River Blues” find it on Harlem River Blues (2010) I was never a Steve Earle fan. His music always struck me as self-conscious as his politics, with every moment too carefully considered and dropped on you with a huge expectation that you’re supposed to respond to it in a certain way. [...]

Tanlines, “Brothers” Is it just me or has the internet had a lot of fun things to offer this week? It seems like every few hours, there’s some great link to a funny or horrifying story. 2012 seems to be picking up. With all the quality the internet was offering, it’s sort of surprising/no wonder [...]

My Morning Jacket, “Outta My System” find it on Circuital I have to say, it’s pretty refreshing to have someone look back on their life of crime and drug abuse gladly. I mean, I’m not endorsing it, but there’s something kind of ridiculous about people like, say, Motley Crue talking about how insane and fun [...]

Frente!, trailblazers in annoyingly punctuated band names, were best known for their beautiful, fragile cover of New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle”, and had a lot of chart success in their native Australia and indie success in the US with the album that followed up that single, Marvin The Album. But as much as I loved [...]

Los Campesinos!, “By Your Hand” find it on Hello Sadness (2011) It’s a stressful time for us music obsessives. The end of the year means a sudden panic of trying to catch up with the music of the last year before the next year’s new releases start flowing in. And while most of what I’ve [...]

2011 was a real chicken-and-egg kind of year in music. Was there really less amazing music or did everything sound a little duller because it was a difficult year for me personally? Was there less sonically interesting music in 2011 or was it because I cut way back on listening to music with headphones? Was [...]

Lana Del Rey, “Video Games” find it on Born To Die Remember the episode in Parks and Recreation where Leslie gives Ann a bunch of books to research and includes Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom only because “I’m dying to talk to someone about Patty”? That’s kind of how I feel about “Video Games”. It’s a song [...]