For fans of a certain age, Big Star was our Velvet Underground — the band that everybody sounded like, but nobody (well, nobody but us) actually knew anything about. R.E.M., the Replacements, Matthew Sweet, they all owed something You May Also Like: Those Pretty Wrongs (feat. Big Star’s Jody Stephens),Read More

You could be forgiven for not believing that a new project based on the work of Irish poet William Butler Yeats might be the rocking-est, modern-est thing the Waterboys have put out in some 25 years. But it is. You May Also Like: The Waterboys, “Beautiful Now” from Modern BluesRead More

With Depeche Mode’s forthcoming Delta Machine, David Gahan, Andy Fletcher and Martin Gore recall their greatest late-1980s successes. That they are largely no worse for the wear, in particular Gahan, is a wonder to behold. You May Also Like: Florence + the Machine, “What Kind Of Man” from How Big,Read More

A hired gun and a second fiddle for almost his entire career thus far, Johnny Marr finally slips into the driver’s seat with The Messenger. His debut solo record is his own creation from top to bottom, a propulsive and diverse recording top-loaded with raucous accoutrements and immense souvenirs. NME’sRead More

Anyone who was a fan of their dangerously debauched brand of college rock, so long gone now, would have thought that chances of the Replacements getting back together were roughly the same as the odds they’d cover a Gordon Lightfoot song. You May Also Like: The Replacements collapsed in aRead More

Dimly foreboding, funereal in the most intriguing of ways, Depeche Mode’s new single “Heaven” moves with a delicious deliberateness. It’s all atmosphere, all feel, completely enveloping. You May Also Like: Paul McCartney, “Take It Away” from Tug of War (1982): One Track Mind