For me, at least, Morrissey has always walked a fine line. His mopey crooning can be incredibly affecting, or it can veer toward maudlin. The two keys to success seem...
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I tend to be the type of music fan who likes to hear a little edge or irregularity or pushing of musical boundaries when I listen. Straight-up singer-songwriter stuff doesn’t...
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Every generation needs its singer-songwriters. While the Seattle grunge rock scene was raging, guitars blazing, and the more indie contingent of alt-rock was coming to the fore, Tori Amos burst...
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Emerging from the American Northwest’s alongside others in the Seattle grunge scene, the Screaming Trees never had the commercial success of many of their peers. Yet they released at least...
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I’ve always wanted to dismiss Belle and Sebastian. To my ears, they come across as overly precious, privileged prep school students playing at being Nick Drake, only with as many...
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The brainchild of singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Stephin Merritt, the Magnetic Fields scored one late-‘90s classic—the 3-CD magnum opus, 69 Love Songs (1999)—plus plenty of other worthy listens. I had heard...
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Malcontent, misanthropic, and occasionally macabre, singer-songwriter Warren Zevon wrapped his twisted sense of humor in back-to-basics, crafted rock and roll. He had a reputation as a wild man, a user...
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Some might choose to call John Prine a folkie, simply because he’s so obviously one of those most odious of creatures, a dirty stinkin’ liberal. (Pinkos and commies and liberals—Oh,...
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Elvis Costello came out of the British pub rock scene, which developed into the facet of new wave characterized primarily by angry young men—Graham Parker, most prominently, and pub-rock pioneers...
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Bob Dylan (born Robert Zimmerman) should need no introduction. He’s one of the greats in the history of popular music, a masterful songwriter—indeed, the only rock musician ever to earn...
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