Collaborations in pop-rock/punk over the years has allowed for some of the strangest partnerships.
Why do musicians copy each other? Is it to pay homage, or merely coincidental? We dive into the concept of originality in music, and why maybe there’s more gray area than you think.
The Punk Goes Pop series is six volumes deep at this point, celebrating the release of its most recent compilation this week — but what if we were able to flip the script and pull in artists from the world of mainstream pop to take on music from our scene?
Great Mission: Life proves that hard work mixed with sweat, talent, and shear creativity can blend seamlessly into a brilliant travel kit for Part One of an epic journey.
Reports last week that Apple was close to agreeing to a $3.2bn deal to acquire Beats Electronics were greeted by thunderous and opinionated mainstream media attention.
The Wonder Years’ third full-length The Greatest Generation proves once and for all that the band’s significance goes far beyond their infectious sound and tattoo-ready lyrics. The third in a trilogy, the album is made up of thirteen of the strongest and most meaningful songs the band has ever written, cementing them as one of the most important acts of this decade.
This past December witnessed more than snow and sleighs when We the Kings re-emerged with Smile Kid.
On an appropriately cold and rainy Friday night in the Minneapolis warehouse district, the Despair Faction, AFI’s fan militia, was working itself up, chanting the intro to Black Sails in the Sunset (”Through/Our bleeding!/We/Are one!”) and throwing up martial fist pumps. The all-ages crowd had already been primed by opening act Gallows, whose lanky, ginger vocalist, Frank Carter, spent half his time singing from the middle of the pit and the rest on stage, gobbing loogies with impressive trajectories. The Faction had just spent three years waiting for AFI to break their hiatus with a new album, Crash Love, and… Read more »
They’ve been called weirdoes, freaks and Satanists. Animal Collective’s otherworldly song structures, deconstructed harmonies and tribal rhythms aren’t always met with receptive ears, but there might not be a more progressive band in indie music. With two of the best-reviewed albums of the year – the band’s new “Strawberry Jam” and the solo disc by keyboardist Panda Bear, “Person Pitch” – Animal Collective has established itself as an act wildly separate from the many retro-oriented bands that populate today’s scene. The sound of the future, the psychedelic band acknowledges, is something they seek. “That’s kind of always been a goal,… Read more »
Listeners tuning in to Chicago alternative rock station WKQX (Q101) on August 9 heard a catchy, guitar-driven track called “The Great Divide,” followed by an announcement that the song was produced by a “mystery artist.” It quickly became the most-requested song on the station and was put into power rotation by the programming department. After three weeks of speculation, a DJ finally revealed the secret: The band behind the alt-rock hit was none other than Hanson, a trio of brothers best known for their pop-rock song “MMMBop,” which topped the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks in 1997. Q101 program… Read more »
