Jesse Andrews The Haters Published 2016/03/23 I first discovered The Haters looking for Jesse Andrews’ first novel, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, which I’d heard great stuff about....
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There are folks who worship My Bloody Valentine. I’m not one of them. But I appreciate them quite a bit. They weren’t the only shoegaze band out there, but they…
I recently happened across a playlist of the top 100 songs from 1980 according to the Billboard charts. Of course, there were a few great songs on there (“Call Me”...
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Big Star never found commercial success, but they were one of the great power pop bands of the early ‘70s, and a major influence on subsequent generations of musicians. Former…
Dissatisfied with the new conformity of England’s once-nonconformist punk scene, Howard Devoto left Buzzcocks, the band he founded with Pete Shelley, after their first EP. He was determined to move…
There were many worthy albums in 1980 that didn’t make my Year in Review playlist. Let’s take a peek at some of the most significant. Further Listening, Most Overrated, and...
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Pretenders, founded by American expat Chrissie Hynde after immersing herself in the London punk rock scene, became one of the best bands of the early ‘80s with two quite different...
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X were West Coast punk rockers who tinged their visceral attack with touches of Americana and rockabilly. Led by the male-female duo of vocalist and bassist John Doe and vocalist…
Dire Straits—with their distinctive brand of mellow, flowing, blues-based rock—offered listeners one of the best alternatives to the leading punk and post-punk scene of late-‘70s and early-‘80s England. Fronted by...
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AC/DC, kings of crass, primitive, bad-boy rock and roll—they deserve their own special seat in the great hall of rock and roll (sentenced to the corner, of course, for bad...
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