Category Box sets
PHAIR WEATHER FRIEND: Hanging Out In Guyville 25+ Years Later
It’s been a life-altering twenty five-plus years since we were all twenty five (or thereabouts), an age when most of us don’t have much of a clue about how life-altering the next twenty five years are going to be.
CHRIS BELL’S PURE POP COSMOS: Big Star’s Other Bright Light
News that a biography and at least three vinyl compilations of the work of Big Star co-founder Chris Bell are coming out this year — including “The Complete Chris Bell,” a massive six-LP (!) retrospective due July 7 by Omnivore Recordings (the same folks who’ve issued some tasty Big Star releases in recent years, including […]
FOREVER YOUNG & CUTTING EDGE: Bob Dylan Turns 75, Approximately
To hear these inspirations and ideas unfurl like a slow flag or burst like fireworks, explode into the stratosphere, and twist crazily this way and that, you get the sense that this must be what it would have been like to watch Van Gogh mix his colors and apply those bright yellows and brilliant blues to the swaying sunflowers and starry nights he dreamt into being.
THE TIES THAT BIND: The Timeless River That Runs Through Bruce Springsteen’s America
The best way to understand why Bruce Springsteen matters to his audience, and the American cultural landscape in general, is to turn to the man himself. Throughout his career, it has been virtually impossible to separate the rock star from the hippie kid who grew up in Freehold, New Jersey and the populist songwriter whose lyrics owe as much to John Steinbeck and Woody Guthrie as Bob Dylan and Chuck Berry
THE MERITS OF STEPHIN: The Enduring Attraction (69 Love Songs’ Worth) of The Magnetic Fields
The news that Merge is gearing up for a “69 Love Songs” vinyl reissue campaign — with the first run of 1,000 copies being pressed on colored vinyl (for geeks like us who care about such things) — feels a little like re-discovering and savoring a half-forgotten love letter that you cherished and then, eventually, tucked away in a drawer with your memories. (Or, in our case, massive filing cabinets stuffed with CDs).
RPM: Jonathan Perry's Life in Analog 