Country crossover star Taylor Swift has carved out a niche penning maddeningly infectious songs about approximately a zillion relationships, most of them unrequited or over. G...

Indie guitar whiz Marnie Stern has watched her guitar collection dwindle down from several fine instruments to one beloved model. “I used to have a bunch of guitars but I’...

“How Soon is Now?” The Smiths cryptically wondered on their self-titled 1984 debut. I can name that tune in one shimmering, echo-pedaled guitar note. So when ex-Smiths gui...

Sonic Youth was born in 1981, three years after I was. We did not grow up together, however: While I was learning to walk and read, they were recording album after album of dr...

Los Angeles-based DJ Steven Ellison, aka Flying Lotus, doesn’t rely on big drops or booming bass. Here’s why you should give this avant-garde beatsmith a listen. The Coltr...

My partner, Jaime, lost her dad on Holy Thursday. Her family lives in Los Angeles, and I’m writing this riding down the Pacific Coast Highway so we can put his ashes in the ...

Saturday is Record Store Day, that hallowed annual event when record stores say, “Hey! Remember us?” Vinylheads line up at the coolest stores (Jack White’s Third Man Rec...

Cameron Carpenter is coming after “The Old Rugged Cross.” He has nothing against old-timey hymns, but he is tired of the church, the concert hall and the castle being the ...

California rapper Big Sean broke huge after signing to Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. label for his 2011 debut, “Finally Famous.” That disc’s Nicki Minaj-assisted club hit, “...

“The Sapphires” is an Australian movie about four Aboriginal women who tour Vietnam in 1968 with their Irish manager while singing American music. Small world, huh? The mo...

Lil Wayne lives! For a while, we were worried. When the sizzurp-loving rapper was hospitalized two Fridays ago following seizures, fans — myself included — were on Twitter...

You should be listening to new bands. All the time. Reading about a band in a magazine? Too late, lame-o. You should be trading playlists with a 17-year-old reggaeton DJ in Li...

A debate is raging in Massachusetts’ state house: What will be its official state rock song? In the past month, two bills have come before the legislature — one promoting ...

Wonders never cease: I’m jamming to a Gordon Lightfoot tune. It’s a cover of the Canadian folkie’s 1965 song “I’m Not Sayin’,” by seminal ’80s Minneapolis band...

For a band that lasted only four years (from 1976 to 1980, when singer Ian Curtis committed suicide), Joy Division has its cultists. I am one. There’s something entrancing a...