“Our main gripe with Wynton is his self-serving rhetoric about what constitutes jazz. As he erupted on the scene in the ’80s, Marsalis gained an unprecedented bully pulpit through the media and his association with Lincoln Center. He used this power to redraw the boundaries of the entire genre, declaring that only acoustic music that [...]

At some point in the last week or two, I stocked my Amazon cart with six of the Continuum 33 1/3 series of books on legendary rock albums (Unknown Pleasures, Low, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Pet Sounds, Exile on Main St., and Sign O’ the Times). Late to the game, I know. Well, [...]

It’s been widely reported that CBS’s “Love Monkey” is not much more than a mutual hand-job between the network and Sony/BMG—Teddy Geiger (his Sony debut drops in February, y’all!) as the new Beck, Franz Ferdinand’s “Do You Want To” (distributed stateside by Sony) popping up in the background of a club scene, and main character [...]

(This is the fifth and final installment of marathonpacks’ Top 50 of the 90s list. To see #50-41, click here. To see #40-31, click here. To see #30-21, click here. To see #20-11, click here.)

10. A Tribe Called Quest-Midnight Marauders (Jive, 1993)

A whittled-down version of The Low-End Theory, Midnight Marauders is, aside from the obvious [...]

(This is the fourth installment of marathonpacks’ Top 50 of the 90s list. To see #50-41, click here. To see #40-31, click here. To see #30-21, click here. The fifth and final installment will be posted Thursday.)

20. Mos Def-Black on Both Sides (Rawkus, 1999)
The last two installments of this list will draw heavily [...]

(This is the third installment of marathonpacks’ Top 50 of the 90s list. To see #50-41, click here. To see #40-31, click here. The fourth installment, #20-11, will be posted Wednesday.)

30. PJ Harvey-To Bring You My Love (Island, 1995)
The slowly building, primordial guitars of opening track “To Bring You My Love” provide the perfect initiation [...]

(This is the second installment of marathonpacks’ Top 50 of the 90s list. To see #50-41, click here. The third installment, #30-21, will be posted Tuesday.)
40. Depeche Mode-Violator (Sire, 1990) (buy)
Serving diligently, along with Paul’s Boutique and, later, Nevermind as my Walkman-based school bus listening from eighth grade through the start of [...]

(This is the first installment of my top 50 albums of the 1990s, and will continue on a daily basis through the revelation of number one on Thursday.)
I was 13 in 1990, and 22 in 1999. This list represents, to a large degree, the span of the maturation of my popular musical development. I really, [...]

I’m posting this list in the interest of providing visitors an idea of what I’d consider my “canon”–for the last five years, at least. Any music aficionado would agree that a list like this actually goes together pretty quickly, by sorting one’s iTunes by year and taking a glance at the CD rack. My main [...]

After my last post discussing the indie behemoth known as Pitchfork, I received a bevy of different responses—some in the comments section, more directed to me in a sideways fashion during conversation (begins: “I know you don’t like Pitchfork, but…”). All have directed my attention at Pitchfork more than ever—trying to examine exactly what [...]