Music

America’s Best New Bands 2009

Our picks for the best new artist from each state in the union
Our picks for the best new artist from each state in the union

By: PHOENIX STAFF | July 02, 2009

Jumping genres at Providence Sound Session '09
The summer sun has arrived just in time for the "premier genre-defying summer music festival" known as Sound Session '09, a weeklong block party and musical melting pot for the masses kicking off on Sunday, July 5 and culminating in the climactic, carnival-style parade trough downtown on Saturday, July 11.

By: CHRIS CONTI | June 30, 2009

Reaction Jackson

How to mourn a mess
There was Michael the living, breathing, singing performer and Jackson the commercial spectacle. We surrendered to the former, he to the latter.

By: MICHAEL BRODEUR | July 01, 2009

Bibio | Ambivalence Avenue

Warp (2009)
Since this new record by Wolverhampton's Stephen James Wilkinson (a/k/a Bibio) has done nothing but delight me, I'm going to honor the sentiments posted to his MySpace blog and spare him the f-word and all variants thereof.

By: MICHAEL BRODEUR | July 01, 2009

Iggy Pop | Préliminaires

Astralwerks (2009)
Astralwerks (2009)

By: GUSTAVO TURNER | July 01, 2009

The Most Serene Republic | . . . And the Ever Expanding Universe

Arts and Crafts (2009)
The Most Serene Republic were the first group signed to Arts and Crafts that had no relationship to Broken Social Scene.

By: JAKE COHEN | July 01, 2009

Bowerbirds | Upper Air

Dead Oceans (2009)
North Carolina's Bowerbirds take the prevailing indie-rock æsthetic — ornate, textured arrangements, clean vocal harmonies — and apply them to Southern gothic, Appalachian bluegrass, and folk.

By: RYAN STEWART | July 01, 2009

Future of the Left | Travels With Myself and Another

4D (2009)
There's a fine line between stupid and clever, as Spinal Tap once quipped, and don't these Future of the Left guys just know it.

By: ZETH LUNDY | July 01, 2009

Interview: Michael Jackson's autobiographer

Stephen Davis, ghostwriter of Moon Walk, remembers the King of Pop. And his monkey.
"This was still a 30 year old black kid when I was working with him," Davis says, still incredulous at Jackson's death. "And the guy who just died looked kind of like a 60 year old white woman in garish lipstick. Kind of like the Joker."

By: CARLY CARIOLI | June 26, 2009

Hard-wired fuzz

The Inclined are finding a balance
The Inclined's December '08 debut, The First Day of Many, continues to captivate my attention with big hooks, spacey synths, and manipulated guitar riffs and squalls, at times encapsulated in fuzz and exploding with unabashedly catchy gems.

By: CHRIS CONTI | June 24, 2009

The Big Hurt: Durst pantsed, Michaels smooshed

Music news in brief
"This isn't a reunion, this is a comeback," quibbled the red-hatted irrelephant in a BBC interview.

By: DAVID THORPE | June 23, 2009

Major Lazer | Guns Don't Kill People . . . Lazers Do

Downtown (2009)
Producer-centric pop music of the last decade or three has, so the argument goes, made mainstream America's airwaves more diverse by pushing an inclusive mixtape æsthetic onto the great unwashed. So a fake-band album by Diplo and Switch, two of the more well-renowned DJ/producers around, should be gangbusters, right?

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | June 23, 2009

The Jonas Brothers | Lines, Vines and Trying Times

Hollywood (2009)
For a group of guys who made their name as the boy band of whom no mom could disapprove, the Jonas Brothers have developed some pretty repellent ideas about the fairer sex. In what seems like every other song here, they whine about how crazy and needy and bitchy young women can be.

By: MIKAEL WOOD | June 23, 2009