- 4/14/11 /
- Comment
Why Tepid Reviews of TV on the Radio’s Nine Types of Light Are Actually a Good Sign
The new album from a critics' favorite is quieter than usual.
Music Review
- 4/12/11 /
- Comment
Panda Bear’s Tomboy Is Animal Collective’s Latest Magic Trick
If you combed through the catalogues of Animal Collective and its members, you'd probably find them pillaging every last variety of purpose-based and communal music.
- 3/8/11 /
- Comment
Avril Lavigne Is Still Trying to Grow Up on Goodbye Lullaby
'Goodbye Lullaby' has one foot in Lavigne's skateboard past, and one in a more mature yet inarticulate twentysomething future.
- 3/2/11 /
- Comment
Brasher Is Better for Lykke Li on Wounded Rhymes
The Swedish singer is charmingly intense on her new album.
- 2/25/11 /
- Comment
Adele’s 21: It’s the Singer, Not the Song
The English soul singer Adele shines brightest on her bad songs.
- 2/20/11 /
- Comment
Radiohead's The King of Limbs: What Happens When 'Serious Listening' Is Your Brand
Radiohead has trained fans to follow them further and further from their original rock template. This coy, unobtrusive new album captures the pleasures and danger of this approach.
- 1/28/11 /
- Comment
The Strokes Sound Nostalgic for Themselves on Their New Single
Word is "Under Cover of Darkness" is a return to form. Well, yes and no.
- 1/21/11 /
- Comment
Tennis’s Cozy Sailing Excursion and the Guilty Indie Fan
Plus reviews of new albums by Braids, Fergus and Geronimo, and Smith Westerns.
- 1/4/11 /
- Comment
Weekend and Buke&Gass: Two Fall Sleeper Albums Worth Catching Up With
Indie rock that stuck with our critic through the winter.
- 12/15/10 /
- Comment
R. Kelly Would Like to Beg for Your Forgiveness on New Album Love Letter
On this homage to classic sixties soul, the loopy Lothario sounds vaguely contrite about something or other that's never specifically named.
- 12/9/10 /
- Comment
David Lynch, Seminal Musician
The director's new single is just the latest act in a long career of great music-making.
- 12/8/10 /
- Comment
Let’s All Just Sit for a Minute and Appreciate Jazmine Sullivan’s Voice
The 23-year-old R&B singer has a powerful instrument but she's most effective when she restrains it.
- 12/2/10 /
- Comment
Daft Punk Bursts the Tron Bubble
Daft Punk + 'Tron' was a perfect combination until we heard the soundtrack.
- 11/23/10 /
- Comment
Nicki Minaj and Rihanna: Acting Out vs. Staying Private
On her much-anticipated debut album, 'Pink Friday,' rapper Minaj's role-play creates interesting contradictions, while Rihanna's attempt to get 'Loud' masks a quiet, appealing smugness. Nitsuh Abebe reviews.
- 11/12/10 /
- Comment
Filthy, Rich: Kanye West’s Royal Fantasy
On his new album, the rapper mixes opulence with dirt.
- 11/5/10 /
- Comment
Neil Diamond's Songs For Monkees Fan Funerals; the Burdens of the "For Colored Girls" Soundtrack
Two new albums weighed down by solemnity.
- 11/4/10 /
- Comment
Brooklyn Light and Dark: New Albums From Matt & Kim and Violens
Matt & Kim have an odd problem: Their music might be too easy to like.
- 10/22/10 /
- Comment
How Kings of Leon Reached the Third, Surly Act of Their Rock-Star Movie
Every big rock band reaches a point at which it must retreat from fame in order to get it together in the country, man.
- 10/13/10 /
- Comment
Are South African Rave Ninjas Die Antwoord Exciting, Offensive, or Just Mystifying?
Nitsuh Abebe unpacks the new album from the YouTube pranksters.
- 10/12/10 /
- Comment
Music Review: Indie Grows Up with New Albums From Belle & Sebastian, Sufjan Stevens, and Antony & the Johnsons
Three bands settle into their middlebrow roles not that there's anything wrong with that!