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Music Features

Hope for the Nation

Jon Hope's Mass Appeal
Pick up the latest issue of XXL magazine and flip to the "Show and Prove" section and you'll spot Providence hip-hop artist Jon Hope — and rightly so.

By CHRIS CONTI | February 25, 2009

The Big Hurt: Clench and release

Smooth jazz, revenge fantasies, and . . . wangs
For your edifying consumption, another stroll through the wasteland of godawful publicity.

By DAVID THORPE | February 25, 2009

A voice from on high

The second coming of Antony and the Johnsons
On his new album The Crying Light, Antony Hegarty lifts his voice without raising it.

By DANIEL BROCKMAN | February 18, 2009

The Big Hurt: Marley pimped, Miley sorry, Kanye secure

Music news in brief
This goes to print a week after I write it because of the damnable pre-Web technology of the printed page, but I swear to God that I was the first son of a bitch to think of it: Jackson Browne, James Brown, Bobby Brown, Chris Brown .

By DAVID THORPE | February 19, 2009

Interview: Witch

Less weed, more speed
SONGS FOR THE DEAF AT AS220, COURTESY OF WITCH

By CHRIS CONTI | February 18, 2009

Study shows country music is still just awful

Who charted?
You know what I haven't done in a while, for plenty of very good reasons? Listened to the whole cotton-pickin' Billboard Hot Country chart! Yee-haw!

By DAVID THORPE | February 10, 2009

Interview: The Low Anthem

Riding high
The Low Anthem return home — for just a little while

By CHRIS CONTI | February 04, 2009

Quitters, tinklers, tacklers, and whoppers

The Big Hurt: Music news in brief
David Berman of Silver Jews intends to quit the music biz and concentrate on writing prose, says a post on the Drag City Web site.

By DAVID THORPE | February 02, 2009

Andrew Bird's whistled, wily works

Setting the mood
"Steamy, fecund, decaying, kind of mossy, woodsy . . . cloudlike, thick, saturated."

By MICHAEL ALAN GOLDBERG | January 28, 2009

The Big Hurt: Dare to meme

Apologies in advance for the YouTube clip of 2009
Apologies in advance for the YouTube clip of 2009

By DAVID THORPE | January 28, 2009

Verbana Darvell: Unmasked

The return of Verbana Darvell
South County screamo quartet Verbana Darvell recently finished their latest EP, Brought Out the Waiting , produced by studio whiz Mike Poorman at Strangeways Recording in Providence.

By CHRIS CONTI | January 13, 2009

RIP: Ron Asheton (1948-2009)

Death trip
Ron Asheton's off-and-on relationship with James "Iggy Pop" Osterberg Jr. was both a blessing and a curse.

By DANIEL BROCKMAN | January 19, 2009

Buy local!

75orless' No Qualms offers 43 bands — all killer, no filler
43 bands, 32 hailing from Rhode Island, all for a recession-friendly $7.

By PHOENIX PROVIDENCE STAFF | December 31, 2008

Y'all come back now . . .

Diminishing returns in 2009
I've always liked the idea of there being some weight to the "nines," meaning: if you're a year, and you're going to perch yourself at the very edge of a decade, you'd better be ready to represent.

By MICHAEL BRODEUR | December 31, 2008

2008 Listravaganza!

An absolute glut of cruelly reductive Top 10 lists from our dedicated staff of tirelessly enthusiastic writers
We are not at all sick of bands with animal names yet and seem to have a soft spot for Erykah Badu that we kept very hush about all year.

By BOSTON PHOENIX MUSIC STAFF | December 31, 2008

Listen!

10 pop and jazz discs you need
10 pop and jazz discs you need

By JIM MACNIE | December 23, 2008

Smooth operators

The year in Auto-Tune
The year in Auto-Tune

By RICHARD BECK | December 24, 2008

Feel the music

We may be the last generation to give tangible tunes for Christmas
I personally find it comforting that the current number-one single in the country has a chorus that goes "I'll gas up the jet for you tonight, and baby we can go wherever you like."

By DANIEL BROCKMAN | December 11, 2008