Pop Music

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Young London pops Boston's rock bubble

Dance to the underground
It's a sentiment as old as the faded memories of the glory days at clubs like the Rat, Bunratty's, and the Channel: Boston is a rock-and-roll town.
By MICHAEL MAROTTA | October 19, 2011

The Big Hurt: Ke$ha, 'That Girl in Pink,' and Mongo Slade make 'news'

Hard pressed
This week, another ill-fated jog down the dark alley of music biz press releases. . . .
By DAVID THORPE | September 14, 2011

Ladybug Transistor in Boston with Hallelujah The Hills

The Ladybug Transistor create a new pop shade

Growth spurts
Brooklyn might not be the first place that comes to mind when thinking about overgrown blooms and country air. But for the past 16 years, Gary Olson of the Ladybug Transistor has made the city parks and street-lined canopies of Flatbush his own private garden.
By JONATHAN DONALDSON | June 29, 2011

Photos: Kylie Minogue at Agganis Arena

Pop diva Kylie Minogue performed at Agganis Arena in Boston on April 29, 2011
Kylie Minogue | Agganis Arena | April 29, 2011
By DEREK KOUYOUMJIAN | May 03, 2011

Basking in Justin Bieber's Never Say Never

Afterglow
Our nation is still reeling from Bieber's inexplicable Grammy loss — have the judges gone mad? Did Bieber and Drake split the vote? Is this yet another shocking example of the Grammys' longstanding prejudice in favor of jazz bassists?
By DAVID THORPE | February 23, 2011

Robyn at the State Theatre, January 29

Music seen
With each of her three 2010 Body Talk EPs armed with a single-of-the-year contender (in the just-slightly-ironic, pop-chart-averse blog-critic sense), it's been hard to ignore Swedish pop star Robyn's status as in indie icon these past 12 months.
By CHRISTOPHER GRAY | February 16, 2011

Jeff Beam navigates the Flying Trapeze

Without a net
Talk about a high-wire act. On his fourth full-length album in as many years, young songwriter/performer/engineer Jeff Beam has set out to make an important album that's listenable, a record that both challenges ideas about pop music and embraces them.
By SAM PFEIFLE | December 08, 2010

Photos: 3OH!3 and Cobra Starship at House of Blues

Cobra Starship and 3OH!3, live at House of Blues Boston, May 9, 2010
Cobra Starship and 3OH!3 in Boston
By ANNE WERMIEL | May 17, 2010

Living in the Now

Shryne’s ‘honest but polished’ pop-rock
There’s no denying the ongoing presence of what we’ll call melodic pop acts here in Rhode Island, bands comprised of guys in their mid-20s with a serious knack for penning sugary-sweet hooks and harmonies.
By CHRIS CONTI | May 12, 2010

The New Pornographers | Together

Matador (2010)
Once a group of Canadian unknowns masquerading as a supergroup, the New Pornographers are no longer entirely Canadian or unknown, and neither are they the same cavalier bunch who redefined left-field power pop for the Naughts.
By ZETH LUNDY | May 04, 2010

Harvard virginity conference pops its cherry

Roe v. Wait Dept.
At what moment are you no longer a virgin? When you get a blowjob? Give one? Give 30 ? When someone fingers you? Oral sex? Anal sex? Enjoyment? Orgasm?
By NINA MACLAUGHLIN | May 07, 2010

Championship vinyl

Flavorheard, Frank White, and Mister Jason are Fever
You have a better chance of hearing Taylor Swift songs banging out of Kanye’s tinted windows than you do of hearing either of their pop asses on the Good Life speakers during Fever.
By CHRIS FARAONE | March 31, 2010

Review: The Last Song

Emotional kidney punches involving arson, divorce, and sea turtle eggs
Bestselling novelist Nicholas Sparks ( The Notebook , Dear John ) and effervescent ’tween queen Miley Cyrus hook up for one of Sparks’s patented tearjerkers.
By TOM MEEK | March 31, 2010

Not teens, not dreams

Beach House avoid the literal
“The abstract has been very good to us.” I am communicating via e-mail with the two members of Baltimore’s dreamy pop choir Beach House, and to be honest, I don’t know which one of them made that statement.
By DANIEL BROCKMAN | March 23, 2010

Goldfrapp | Head First

Mute (2010)
The case can be made that artists like Goldfrapp function like pop music’s doormat, showing artists the way to commercial success while not necessarily passing the threshold themselves.
By DANIEL BROCKMAN | March 23, 2010

Donwill | Don Cusack In High Fidelity

Interdependent (2010)
It's hardly extraordinary that Donwill should cry a disc inspired by the Nick Hornby book and subsequent John Cusack film.
By CHRIS FARAONE | March 09, 2010

The Big Hurt: Lightfoot lives!

Plus Weezy tweets and Mayer backpedals
Last week, the world was gripped in the terror of a GORDON LIGHTFOOT death scare when a realistic-looking Twitter obit was picked up by several Canadian papers.
By DAVID THORPE | March 02, 2010

Photos: Black Eyed Peas at TD Garden

Black Eyed Peas, live at TD Garden, February 26, 2010
The Black Eyed Peas bring "The E.N.D." to Boston
By DEREK KOUYOUMJIAN | March 03, 2010

Ride that wave

Are Surfer Blood the only band from Florida?
Like a killer wave or a lousy metaphor, success can really sneak up on you.
By MICHAEL BRODEUR | February 23, 2010

jj | jj N° 3

Secretly Canadian (2010)
Secretly Canadian's new acquisitions (and future touring partners of the xx) continue to harness dualities that leave them smack dab between savvy-kitschy and kitschy-kitschy.
By CARRIE BATTAN | February 23, 2010

Swede heart

El Perro del Mar cheers up — a little
Few contemporary singers achieve as perfect a confluence of sound and image as Sarah Assbring. It's deeply reassuring to hear mournful, stylized '60s pop coming out of a melancholic beanpole who resembles a recently bereaved Edie Sedgwick.
By EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | February 16, 2010

Excerpt: Evening’s Empire by Bill Flanagan

In this chapter, "The Drugs Don't Work," aging rock star Emerson Cutler and his manager, Jack Flynn, are seeking inspiration — and desperately trying to jumpstart his career.
By BILL FLANAGAN | February 05, 2010

The Big Hurt: Everybody hurting

Warning: Scorpions content
The music industry's response to the Haiti disaster has been pretty great, since it's given some huge names a chance to complete the vital circuit between the public's heartstrings and their wallets.
By DAVID THORPE | February 02, 2010

Photos: Mariah Carey at the Wang Theatre

Mariah Carey, live at the Citi Wang Theatre, January 31, 2010
Photos of Mariah Carey on her 2010 world tour
By LUCY SHERMAN | February 01, 2010

Review: Carolina Chocolate Drops at Somerville Theatre

Carolina Chocolate Drops, live at the Somerville Theatre, January 23, 2010
The Carolina Chocolate Drops introduced the penultimate song of their Saturday night Somerville Theatre show as from 2001, "which is about 100 years ago in pop music."
By JON GARELICK | January 29, 2010

The Big Hurt: Falling down the rabbit hole

Music news in brief
Lee, Hoppus, Wentz, Avril, and 3OH!3 fall down the rabbit hole
By DAVID THORPE | January 20, 2010

Odd men in

Of Montreal might be weird enough for the mainstream
When Beyoncé, in a recent Guardian interview, pegged Georgia art weirdos Of Montreal as a group with whom she'd love to collaborate, the real weirdness was in how sensible it all seemed — as pop music has gotten skronkier and more fuzzed-out, indie rock has slowly molted its hatred of the mainstream and started to display the very flamboyance and hook worship it once held as anathema.
By DANIEL BROCKMAN | January 19, 2010