The Village Voice
Founded in 1955, The Village Voice was a free weekly tabloid-format newspaper in New York that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City. It was the first of the urban tabloid-format newspapers that came to be known as alternative weeklies. The paper's print edition closed in August 2017.
450 articles
List of articles in the library
Bob Dylan: Blonde on Blonde (Columbia)
Review by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, June 1966
LOOKING LIKE a man who's been waiting in line for two hours to find a vacant john, Bob Dylan peers in full color from the ...
Live Review by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 16 June 1966
Pop Eye: Soundblast '66 ...
The Shangri-Las: The Soul Sound from Sheepshead Bay
Profile and Interview by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 23 June 1966
THEY STARTED with a twinkle in their eyes and leatherette on their hips. Out there on the stage of the Brooklyn Fox, with Murray the ...
The Rolling Stones: Pop Eye: The Rolling Stones
Report by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 7 July 1966
THE JET landed amid a churning blast of mechanical thunder. The portable staircase was fixed in place. The stewardess and health officials departed. Finally, the ...
The Beatles: Revolver (Capitol)
Review by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 25 August 1966
SWINGING LONDON, August 17 — The reception which the Beatles have received so far on their American tour has been less than ecstatic. But it ...
The Beatles: Revolver (Capitol)
Review by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 25 August 1966
SWINGING LONDON, August 17 — The reception which the Beatles have received so far on their American tour has been less than ecstatic. But it ...
Simon & Garfunkel: The Sound of J.D. Salinger Clapping
Profile and Interview by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 3 November 1966
WE KNOW about the sound of two hands clapping. We're pretty sure these days what one hand clapping sounds like. But what is the sound ...
The Mothers of Invention: The Balloon Farm, New York NY
Live Review by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 1 December 1966
THE BALLOON Farm became much more than a discotheque last weekend, and the resident combo became much more than a pop-music ensemble. ...
The Beatles, George Harrison, Ravi Shankar: Pop Eye: Ravi and the Teenie Satori
Report by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 5 January 1967
THEY ARE waiting for him in the glass-enclosed library of Asia House, over coffee, cream, and croissants. All the regulars are there: the lady reporter ...
Jefferson Airplane: The Jefferson Airplane: Webster Hall, New York NY
Live Review by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 12 January 1967
(RBP Editor's note: this article was extracted from Goldstein's "Pop Eye" column. The opening paragraph refers to the previous item) ...
Tim Hardin, The Rascals, The Velvet Underground: Pop Eye: Mover
Profile and Interview by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 19 January 1967
"HOW MANY columns you get in Newsweek?" ...
Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds, Donovan, The Rolling Stones, The Supremes: Pop Eye: Singles
Review by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 26 January 1967
YOU KNOW something's fishy when you see that elastic grin on Brian Jones's face for the record jacket The title above tells all: 'Let's Spend ...
The Beach Boys, Jackson Browne, Buffalo Springfield, Love: Los Angeles: The Vanishing Underground
Report by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 16 February 1967
LOS ANGELES — Sunset Strip is dead. ...
Review by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 23 February 1967
PHILLERS ...
Report and Interview by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 2 March 1967
SAN FRANCISCO — Forget the cable cars; skip Chinatown and the Golden Gate; don't bother about the topless mother of eight. ...
The Diggers: In Search of George Metesky
Report by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 16 March 1967
ON A WINTER evening, knots of anxious hippies assembled at San Francisco's Howard Presbyterian Church, overlooking the treelined mall called the Panhandle. Now and then ...
The Doors: Ondine, New York NY
Live Review by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 23 March 1967
OPENING NIGHT at Ondines, that Queensboro Bridge of the soul, vast enough to encompass local beasts of prey, an occasional Rolling Stone on holiday, and ...
Donovan, The Lovin' Spoonful, The Rolling Stones: The Psychedelic Yenta Strikes Again!
Report by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 23 March 1967
THE LOVIN' Spoonful may soon find their names anathema to the very underground which nurtured them. ...
Report and Interview by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 30 March 1967
IN THE backstage halflight of the RKO 58th Street Theatre, Peter Townshend awaits his cue. Stagehands pace furiously, shouting orders in bizarre New York-ese. A ...
Grateful Dead: The Grateful Dead: The Grateful Dead (Warner Bros.)
Review by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 13 April 1967
A GOOD ALBUM, like those long lasting cold remedies, is filled with tiny time capsules which burst open at their own speed. Cuts that astound ...
Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground & Nico (Verve)
Review by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 13 April 1967
THE VELVET Underground is not an easy group to like. Some of the cuts on their album are blatant copies: I refer specifically to the ...
Report by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 29 June 1967
"The West is the best: Get here and we'll do the rest!" — The Doors ...
The Beatles: I Blew My Cool Through The New York Times
Comment by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 20 July 1967
IF BEING A critic were the same as being a listener I could just enjoy Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Other than one cut ...
Jimi Hendrix, The Monkees: The Monkees, Jimi Hendrix Experience: Forest Hills Stadium, Queens NY
Live Review by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 27 July 1967
DAVY JONES pretended to dip his microphone in a goblet of water. And Micky Dolenz admitted he had bought a Moog synthesizer ("I'm fooling around ...
Jackson Browne, Penny Nichols: The Billy James Underground
Report by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 3 August 1967
HE CRUISES along the Freeway out of Los Angeles in an open Rolls, the kind that used to have upholstery and windows. His young son ...
Cream: They Play Blues, Not Superstar
Report and Interview by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 5 October 1967
IT'S SATURDAY night at the Village Theatre, New York's sad-eyed answer to the Fillmore-Avalon scene. Under the marquee, Slavs gape and Ratner's rejects mourn the ...
Leonard Cohen: Beautiful Creep
Profile and Interview by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 28 December 1967
And the child on whose shoulders I stand whose longing I purged with public, kingly discipline today I bring him back ...
The Beach Boys, The Beatles: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi: The Politics of Salvation
Report by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 25 January 1968
The question of the hour is: can an honest man still be a fraud? ...
Theatre of Fear: One on the Aisle
Report by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 5 September 1968
CHICAGO — I brought the Fear out with me from New York, a white plastic helmet and a bottle of Vaseline. The same fear that ...
Country Joe & The Fish: C.J. Fish on Saturday
Interview by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 3 October 1968
IT WAS Saturday afternoon and the Algonquin Hotel smelled of old marble and mahogany. In his suite, Country Joe MacDonald sat on a sofa and ...
Essay by Geoffrey Cannon, The Village Voice, 22 May 1969
Update, 2019: WHO PLAYS concept albums now? With a couple of exceptions, not me. I don't mean albums whose separate numbers have a common approach, ...
Blind Faith, Donovan, Richie Havens: Blind Faith: A Fine Day
Report by Geoffrey Cannon, The Village Voice, 19 June 1969
LONDON — take a sheet of thin cardboard. Sprinkle iron filings on top. Place a magnet underneath. All the filings will start and shift, and ...
Tim Buckley, Frank Zappa: Frank Zappa, Tim Buckley: Felt Forum, New York NY
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 28 September 1972
JOY JUICED ...
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 19 October 1972
ON THE CUTTING EDGE ...
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 2 November 1972
SATURDAY WAS white blues night at the Academy of Music. But the evening really began with a semi-frenzied escape from Captain Beefheart's disappointingly dull and ...
The Kinks, Mom's Apple Pie: Felt Forum, New York NY
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 23 November 1972
OVER THE past three years, Ray Davies and the Kinks have acquired a reputation for drunkenly inept live performances. But their appearance at the Felt ...
Chick Corea, Return to Forever: Chick Corea & Return to Forever: Carnegie Recital Hall, New York NY
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 14 December 1972
AS THE FIRST in a four-concert series, the Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies presented Chick Corea and Return to Forever last Friday at the Carnegie ...
John Simon, Weather Report: John Simon: Max's Kansas City; Weather Report: Bitter End, New York NY
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 28 December 1972
AIN'T BLUE NO MORE ...
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 11 January 1973
UNMASKED FLAVORS ...
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 25 January 1973
DR. HOOK and the Medicine Show celebrated the release of their second album, Sloppy Seconds (Columbia), with a party in the Bitter End last Thursday, ...
Stevie Wonder: Talking Book (Motown)
Review by John Swenson, The Village Voice, 25 January 1973
STEVIE WONDER possesses a unique vision that has enabled him to encompass a wide range of influences without being controlled by any of them. Coming ...
Biff Rose, Bruce Springsteen: Bruce Springsteen, Biff Rose: Max's Kansas City, New York NY
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 8 February 1973
EVERYBODY GRUMBLES about Max's for some reason, but most of us keep climbing through the dark to the top of the stairs once or twice ...
David Bowie, Fumble: David Bowie & the Spiders from Mars: Radio City Music Hall, New York NY
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 22 February 1973
THE BEST that New York had to offer came out in the rain to witness David Bowie's triumphant return last Wednesday. No less a personage ...
Manassas, Doug Sahm: Manassas, the Academy of Music; Doug Sahm: Max's Kansas City, New York NY
Live Review by John Swenson, The Village Voice, 1 March 1973
HOT AND COOLED OFF ...
John Paul Jones (not Led Zeppelin), NRBQ: NRBQ, John Paul Jones: Max's Kansas City, New York NY
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 8 March 1973
ASSORTED GOODS ...
Pink Floyd: Radio City Music Hall, New York NY
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 22 March 1973
A PINK FLOYD appearance here has always been worth coming out in the rain for and has often been a full-fledged event, like the American ...
Joe South: A Look Inside (Capitol)
Review by John Swenson, The Village Voice, 12 April 1973
BEFORE HE recorded his first album, Joe South spent years honing down his material — from the age of 15 he had been playing steadily, ...
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 19 April 1973
SPARKLING PLENTY ...
King Crimson, Spooky Tooth, the Strawbs: Academy of Music, New York NY
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 3 May 1973
BRITON REVISITED ...
The Faces, Jo Jo Gunne: The Faces: Jo Jo Gunne: Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale NY
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 17 May 1973
SOME PIZZAZZ ...
Howlin' Wolf, Larry Johnson: Howlin' Wolf: Max's Kansas City, New York NY
Live Review by Howard Wuelfing, The Village Voice, 7 June 1973
WELL, IT'S OFFICIAL now. New York is the glitter capital of the rock world and Max's is its major stronghold. That's what an article in ...
Old And In The Way, Doug Sahm: Old & In the Way, Doug Sahm: Capitol Theatre, Passaic NJ
Live Review by John Swenson, The Village Voice, 14 June 1973
ON THE strength of the fact that Jerry Garcia would be playing there, the Capitol Theatre in Passaic was jammed full last Wednesday night with ...
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 26 July 1973
OYSTER CRACKING ...
Live Review by John Swenson, The Village Voice, 9 August 1973
It was about music too ...
Mott The Hoople, New York Dolls: Felt Forum, New York NY
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 9 August 1973
MOTT THE Hoople is a British all-rock band, 'All the Young Dudes' of course. But they're about to break really big, with 'Honaloochie Boogie' already ...
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 6 September 1973
WHERE THERE'S SMOKE ...
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 20 September 1973
THE FALL is upon us at last, and the theme for the season, the dreary, greasy '50s having run their course, is the revival of ...
Live Review by John Swenson, The Village Voice, 27 September 1973
ELTON JOHN is the embodiment of pop consciousness. Few performers have an on stage personality that so totally reflects their audience, a fact that was ...
Report by Bill Wasserzieher, The Village Voice, 27 September 1973
PARK RANGERS found the half-charred body of country-rock musician Gram Parsons in a burned casket at Joshua Tree National Monument in California last Friday. ...
Raspberries, Stories: The Raspberries, Stories: Carnegie Hall, New York NY
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 4 October 1973
RIDING HIGH ...
The Rolling Stones: The Stones: Still rolling, slowly
Comment by John Swenson, The Village Voice, 11 October 1973
THE ROLLING Stones currently occupy a unique position in the music world — the only veteran supergroup left from the early '60s that has captured ...
Back Door, Foghat, The Strawbs: Foghat, the Strawbs, Back Door: Academy of Music, New York NY
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 18 October 1973
BACK DOOR is Ron Aspery on saxes, flute, and keyboard, Colin Hodgkinson on bass and mouth, and Tony Hicks on drums. All experienced London session ...
Profile by John Swenson, The Village Voice, 25 October 1973
DURING THIS past summer a work of uncompromising brilliance by a relatively unknown composer on a fledgling independent label has shaken the British rock industry. ...
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 1 November 1973
I RAN INTO Eric Emerson (Formerly of the Magic Tramps and now playing guitar and singing with his new band Angel) on the way into ...
Al Green, Laura Lee: Apollo Theatre, New York NY
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 15 November 1973
I WONDER WHAT the regular Apollo Theatre audience thought when they saw a contingent of 20 or so white writers (limoed all the way from ...
Profile and Interview by John Swenson, The Village Voice, 29 November 1973
I DOUBT IF anyone has ever taken a poll, but Blonde on Blonde seems to be recognized in a lot of circles as Dylan's "best" ...
Hawkwind: Academy of Music, New York NY
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 29 November 1973
HAWKWIND BROUGHT their Space Ritual to the Academy of Music Sunday night. They should have left it upstairs with all the other garbage orbiting the ...
Average White Band: Academy of Music, New York NY
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 13 December 1973
ONE OF the pleasantest surprises of the musical year awaited those B. B. King and ZZ Top fans who arrived at the Academy of Music ...
The Pink Fairies: Kings of Oblivion (Polydor)
Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 13 December 1973
JUST RELEASED: The Pink Fairies' third album (first in America) Kings of Oblivion (Polydor). The Pink Fairies are the successors to the Deviants, a politico-raunch ...
Joni Mitchell: Court and Spark (Asylum)
Review by James Wolcott, The Village Voice, 7 February 1974
Riding the crest of good-spirit ...
Dr. John, Gary Farr: Bottom Line, New York NY
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 21 February 1974
DR. JOHN AND his Revue and Gary Farr gave the Bottom Line, Allan Pepper and Stanley Sandowsky's new 450-seat cabaret-theatre, a rousing inaugural send-off last ...
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 7 March 1974
FANNED FIRES ...
The Dillards: Bottom Line, New York NY
Live Review by John Swenson, The Village Voice, 7 March 1974
Who was top at the Bottom? ...
Todd Rundgren: Todd (Bearsville)
Review by James Wolcott, The Village Voice, 7 March 1974
The Orson Welles of rock? ...
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 21 March 1974
NO ROCK, NO ROLL ...
Sly & the Family Stone, Stevie Wonder: Stevie Wonder: Madison Square Garden, New York NY
Live Review by John Swenson, The Village Voice, 11 April 1974
In synch with the shaman ...
Herbie Hancock, Return to Forever: Carnegie Hall, New York NY
Live Review by John Swenson, The Village Voice, 25 April 1974
Casting pearls before whines ...
The Dictators: Coventry Club, Queens NY
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 2 May 1974
PUNKOID PLEASURE ...
Ray Charles: The Empire Room at the Waldorf Astoria, New York NY
Live Review by John Swenson, The Village Voice, 9 May 1974
Falling on swank ears ...
Roxy Music, Sharks: Academy of Music, New York NY
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 13 June 1974
Energy: Patchy and pure ...
James Brown, Mandrill, George McCrae: Madison Square Garden, New York NY
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 11 July 1974
GODFATHER'S GROOVE ...
David Bowie: Madison Square Garden, New York NY
Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 25 July 1974
Dancing at disaster's edge ...
The Jimmy Castor Bunch, Funkadelic, Parliament: Funkadelic pee in your Afro
Report by Vernon Gibbs, The Village Voice, 5 September 1974
LAST WEEK, Rare Earth punked out of a gig at the Apollo, a rare honor for which Mick Jagger might conceivably give up eyeshadow. The ...
Stevie Wonder: Fulfillingness' First Finale (Motown)
Review by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 12 September 1974
What's the storeee, Stevie? ...
Dolly Parton: The — travails of dualism
Profile by Nick Tosches, The Village Voice, 26 September 1974
SINCE SHE first hit the country Top 20 with 'Something Fishy', Dolly Parton has earned a reputation as one of the best songwriters in country ...
John Denver: Madison Square Garden, New York NY
Live Review by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 26 September 1974
John Denver? How about John Terre Haute? ...
Lou Reed: Felt Theater, New York
Live Review by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 17 October 1974
LOU REED stepped out on the Felt Forum stage Friday night looking like something out of a Casey Donovan movie. ...
New York Dolls: Les Dolls' petit Altamont
Report by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 31 October 1974
EXPLAINING THE attraction of the New York Dolls, one tells an out-of-towner about their aggressive intelligence, nearly jingoistic hometown pride, and effortless projection of the ...
Barry White: Can't Get Enough (20th Century)
Review by Vernon Gibbs, The Village Voice, 7 November 1974
Barry White: Love of Lush ...
Live Review by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 15 December 1974
BTO at NFE, OK for the USA ...
Jimmy Cliff, Bob Marley & the Wailers, Toots & The Maytals: Why Reggae Won't Be the Next Big Thing
Essay by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 16 December 1974
FOR A WHILE it appeared that reggae was Pop Salvation. This was determined by a small number of white music taste makers who'd seen Jimmy ...
Booker T. Jones, The Persuasions: Booker T., the Persuasions: Bottom Line, New York NY
Live Review by Vernon Gibbs, The Village Voice, 6 January 1975
Booker T. and the Persuasions: Black Folk Music ...
Report by Glenn O'Brien, The Village Voice, 6 January 1975
Is its closing an act of terror by the forces of Art Detention? Who is Donald Soviero and why didn't he pay the light bill? ...
Led Zeppelin: Led Zep Zaps Kidz
Report by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 3 February 1975
"For this high school generation, attendance at a Led Zeppelin concert is as mandatory as freshman English." ...
Charlie Daniels, Lynyrd Skynyrd: Lynyrd Skynyrd, Charlie Daniels Band: Academy of Music, New York NY
Live Review by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 10 February 1975
Lynyrd Skynyrd's Closet Crackers ...
Led Zeppelin: Madison Square Garden, New York NY
Live Review by Vernon Gibbs, The Village Voice, 17 February 1975
Led Zep Zaps Kidz? ...
Live Review by Vernon Gibbs, The Village Voice, 24 February 1975
Progressive Soul: Where Were You? ...
Profile by James Wolcott, The Village Voice, 14 April 1975
PATTI SMITH moves through a room like a shark through the lower depths. Sharp features, oilblack hair, dark intense eyes. A lithe toughness. ...
Bette Midler, Barbra Streisand: The Dark Side of Bette Midler
Essay by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 21 April 1975
I wear a red heart like others, and have a dark, inconsolate, ugly destiny. — Rahel Varnhagen, in Hannah Arendt's study ...
Judy Collins, Carly Simon: Carly Simon: Playing Possum (Elektra); Judy Collins: Judith (Elektra)
Review by James Wolcott, The Village Voice, 5 May 1975
Carly and Judy: Slut and Sylph ...
Bad Company: Straight Shooter (Swan Song)
Review by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 26 May 1975
Bad Company Zaps Kidz ...
John Fahey: Hunter College, New York NY
Live Review by Paul Nelson, The Village Voice, 9 June 1975
John Fahey Is a Tough Guy ...
Elliott Murphy: Lost Generation (RCA)
Review by James Wolcott, The Village Voice, 16 June 1975
Elliott Murphy Mows His Lawn ...
Pink Floyd: Notes for an Iron Baptism
Essay by Vernon Gibbs, The Village Voice, 30 June 1975
THERE ARE only three British groups who matter anymore: the Stones, the Who and Pink Floyd. ...
Wings: Venus and Mars (Capitol)
Review by Paul Nelson, The Village Voice, 30 June 1975
Venus & Mars & Rona & Barrett ...
Bob Dylan, Patti Smith: Tarantula meets Mustang: Dylan Calls on Patti Smith
Report by James Wolcott, The Village Voice, 7 July 1975
A COPY OF Witt was slid across the table to Patti Smith. "Would you sign this for me, please?" "Sure," said Patti, "what's your first ...
Profile by James Wolcott, The Village Voice, 21 July 1975
LOUD, HARD, and relentless, the Ramones are pagan-cult rockers whose sole god is the inviolable Chord. They function totally as a unit — I've seen ...
James Brown: Is James Brown Obsolete?
Comment by Vernon Gibbs, The Village Voice, 28 July 1975
Last summer, when I visited Afriac with James Brown for one of his "triumphant" blitzes, I was surprised at the discontent among his employees. The ...
Report by James Wolcott, The Village Voice, 18 August 1975
"No longer is the rock impulse revolutionary — i.e., the transformation of oneself and society — but conservative: to carry on the rock tradition." ...
The Isley Brothers: The Heat Is On (T-Neck)
Review by Vernon Gibbs, The Village Voice, 18 August 1975
The Isleys Play With Themselves ...
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band: Bottom Line, New York NY
Live Review by Paul Nelson, The Village Voice, 25 August 1975
Is Springsteen Worth the Hype? ...
J. Geils Band: The J. Geils Band: Wollman Rink, New York NY
Live Review by James Wolcott, The Village Voice, 25 August 1975
J. Geils: Later ...
Nils Lofgren: Bottom Line, New York NY
Live Review by Paul Nelson, The Village Voice, 1 September 1975
Nils Lofgren: Quicksand ...
The Bay City Rollers: Bay City Rollers: Top of the Pops?
Profile by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 8 September 1975
IF YOU believe, as I do, that 'Sugar Sugar' was a brilliant record, you may like the Bay City Rollers. On the other hand, it ...
Patti Smith: Horses: Patti Smith Exposes Herself
Review by Greil Marcus, The Village Voice, 24 November 1975
THE FIRST QUESTION about Horses, Patti Smith's debut album, might be called the Janis question – it comes up whenever a particularly exciting performer has ...
Neil Young Paints It Black: Zuma
Review by Paul Nelson, The Village Voice, 24 November 1975
NOTE: ON APRIL 14, 1983, Elliot Roberts, Neil Young's manager, wrote a letter to Paul: "This is to advise you that we will co-operate with ...
Review by Nick Tosches, The Village Voice, 26 January 1976
Waylon &c. Pull a Fast One ...
Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, Teddy Pendergrass: Is Teddy or David the Real Harold Melvin?
Report by Vernon Gibbs, The Village Voice, 2 February 1976
UNBELIEVABLE AS it may seem, at 9:01 p.m. on the night of January 24, 1976, 10 minutes before Harold Melvin & the new Blue Notes ...
Talking Heads Hyperventilate Some Clichés
Report by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 2 February 1976
TALKING HEADS offers a fragile middle finger to bands in which anonymous sidemen play powerhouse back-up through a Luftwaffe of amplifiers, while the man with ...
Queen: Does Queen Out-Led Zep — Or Out-Uriah Heep?
Comment by John Swenson, The Village Voice, 16 February 1976
TWO MONTHS ago Warner Communications pulled its latest executive shakeup, moving David Lessen from Elektra/Asylum to the board of directors and replacing him with former ...
Kate & Anna McGarrigle: Kate and Anna McGarrigle: Kate and Anna McGarrigle (Warner Bros.)
Review by Susin Shapiro, The Village Voice, 16 February 1976
Kate and Anna Carry Through ...
Bad Company: Run With the Pack (Swan Song)
Review by Bruce Malamut, The Village Voice, 8 March 1976
Bad Company Is Not Godot ...
Phoebe Snow Has No Regrets...Yet
Interview by Susin Shapiro, The Village Voice, 15 March 1976
'Which will prove more important, keeping open the WATS line to her career or being the best possible mother, in a first-person plural world?' ...
Smokey Robinson: Felt Forum, New York NY
Live Review by Susin Shapiro, The Village Voice, 26 April 1976
On Top With Old Smokey ...
Johnny Paycheck: John Austin Paycheck Tries It Again
Profile by John Morthland, The Village Voice, 9 August 1976
JOHN AUSTIN Paycheck bounded onto the stage at the Other End last Wednesday, repeatedly rubbed his belly or tugged at his new beard, talked too ...
Burning Spear: Schaefer Music Festival, Wollman Skating Rink, Central Park, New York NY
Live Review by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 23 August 1976
Burning Spear Overkills Message ...
Joan Armatrading: What Are We To Do with Joan Armatrading?
Profile by Susin Shapiro, The Village Voice, 20 September 1976
INTO THE non-genre of thinking women's music steps Joan Armatrading, more British than black, more good folks than badass lady of the Midlands. Joan does ...
Profile by Vernon Gibbs, The Village Voice, 18 October 1976
THE LINES that stretched around the block welcoming Al Jarreau to his second New York appearance at the Bottom Line were evidence to his devotees ...
Review by Joe McEwen, The Village Voice, 25 October 1976
Parliament-Funkadelic: Bummer in the City ...
Robert Palmer: Some People Can Do What They Like (Island)
Review by Susin Shapiro, The Village Voice, 13 December 1976
LETTER TO PALMER ...
Live Review by Paul Nelson, The Village Voice, 20 December 1976
Graham Parker Pours It All Out ...
Report and Interview by Susin Shapiro, The Village Voice, 14 February 1977
J.J. CALE IS not smiling. He hasn't smiled for 53 minutes of his set at My Father's Place. The set — highlights from all four ...
Report by Simon Frith, The Village Voice, 28 March 1977
It's difficult to feel sorry for an exile whose alternative to an impoverished Britain is unfettered hedonism in the south of France. ...
The Clash, The Damned, Sex Pistols: Punk Is Just Another Word for Nothin' Left To Lose
Essay by Mary Harron, The Village Voice, 28 March 1977
The worst insult in the English punks' vocabulary is "poser". These are working-class kids who resent it when the middle classes ape their style. ...
The Moments: The Moments Greatest Hits (Stang)
Review by Joe McEwen, The Village Voice, 5 September 1977
The Moments Move Into the Bedroom ...
The Ramones, Sex Pistols, Patti Smith, Talking Heads, Television: The Possibilities of Punk
Comment by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 10 October 1977
UP UNTIL about six months ago, CBGB's was the only rock bar I ever felt comfortable in. All you needed was a long scarf and ...
Dwight Twilley: Twilley Don't Grind
Profile by Susin Shapiro, The Village Voice, 17 October 1977
AWKWARDNESS IS the new vogue. No more smoothies and impeccables to make us feel 10-thumbed; clumsiness is the cornerstone of humanity, or so say the ...
The Clash, Sex Pistols: Beyond the Dole Queue: The Politics of Punk
Essay by Simon Frith, The Village Voice, 24 October 1977
The Clash and the Pistols have established social realism as an essential part of punk ideology, but this does not make their music the "direct ...
Review by John Morthland, The Village Voice, 14 November 1977
Porter and Dolly Go Their Own Ways ...
Al Green: The Belle Album (Hi)
Review by Joe McEwen, The Village Voice, 26 December 1977
Al Green: Between Time and Feeling ...
Jackson Browne: Running on Empty (Asylum)
Review by Ariel Swartley, The Village Voice, 16 January 1978
Jackson Browne Runs on Automatic ...
Lou Reed: Bottom Line, New York NY
Live Review by Susin Shapiro, The Village Voice, 20 March 1978
A FUNNY THING happened to Milton on the way to Paradise. He discovered the devils to be more fascinating than the angels, and that gave ...
Kool and the Gang: Kool & the Gang: Kool's Nasty Silly
Profile by Joe McEwen, The Village Voice, 24 April 1978
YOU'D NEVER know it from their last couple of albums, but there was a time when Jersey City's Kool and the Gang had a real ...
Eddie Hinton, Frankie Miller: Eddie Hinton: Very Extremely Dangerous (Capricorn)
Review by Joe McEwen, The Village Voice, 3 July 1978
Blue-Eyed Soul ...
Evelyn "Champagne" King: Smooth Talk (RCA)
Review by Joe McEwen, The Village Voice, 7 August 1978
Evelyn King's Groove ...
Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers: Max's Kansas City, New York NY
Live Review by Susin Shapiro, The Village Voice, 4 September 1978
Johnny Thunders: D.O.A., L.A.M.F. ...
The Who: Keith Moon Dies Before He Gets Old
Essay by Simon Frith, The Village Voice, 18 September 1978
I WAS TYPING the last paragraph of my Who review when a news flash on the radio announced that Keith Moon was dead: "We'll bring ...
Profile by Vernon Gibbs, The Village Voice, 9 October 1978
HOT ON THE gold certification of his first single, 'You and I', Rick James has been going around making the preposterous claim that he is ...
Denise LaSalle: Under the Influence (ABC)
Review by Joe McEwen, The Village Voice, 11 December 1978
Denise LaSalle: on Top of the Influence ...
Studio 54: Innocent Until Proven Decadent
Comment by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 25 December 1978
IT OUGHT TO be possible to wish the combined forces of the IRS and the DEA well in their early morning raid on Studio 54 ...
Profile by Vernon Gibbs, The Village Voice, 16 April 1979
SINCE NO one else has had the nerve to say it, I might as well. Bill Withers is a great soul singer. Some purists might ...
The Cramps: Palladium, New York
Live Review by Susin Shapiro, The Village Voice, 12 November 1979
PUNK AND PUMPKINS at the Palladium, turned for a night into a seance for Houdini. Garish garb and glorious: the human Quaalude, a walking cassette ...
Profile by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, January 1980
DADUHDA/DAduhDA/DAduhDA/DAduhDA/DAduhDA/DAduhDA/DAduhDA.... Triplets in two-four, the sound of the Specials: call it ska, call it punky reggae, it's a jumping groove, the group going up and ...
Live Review by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 21 April 1980
MOTHER OF GOD, another good English band. It's getting so people are scared to go near record shops, for fear of parting with their fillings, ...
Profile and Interview by Lester Bangs, The Village Voice, 1 October 1980
He's Alive, But So Is Paint. Are You? ...
Carly Simon: Come Upstairs (Warner Bros.)
Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 1 October 1980
Carly Simon Yells and Screams ...
Fab 5 Freddy: In Praise of Graffiti: The Fire Down Below
Report by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 24 December 1980
JOHN LINDSAY hated graffiti. He vowed to wipe it off the face of the IRT, and allocated $10 million to its obliteration. But the application ...
Review by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, Spring 1980
FOR YEARS JOE Jackson made his money playing covers in English Playboy Clubs, ignored amid the bedroom eyes. His own music was rejected by every ...
Review by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 14 January 1981
CONFRONTING THE Clash's epic monstrosity Sandinista! is like being a teacher (which I once was) and having one of your favorite little buggers show up ...
The Shaggs: Better Than the Beatles (and DNA, Too)
Retrospective by Lester Bangs, The Village Voice, 28 January 1981
I HAVE BEEN getting whiny letters from a lot of you lately complaining about the general state of the art. "What is all this shit?" ...
Profile by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 25 February 1981
MY PAL Danny voices the common hipster sentiment when he says, "Pylon, they're like the 52's, but they mean it." Quite so, but then again ...
Adam & the Ants: That's Antertainment
Profile by Susin Shapiro, The Village Voice, 15 April 1981
ANT MUSIC for sex people: what a snappy catechism, what a sly ad for an act, and what an act it is. Adam & the ...
Sly & Robbie: Reggae Titles: Footlong Skanking
Review by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 22 April 1981
IN RECENT MONTHS Riffsters have written paeans to the gritty nudisco and rapperound 12-inch song-and-dances now heard blasting from the shiny boxes on the street ...
Review by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 29 April 1981
GANG OF FOUR called their first album Entertainment!, as if shouting from the rooftops that it wasn't. ...
Wayne Kramer: Trax, New York NY
Live Review by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 15 July 1981
He Walks the Line ...
Review by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 12 August 1981
THIS IS NO FUN. Raves for faves are love letters in the sand. Shoveling poseurs onto the garbage heap is heartwarming. But soaking up and ...
John Cale: Music for a New Society
Review by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 23 January 1982
ON THE BASIS of his new LP, it would be too easy to discover that John Cale is a Big Fake, maybe The Big Fake, ...
Soft Cell: Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret
Review by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 23 February 1982
TO CHAMPION AN English electropop duo right now is a poor business; on all sides are heard the virile snickers of those who abominate synthesizers ...
The Human League: In League With The Human League: Dare
Essay by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 13 April 1982
By the charts, the Human League are the most popular band in the U.K., as well as the most successful of the electropoppers: Depeche Mode, ...
Profile by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 20 April 1982
MAKING SENSE in words of the Bongos' strange, translucent hardpop dreaminess is like trying to tell a stranger about rock'n'roll, or maybe like trying to ...
Talking Heads: The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads
Review by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 8 June 1982
TALKING HEADS: TV shorthand, video argot for the small-screen dance. The words themselves give up little ghosts, conceptual bombs – media as alienation, the medium ...
Kid Creole & The Coconuts: August Darnell And The Creole Perplex
Essay by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 27 July 1982
"The dominant feeling of the black poet is one of malaise, better still of intolerance. Intolerance of reality because it is sordid, of the world ...
Solomon Burke, Little Richard: Little Richard and Solomon Burke: Sex & God & Rock & Roll
Report and Interview by Vernon Gibbs, The Village Voice, 10 August 1982
THE FIRST time I encountered Little Richard, his face was plastered against a Bedford-Stuyvesant wall — the poster advertised a show at the Breevort Theater. ...
The Stray Cats: Stray Cats: Cooneybilly
Live Review by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 13 August 1982
Stray Cats: Roseland Ballroom, NYC ...
The Blasters: Blast From The Present
Profile by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 3 May 1983
I'VE BEEN reveling in the Blasters ever since their first Slash album in late '81, but for no good reason, or so it seemed to ...
Kurtis Blow: A B-Boy's Progress
Profile by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 6 September 1983
WHEN RAP WAS first struggling out of the youth-center playgrounds and into big-time notoriety, Kurtis Blow was there. ...
Comment by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 1 November 1983
DEF LEPPARD is a band that's been greeted with total indifference by everyone except the four million and counting people who bought their third album. ...
The Rolling Stones: Undercover
Review by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 22 November 1983
The Stones Try Harder ...
Luther Vandross, Dionne Warwick: Dionne Warwick: How Many Times Can We Say Goodbye (Arista)
Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 3 January 1984
Dionne's Hot Date ...
Profile by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 17 January 1984
RASTA IDEOLOGY has always been profoundly Spenglerian. The German philosopher’s contention that our parasitic, capital-based machine age will be defeated by "another power, not by ...
The Replacements: Going Down With the Replacements
Special Feature by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 11 December 1984
Not a Bunch of Loads ...
Overview by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 30 April 1985
RIGHT NOW a hit record carries more mass-audience clout than at any moment in the history of show business. Maybe not coincidentally, there are more ...
Mötley Crüe: White Noise: How Heavy Metal Rules
Essay by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 18 June 1985
IT'S FRIDAY NIGHT at L'Amour, Rock Capital of Brooklyn (well, that's what it says on the awning). The smell is smoke and damp, black lipstick ...
John Mellencamp: John Cougar Mellencamp: Scarecrow (PolyGram)
Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 3 September 1985
NOW IS PROBABLY not the time for all good men to sing about their country. That's because most good men are bound to come up ...
Eugene Chadbourne: The President He Is Insane and other albums
Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, April 1986
URBAN ANTHROPOLOGISTS are well aware of the phenomenon of mystico-hysteric telephone-pole manifestoes tacked up by paranoid complusive types who deem it necessary to disseminate their ...
Butthole Surfers: Irving Plaza, NY
Live Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, May 1986
SORRY, THRILL SEEKERS, unlike the Butthole Surfers’ recent Danceteria appearance, there were no Live Sex Acts Onstage this time around. At Irving Plaza April 26, ...
Pato Banton, Smiley Culture: Motormouth Dub: Smiley Culture/Pato Banton
Profile by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 16 September 1986
Some warp-speed world we live in, eh? It’s lucky we’ve got fast-forward buttons on our VCRs, quick-check lines at the A&P, automatic banking, speed-racer drugs, ...
GG Allin: Cat Club, New York City
Live Review by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 21 October 1986
ILLIN' ON 24 oz. Jolt October 6 only made it worse. G.G. Allin, this New Hampshire loser, appeared at the Cat Club, wearing only a ...
Camper Van Beethoven: Camper Van Beethoven (Rough Trade)
Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 6 January 1987
CAMPER VAN Beethoven's first LP, last year's Telephone Free Landslide Victory, contained ‘Take the Skinheads Bowling’, an absurdist manifesto and immediate college-radio hit whose popularity ...
Salt 'n' Pepa: Cool, Hot & Vicious (Next Plateau)
Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 27 January 1987
I DON'T KNOW about you but I've been waiting quite a while for a girl rap group to duplicate the success of platinum playboys like ...
fIREHOSE: Ragin’, Full-On (SST)
Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 17 February 1987
LIFETIMES AGO, in 1982, the Minutemen titled their debut album What Makes a Man Start Fires? The Political power trio proceeded to answer their musical ...
Grateful Dead: The Grateful Dead: Meadowlands, New Jersey
Live Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 21 April 1987
‘S FUNNY. Today the Grateful Dead can’t capture the attention of the so-called alternative audience, just as they couldn’t the so-called straight audience in the ...
Lee "Scratch" Perry: Time Boom or De Devil Dead (On-U)
Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 23 June 1987
History. It started as a stripping-down process concocted to provide Jamaican reggae with skanky instrumentals over which crooners might croon and toasters might toast. ...
Girlschool: Nightmare at Maple Cross (GWR)
Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 17 November 1987
MOST ALL-GIRL BANDS are pretty stupid And not always for the same reasons most all-guy bands are – too much attitude, too little attitude, too ...
Negativland: Escape From Noise
Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 15 December 1987
IF I RAN THE marketing department at SST Records, I’d do burritos with someone over at the University of Minnesota Press and make sure Negativland’s ...
Profile by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 17 February 1988
If I may be so crass as to adjudge a rock icon by his fans, I'd say Frank Zappa might have a demographics problem. Admittedly, ...
Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin: Thinking About the Sixties
Essay by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 8 March 1988
Something's happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear. Is the '60s revival a thaw in the Big Chill, or just more evidence of fashion ...
Live Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 29 March 1988
Ofra Haza: S.O.B.’s, New York ...
Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 7 June 1988
MARK KRAMER doesn't simply produce records, he saturates them. Even the quieter moments of such swell yet dissimilar albums as Half Japanese's Music To Strip ...
Comment by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 28 June 1988
VAN HALEN'S resident virtuoso launched a zillion whammy bars and charted heavy guitar's course for the '80s. The band's high-concept ex-vocalist sent a nation out ...
Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 13 June 1989
BECAUSE DAD SOLD toys for a living (a mixed blessing, believe me), I was the first kid on our block to own a glob of ...
Guns N' Roses, Public Enemy: Public Enemy and Guns N' Roses: Busted Axl
Report by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 22 August 1989
FORTY-EIGHT hours in the feeding-cycle of New York City. There were Uzis, Public Enemy regrouping, and a clique of blond babes orbiting Axl Rose at ...
Van Dyke Parks: A Yen for Japan
Interview by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 3 October 1989
Studiously blasé vibes radiate from within the overlit television studio on West 25th Street. Van Dyke Parks, our downwardly mobile country’s greatest unstaged musical-theater composer, ...
Ice Cube, N.W.A: N.W.A.: Wanted For Attitude
Report by Dave Marsh, The Village Voice, 10 October 1989
HOW'S THIS for government intimidation? In early August, a letter arrived on the desk of Priority Records president Brian Turner. Written on Department of Justice ...
The Residents: Taking Care of Business
Profile by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 23 January 1990
The Residents used to be such irritating misfits, what with their art school disguises and grating resentful satires of '60s pop music. Nerds and outsiders ...
Profile by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 13 February 1990
If you were born November 26, 1968, the day Cream gave its farewell concert at the Royal Albert Hall, let me stand you a legal ...
Overview by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 15 May 1990
ON FRIDAY night at the Tunnel, Bronx, Jersey, and Brooklyn posses with high-top fades, or one patch of hair dyed psychedelic orange, bob and weave ...
Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 18 September 1990
KIP WINGER is a hunk. And what a perfect hunk he is. With his Harlequin hero name, decepticon logo, and carefully exposed nipple, he's engineered ...
Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 13 November 1990
THIS YEAR'S New Music Seminar featured a panel called ‘Reggae in the ‘90s: Does Dancehall Rule?’ Both Jamaican and New York’s regional enthusiasm for dancehall ...
Judas Priest: Touch the Hem of His Garment
Comment by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 1 January 1991
I TOUCHED Rob Halford's hem. It happened, if you must know, on a gray afternoon in a Marina Del Rey condo owned by the man ...
Cop Shoot Cop: Consumer Revolt
Review by Simon Reynolds, The Village Voice, 19 February 1991
'BURN YOUR BRIDGES' is where Cop Shoot Cop proclaim their oblique intentions most plainly – their "anthem," if you will. "Know what you like/Like what ...
Review by Simon Reynolds, The Village Voice, 2 April 1991
"OH MANCHESTER, so much to answer for..." Contradiction has always been at the heart of Morrissey's mythologization of his hometown: this was nostalgia for a ...
Guns N' Roses: Guns N’ Roses: Wimps ‘R’ Us
Essay by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 1 October 1991
SMART BOYS DON'T talk about anarchy; stupid boys don't know about it. It's hard to imagine, say, Emma Goldman (who, true, was not really a ...
Teenage Fanclub: Teenage Fan Club: Bandwagonesque (DGC)
Review by Simon Reynolds, The Village Voice, 3 December 1991
AS A BRIT who spends a lot of time in the U.S., I could hardly fail to notice the scathing scepticism of American hipsters when ...
Michael Jackson: Sound of Breaking Glass: Michael Jackson's Dangerous
Review by Chuck Eddy, The Village Voice, 17 December 1991
HEY, SO HOW COME nobody's compared the fucker to There's a Riot Goin' On? Well, maybe Riot without the cocaine. Or okay, okay, Fresh then, ...
Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 4 February 1992
COURTNEY LOVE is scary. Much scarier than the witches old (Macbeth's, say) and new (Lydia Lunch, say) whom she occasionally sounds like and whom she ...
Essay by Ann Powers, The Village Voice, 12 May 1992
UNICORN KEEPERS have an embarrassing job. The mere thought of those misty white creatures, phallic fantasies for wide-eyed girls, brings a chuckle to sophisticates' lips. ...
House of Pain: House of Pain (Tommy Boy)
Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, July 1992
SPUN OFF from the inspired lunacy of Cypress Hill rapper B-Real's 'Gee, Officer Krupke' whine, the semi-Celtic cartoon called House of Pain is a concept ...
Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 7 July 1992
"SHOW US YER TITS!" is still the rule of thumb for yobbos throughout the global village whenever a woman dares open her mouth a little ...
Louis Jordan, Forefather of Rock 'N' Roll
Retrospective by Nick Tosches, The Village Voice, 18 August 1992
He made some of the greatest music that has ever been made; if any one man is to be given credit for siring rock 'n' ...
Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 2 March 1993
HE MAY BE a wandering spirit, but Mick Jagger sure doesn't travel light. This simple fact of life informs both the major tragedies and minor ...
Essay by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 22 June 1993
"Let me tell you about the first time I got high. It was 1966, and I was a young reporter... There, sitting on the floor, ...
The Breeders: The Breeders' Last Splash (Elektra)
Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 24 August 1993
ANALYZING THE BREEDERS may be as useful as deconstructing a good fuck, or for those less carnally inclined, a strawberry shortcake. When it works, you ...
Aphex Twin: Machine Soul: A History Of Techno
Overview by Jon Savage, The Village Voice, Summer 1993
Oooh oooh Techno cityHope you enjoy your stayWelcome to Techno cityYou will never want to go away– Cybotron, 'Techno City' (1984) ...
Alice in Chains: Jar of Flies (Columbia)
Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 15 March 1994
THE NEAT TRICK Alice in Chains pulled off a coupla weeks ago when their third EP Jar of Flies (Columbia) zipped to the No. 1 ...
Sonic Youth: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star (DGC)
Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 17 May 1994
EXPERIMENTAL JET Set, Trash and No Star (DGC) is not the most experimental, jettiest, or trashiest record Sonic Youth or anyone else, for that matter, ...
Prince: Come (Warner Bros.)/1-800-New-Funk (NPG/Bellmark)
Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 30 August 1994
IF YOU HEAR the sound of a gauntlet slapping the floor, it’s only the echo of Come (Warner Bros.) and 1-800-New-Funk (NPG/Bellmark) hitting the racks ...
Sebadoh: Lou Barlow vs. the Riddler
Comment by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 4 October 1994
EVERY GREAT music of self-denial depends on a culture of self-denial. Doo-wop's pained, courtly pleas to remote earth angels had their roots in the layered, ...
Robert Earl Keen: Gringo Honeymoon
Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 31 October 1994
ONCE OR TWICE a year I can count on a new country album to sidle up and tear apart my cement-encrusted heart. More often than ...
Sting: Gentleman's Agreement: Sting dreams a world without junk...
Comment by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 2 December 1994
"IN THE POLICE he was a pop star, the best we've had, a potent force delivering blistering reggae-tinged chart-friendly hits apparently to order." ...
Bill Frisell: America Lost and Found
Profile by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 4 December 1994
GUITARIST BILL Frisell is the cowlick on the towhead of American music. In his most signature mode, he favors a languorous, spacious sound that combines ...
Profile by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 25 July 1995
As an opinionated teen in the early ‘70s, I hated Barry White for stealing Isaac Hayes’s sound – even though by 1973 Hayes had evolved ...
Everything But the Girl: Missing – the Full Remix EP (Atlantic)
Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 27 February 1996
ALMOST TWO years ago, still relying on the fierce understatement they premiered back in 1984, the English duo Everything But The Girl released Amplified Heart. ...
Report by Chris Campion, The Village Voice, April 1996
A LONG-RUNNING saga of legitimacy has embroiled the Last Poets in a situation that is rapidly echoing the sentiments of one of their own poems, ...
Chic: Bernard Edwards, 1952-1996
Obituary by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 7 May 1996
Bernard Edwards, Tony Thompson, and Nile Rodgers were in Tokyo for the latest in a recent series of reunion concerts when Rodgers discovered his friend ...
DJ Spooky: Spooky After Dark: The DJ as Dead Dreamer
Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 6 June 1996
DJ SPOOKY'S Songs of a Dead Dreamer (Asphodel) magically distills the mysterioso live performances the artist (and occasional Voice contributor) otherwise known as Paul D. ...
Report by Frank Owen, The Village Voice, 25 June 1996
Looking for Angel: Did King of Club Kids Michael Alig really Kill Angel Melendez? Or is it all a hoax? By Frank Owen ...
Retrospective by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 17 September 1996
WAS ANY underground music more quickly and thoroughly mediated by outside forces than surf music? On the cusp of the ‘60s, California’s coastal teen subculture ...
Profile by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 23 January 1997
AN AKIMBO version of hippie-band staple 'In the Midnight Hour' was the only thing about the Silver Apples' recent appearance suggesting they were anything other ...
The Prodigy: Prodigy: The Fat of the Land
Review by Simon Reynolds, The Village Voice, 8 July 1997
SOME SAY the Prodigy have betrayed the bright promise of the "electronica revolution", resulting in a techno-rock hybrid that's not so much kick-ass as half-assed. ...
Review by Simon Reynolds, The Village Voice, 18 November 1997
Damn and blast the Verve. I'd sworn never to fall again for that classic-rock godstar-savior-shaman shtick, that it was gonna be dance music's desiring-machines and ...
Bob Dorough: After-School Special: Bob Dorough
Review by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 24 March 1998
I KNOW THIS couple who think Lou Rawls is the shit. You can look in the books on soul music and find little reference to ...
Live Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 29 April 1998
TORI AMOS believes in the rhythm method. ...
Tom Zé: Fabrication Defect (Luaka Bop/Warner Bros.)
Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, May 1998
TOM ZÉ'S peculiar contribution to the Tropicalistas' highly influential 1968 collaborative album Tropicalia: Ou Panis Et Circencis was the satiric antidevelopment anthem ‘Parque Industrial’, which ...
Report by Frank Owen, The Village Voice, 26 May 1998
A CIRCLE CLEARS in the middle of the gloomy basement at Konkrete Jungle and into the arena glides 20-year-old Face, top rocking to the mechanical ...
Smashing Pumpkins: Adore (Virgin)
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 27 May 1998
TRUE, BILLY Corgan has removed most of the guitars, the pounding, the rat-in-a-cage rage from Smashing Pumpkins' new album. But don't worry: he remains stupendously ...
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 10 June 1998
QUASI CAN play with your ears. Sam Coomes has a '70s electric keyboard that he says he bought for $50; it's called a Roxichord, short ...
Billy Bragg, Woody Guthrie, Wilco: Songs For Woody: Billy Bragg & Wilco's Mermaid Avenue
Review by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 7 July 1998
WOODY GUTHRIE bequeathed us his jumble. Willing in life to play straight man for many right causes, in death he left a tangle of words ...
Overview by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 11 August 1998
THERE OUGHT to be a genre name for the other kind of art-rock — music that includes all the ridiculously extreme stuff, all the stuff ...
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 2 September 1998
COULDN'T SAY which color most becomes her, but Courtney Love's best vowel is u. She throws herself into them all, of course, like a stage ...
Book Review by Simon Frith, The Village Voice, 16 September 1998
Simon Reynolds: Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture (Little, Brown) ...
Barenaked Ladies: Theatre at Madison Square Garden, NYC
Live Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 14 October 1998
"A ROCK 'N' ROLL show, for us, is a celebratory experience," said the unbearably revivalistic drummer-singer of the opening band Cowboy Mouth last Wednesday. In ...
Review by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 24 November 1998
BECK TO THE BASE ...
Vic Chesnutt: Gravity's Rainbow: Vic Chesnutt
Profile by Will Hermes, The Village Voice, 24 November 1998
LIKE PLENTY of other folks in wheelchairs, Vic Chesnutt doesn't want your sympathy. In fact, he can challenge the compassion of even those closest to ...
Bruce Springsteen: Tracks (Columbia)
Review by Evelyn McDonnell, The Village Voice, 15 December 1998
THE GHOST OF BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN ...
The Black Crowes, Gov't Mule, Widespread Panic: Freebirds All: Southern Rock's Undying Appeal
Overview by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 16 December 1998
SOUTHERN ROCK'S masterworks show this century a viable southern heroism: the quest to overcome the dread of Jim Crow and the pall of ruined empire. ...
Ronnie Spector: Life Club, New York City
Live Review by Evelyn McDonnell, The Village Voice, 29 December 1998
"BRIAN WILSON wrote this song for me," Ronnie Spector said on Wednesday at her annual holiday party at Life, "but because of publishing and contracts ...
Thomas Anderson: Flying Saucer Rock & Roll
Profile and Interview by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 29 December 1998
WITH THREE FINE albums and a recent seven-song EP, available respectively from Dutch East India, Bomp, and now Germany's Red River, Thomas Anderson is clearly ...
DMX: Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood (Def Jam )
Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 13 January 1999
It's like, we all got two sides to us, and it depends on what side of the bed you wake up on. That will depend ...
Lo Fidelity Allstars: Out To Lurch: Lo-Fidelity All-Stars' How to Operate with a Blown Mind
Review by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 19 January 1999
MAYBE THE SWELLEST thing about the first wave of electroboogie funk in the early '80s, 'Planet Rock' and the Jonzun Crew, Space Invaders and all ...
Review by Evelyn McDonnell, The Village Voice, 2 February 1999
FOX ON THE RUN ...
Report by Frank Owen, The Village Voice, 9 February 1999
New details about Tunnel drug overdose allegation ...
Everlast: Whitey Ford Sings the Blues (Tommy Boy)
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 10 February 1999
THE CDNOW ALBUM Advisor says that Everlast fans should also shop Billy Joel, the Dave Matthews Band, A Tribe Called Quest, the Beastie Boys, Lauryn ...
Conjunction Junction: The All-Music Guide Wants To Make Scrabble out of Babel
Report by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 24 February 1999
THE ALL-MUSIC Guide bills itself as "an ongoing project to review and rate all music" – emphasis on the all. ...
Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, March 1999
USED TO BE, a hiphop love song was something like Rakim's 'Mahogany' or Shallah Raekwon's 'Ice Cream'- tunes celebrating shorties from around the way; hardrocks ...
Prince Paul: The Director's Cut: Prince Paul's Prince Among Thieves
Review by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 2 March 1999
NOBODY IN THE genre today sees more possibility in hip-hop than Prince Paul. I say that in the face of his tour de force A Prince ...
Overview by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 2 March 1999
A TRIBE CALLED Quest died for the sins of hip hop in 1998, so the story goes. R.I.P. And roll away the stone. ...
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 10 March 1999
LEONARD COHEN stepped into an avalanche; it covered up his soul. Now, when he is not this hunchback that you see, he sleeps beneath the ...
The Graying of Indie Rock: What do you do for an encore after the spark is gone?
Essay by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 24 March 1999
WHEN THE guy in Fuck announced his 37th birthday, people thought he was joking. The occasion was too cruddy: the rumpus-room attic of a gross ...
Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 7 April 1999
THESE SONGS, derived from an as-yet-unfinished musical that pops open the Verdi opera, are only putatively set in Egypt. ...
Kelly Willis: Just Walk Away: Kelly Willis' What I Deserve
Review by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 13 April 1999
KELLY WILLIS HAS the most uncomfortable-making way of saying "thank you". Live a few weekends ago I heard her say it at least a dozen ...
B*Witched: Punkest Band Around
Comment by Metal Mike Saunders, The Village Voice, 20 April 1999
ALL RIGHT! You can turn in my Top Ten List thing already: my favorite music of the whole darn year is B*Witched's 'C'est la Vie' ...
Ben Folds Five: The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner (550/Epic)
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 5 May 1999
THE NOTORIOUS thing about the "college rock" I grew up on, over a decade ago, the same time Ben Folds was gestating in the university ...
Sammy Hagar, Metallica: Bottoms up: Topping the Billboard
Comment by Chuck Eddy, The Village Voice, 12 May 1999
FOR THE PAST month, two of the top five tracks pissing their night away on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart have been celebrations of alcohol consumption, ...
Faith Hill, Tim McGraw: Tim McGraw and Faith Hill: Love and Industry
Profile by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 25 May 1999
COUNTRY MUSIC Nashville is a town of handlers, of purportedly insightful managers and publicists and producers and record company presidents. In 1993, when Tim McGraw ...
Flaming Lips: The Flaming Lips: The Soft Bulletin
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 23 June 1999
YES, THE FLAMING LIPS. When they appeared in the mid '80s, 'Jesus Shootin' Heroin' got college radio time from fans of Butthole Surfers psychedelic stomps, ...
Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 1 July 1999
SINCE THE 1969 release of Trout Mask Replica, the artist dubbed Captain Beefheart has incarnated the gold standard by which "weirdness" in rock music has ...
Generation Ex: Some Get A Decade; We Get A Moment
Essay by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 7 July 1999
THIS TIME IT'S personal. High school student Reese Witherspoon leaves teacher Matthew Broderick cursing his so-called life in Election. No shocker; couldn't be a teen ...
Limp Bizkit: Significant Other (Flip/Interscope)
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 14 July 1999
WHEN MTV and BET air the new Eminem video 'Guilty Conscience', they run into the small problem of the song's conclusion, where bad-angel Slim Shady ...
The Ramones: Anthology: Hey Ho Let’s Go! (Warner Archives/Rhino)
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 28 July 1999
FROM THE punk oral history Please Kill Me to Joey and Johnny Ramone on Howard Stern, the mythology around the Ramones lately seems to emphasize ...
Skip Spence : Alexander Spence: Oar; Various Artists: More Oar
Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 3 August 1999
IF EVERY Sgt. Pepper's begets its Satanic Majesties Request, and every Woodstock its Woodstock '99, Alexander "Skip" Spence's post-Bellevue Oar, first released in 1969, resembles ...
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 11 August 1999
AUTECHRE, THE ENGLISH DUO of Sean Booth and Rob Brown, don't so much write songs as program ecosystems. Within electronica, where everyone says Autechre have ...
Everclear, L.F.O.: L.F.O.: Summer Girls/Everclear: The Boys Are Back in Town
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 1 September 1999
EVERYBODY ACTS like prettyboy bubble-rap trio LFO's 'Summer Girls', biggest-selling single in the land last week, is all non sequiturs. But to me, it's clearly ...
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 1 September 1999
The first thing I asked him to do was get me a tape from the studio. He came back with it in five minutes. The ...
The Dixie Chicks, Shedaisy: Dixie Chicks: Fly; Shedaisy: The Whole Shebang
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 15 September 1999
EVERYONE IN NASHVILLE understands that the New Country formula-slick production with a seamless touch of roots and updated suburban family values-isn't enough anymore. ...
Live Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 28 September 1999
WHEN GOMEZ SINGS the line from 'Here Comes the Breeze' that goes, "There's no shame in going out of style," you have to admire the ...
Live Review by Evelyn McDonnell, The Village Voice, 28 September 1999
L7 Blow-Up in Brooklyn ...
Laurie Anderson: Outside the Whale: Laurie Anderson plays Moby
Live Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 13 October 1999
Songs and Stories From Moby Dick, BAM Opera House, Through October 16 ...
A Golden Age: MTV Names The Only 10 Songs That Matter
Comment by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 20 October 1999
A COUPLE OF weekends back, MTV presented a late-night Hard Rock A-Z special: wide-ranging sets of several videos in a row, with minimal VJ banter. ...
Tom Verlaine: The Sound of Silents: Tom Verlaine
Live Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 20 October 1999
IF THE MODEST obligation of a silent-film accompanist is to serve the movie, Tom Verlaine succeeded admirably during his Arts at St. Ann's appearance on ...
Handsome Boy Modeling School: So… How's Your Girls?
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 27 October 1999
AFTER A SOLILOQUY whose family shtick might be parodying a Wu-Tang kung fu sample, the opening track's bodacious soul-funk groove kicks under a jump-cut montage ...
Sally Timms: Cowboy Sally’s Twilight Laments ... for Lost Buckaroos
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 17 November 1999
THE DREAMING COWBOY has been away from his home and his woman for 20 years, riding in rodeos. After his body breaks down he stays ...
A Tribe Called Quest, Q-Tip: Q-Tip: Amplified (Arista)/A Tribe Called Quest: The Anthology (Jive)
Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 15 December 1999
THE GREATEST AESTHETIC lesson to learn from past masters like David Bowie and Madonna is the value of reinvention. ...
Drive-By Truckers: Pizza Deliverance (Soul Dump/Ghostmeat)
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 22 December 1999
WE DROVE TO Pittsburgh the weekend before Halloween, to watch the leaves change and attend a three-day fest called the Haunted Hillbilly Hoedown. ...
Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, January 2000
I WAS FOREWARNED, and chose not to take heed. You know, how prophecy can get mofos all wound up like Chicken Little with the sky ...
Profile by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 10 January 2000
What follows is extraneous: outtakes and stray threads from my DMX feature in the new GQ. The dictates of celebrity profiles — establishing scene, nut ...
Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 19 January 2000
THIS ISN'T A generation-gap piece, really. I ain't even 30. But a lot of folks ain't authentically feeling Rakim Allah; they just takin' the "experts' ...
Clinton: Disco & the Halfway to Discontent (Astralwerks)
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 2 February 2000
WHY IS THIS "beat-based" pairing of Cornershop's Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayres not credited to Cornershop? ...
Are We the World? Global Music in the U.S. Faces the 21st Century
Comment by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 8 February 2000
SONY MUSIC'S recent and massive Soundtrack of a Century collection includes a two-CD set called International Music, ostensibly to celebrate the geographically diverse roots of ...
Wu-Tang Clan: Wuclear Fission: A Nutcase and a Point Guard Rise Above Wu-Tang’s Solo Overkill
Overview by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 16 February 2000
THE STUPIDEST, greatest, lovingest, most problematic-yet-simple moment in pop last year was a guy not content to be called Ol' Dirty Bastard letting it all ...
Kid Koala: Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (Ninja Tune)
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 23 February 2000
LISTENING TO Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, it's possible to imagine that generations of musical progress have brought us back to the dawn of jazz, that through ...
Yo La Tengo: And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 8 March 2000
THERE'S A BOOK by Wim Wenders, Emotion Pictures: articles about Kinks albums and genre flicks and other inspirations of his, written as he was turning ...
All Ears: Disney Dreams Up the Best Radio Station in 30 Years
Essay by Metal Mike Saunders, The Village Voice, 14 March 2000
THE SEMINAL moment of the teenpop era is of course in the Clueless movie, where Cher refers to college-rock R.E.M.-crap as "mope rock", or "dope ...
Third Eye Blind's 'Never Let You Go'
Comment by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 4 April 2000
THE KIND OF emotional and formal fire Third Eye Blind build on 'Never Let You Go', their current hit, has rocked producers, radio programmers, and ...
Shelby Lynne: I am Shelby Lynne (Island)
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 5 April 2000
HERE'S WHAT intrigues me about Shelby Lynne, the country singer whose new album has been enjoying the sort of blanket media salivation only Dave Eggers ...
Bow Wow Wow, Joan Jett, Darlene Love, Tony Orlando: Kenny Laguna: Laguna Tunes
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 29 April 2000
IT'S TEMPTING TO imagine that Kenny Laguna invented the lifework he chronicles in the songs and liner notes of Laguna Tunes, that this parade of ...
Report by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 10 May 2000
At Pho, a Thousand E-mails a Month Track the Great Digital Debate ...
Marc Spitz: I Wanna Be Adored/Eric Winick: Lay Me Down
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 10 May 2000
NO ONE ROCKS harder in rock and roll theatre than the hangers-on. Rocks, that is, the category of knowingness, like a playwright. Gets corrosive in ...
Wu-Tang Clan is Sumthing ta Fuck Wit
Report by Frank Owen, The Village Voice, 23 May 2000
The world-famous Staten Island hip-hop collective has a government informer working within its ranks; at the same time, the group is being investigated by the ...
Britney Spears: Dear Diary: Britney Spears
Comment by Metal Mike Saunders, The Village Voice, 6 June 2000
NOVEMBER 3, 1998, was the release date of the '... Baby One More Time' CD single and 12-inch (w/ 'Autumn Goodbye' on the B side). ...
Charles Mingus: Town Hall Train Wreck
Retrospective by Gene Santoro, The Village Voice, 6 June 2000
IN MID-1962, Charles Mingus made a deal with United Artists. He wanted to lead a big band, but he wanted to record it live, before ...
Matmos: Where Art Worlds Collide
Profile by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 14 June 2000
I MUST HAVE misplugged my phone adapter before interviewing Drew Daniels and Martin Schmidt of Matmos, because all I hear on the tape are my ...
Jurassic 5: Quality Control (Interscope)
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 19 July 2000
"IN THE sixties we believed in a myth – that music had the power to change people's lives," Stanley Booth writes in the afterword to ...
Chain Store Hairdos: Totally Hits 2
Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 25 July 2000
THERE'S SOMETHING strange about the idea of Totally Hits 2, the compilation of recent pop smashes by various names, a follow-up to 1999's equally incongruous ...
Napsternomics: The Pop Solution to Downloading
Comment by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 2 August 2000
HERE'S THE smallest of Napster's ironies: the service shut down last week by Judge Marilyn Hall Patel, then granted a stay of execution by the ...
John Denver: Various Artists: Take Me Home – A Tribute to John Denver
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 2 August 2000
A FEW YEARS back, King Kong's Ethan Buckler taught me the essentials of a good poem or lyric: "It must have three things: the visual, ...
Nelly, Papa Roach: Nelly: Country Grammar; Papa Roach: Infest
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 30 August 2000
LOOKING PAST Eminem, Britney, and Creed to the unknowns, this summer's most persistent chart-huggers have been a St. Louis rapper whose signing represents a rock ...
Wyclef Jean: The Ecleftic: 2 Sides II a Book (Columbia)
Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 20 September 2000
EVER HAVE A bright idea, a 1000-watt bulb so blazin that it inevitably slides into the collective consciousness of pop culture? Even if the brainstorm ...
Buddy and Julie Miller: Julie Miller: Broken Things; Buddy Miller: Cruel Moon (both Hightone)
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 27 September 2000
SO I CHECKED and no, Buddy Miller didn't have CHRIST written on his baseball cap when he played the Bottom Line September 16; that was ...
Overview by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 11 October 2000
IN HIS FAMOUS essay "Kafka and his Precursors," Jorge Luis Borges argues that Zeno, Han Yu, and Kierkegaard, though nothing alike, all now seem Kafkaesque. ...
The Baha Men, Hampton and the Hampsters: I Still Want a Hula Hoop: Hampton and the Hampsters
Comment by Metal Mike Saunders, The Village Voice, 17 October 2000
OK, HERE'S THE hamster scoop: Last fall a U.K. indie-artsy outfit named the Cuban Boys took note of the wacky hamster sample (manipulated from the ...
Proxy Music: Electing the Pop Star in Chief
Essay by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 25 October 2000
IN 1822, NOAH Ludlow dressed himself in a buckskin hunting shirt and leggings, donned moccasins and an old slouch hat, put a rifle on his ...
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 25 October 2000
I'VE PLAYED the Radiohead album about a dozen times, pushed my way in to see them live, and yes, there is a certain pleasure to ...
Fatboy Slim: Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars
Review by Simon Reynolds, The Village Voice, 15 November 2000
FEATURING SAMPLES from a bootleg album of the Lizard King's poetry, Fatboy Slim's new single 'Sunset (Bird of Prey)' isn't the first time Jim Morrison's ...
Paul Simon: You're the One (Warner Bros.)
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 22 November 2000
PAUL SIMON has an image you wouldn't wish on a real estate developer. ...
The Glands, Silkworm: Silkworm: Lifestyle; The Glands: The Glands
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 6 December 2000
THE WORD IS traction. Silkworm and the Glands are indie rock to the gut: both could have sprung out of the fertile crescent in Pavement's ...
Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 13 December 2000
WHEN IT COMES to commercial black music, "high concept" makes the record industry very nervous. Motown initially told Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye that people ...
Book Review by Barney Hoskyns, The Village Voice, 2001
IT'S KINDA IRONIC that the untold story of the Los Angeles punk scene should be officially told (tolled?) at a time when New York City ...
Comment by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 30 January 2001
DJ Music Builds Its Way Out of the Velvet-Rope Underground ...
Dido: Boots and Beats Beneath the Bed: Dido's No Angel
Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 6 March 2001
WHEN HIP-HOPPERS go anywhere from Spandau Ballet to Annie to Diana Ross and David Bowie to Kenny Rogers for music – as Prince Be, Jay-Z, ...
Obituary by Andy Schwartz, The Village Voice, 7 April 2001
Alan Betrock was the passionate fanatic who founded the groundbreaking New York Rocker. Andy Schwartz, who succeeded him as the magazine’s publisher and editor, here ...
Love: Forever Changes(Elektra/Rhino)
Review by Richard Riegel, The Village Voice, 16 April 2001
LOVE'S THIRD ALBUM mystified both the band's ardent fans and the scene's founding rockwriters almost from the day it appeared in November 1967. ...
Rufus Wainwright: Parlour Of Vices: Rufus Wainwright's Poses
Review by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 19 June 2001
BACK IN THE days of Stephen Foster, the piano was the centerpiece of the parlour. That was the room that women ran, the room where ...
Review by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 26 June 2001
THE PROP PLANE circled the ballpark, trailing the type of banner you might also see at the beach. The message, though, was not what you ...
Aaliyah: The Highest, Most Exalted One: Aaliyah, 1979-2001
Obituary by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, August 2001
THREE WEEKS BACK, I lay in a sea-salted bathtub with candles, bubbles, and headphones, listening to Aaliyah. Lamenting the state of my love life during ...
Book Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 18 September 2001
YOU HAD TO BE THERE to understand that the book has yet to be written encompassing all the sheer intensity of suspenseful events, mesmerizing mise-en-scène, ...
Cannibal Ox: The Anti-Bling Kings: Cannibal Ox
Profile by Simon Reynolds, The Village Voice, 2 October 2001
Wormholed futurism with a mouthful of parables ...
Cornel West: Go See The Doctor: Cornel West's Sketches of My Culture
Review by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 16 October 2001
CORNEL WEST'S Sketches of My Culture is probably the first hip-hop record by a Harvard professor. I demand that academia reciprocate and immediately put Ol' Dirty Bastard ...
John Mellencamp: Cuttin' Heads (Columbia)
Review by Richard Riegel, The Village Voice, 5 December 2001
ROBERT ZIMMERMAN wanted to emulate Woody Guthrie, while John Mellencamp aspired to be the next-to-last David Bowie, and here they are at fateful birthdays 60 ...
Kid Rock: Like a Motown Cowboy
Comment by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 18 December 2001
TWO GUYS MARCH into the Victor Recording Company office one summer day in 1922, mad flossing all the way: one dressed like a cowboy, the ...
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 27 December 2001
"IRRESISTIBLE: CLASS with an edge," Matthew Cooke of Amazon.com writes in a Best of 2000 Editor's Pick for St. Germain's Tourist, and if that makes ...
Gary Allan: Scumbag in the Dark: Gary Allan's Alright Guy
Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 19 February 2002
"THIS ALBUM," the booklet inside Gary Allan's current Alright Guy reads, "is dedicated to Willie, Waylon, Johnny, George, Buck & Merle," which is a way ...
Book Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 2 April 2002
Generation Hiphop's Aesthetics ...
Report and Interview by Will Hermes, The Village Voice, 9 April 2002
LET US NOW praise great Americans: Louis Armstrong, Jerry Garcia, and Grandmaster Flash made their history with equal parts pioneer cojones and improvisatory derring-do. They ...
Joi, Kelis, Meshell Ndegeocello: Joi/Ndégeocello/Kelis: Walk on Gilded Splinters
Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 1 May 2002
Joi: Star Kitty's Revenge; Me'Shell Ndégeocello: Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape; Kelis: Wanderland ...
DJ Shadow: To The Batcave: DJ Shadow's The Private Press
Review by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 4 June 2002
OUT-OF-BODY Experience, heaven version: "I saw my life before my eyes, and that is no shit… I saw myself walking in and out of countless ...
Lauryn Hill: MTV Unplugged 2.0
Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, July 2002
I can faithfully, honestly say that hiphop is dead. – Q-Tip Hiphop being counterculture, underground culture, that's sorta dead. It's all mainstream. It's just ...
The Chemical Brothers, Matthew Herbert, Stephane Pompougnac, Rinôçérôse: Lifestyles of the Rhythm
Overview by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 2 July 2002
Dance music accesses an unseparatist pop sensibility ...
Caetano Veloso: Tropical Truth: A Story of Music and Revolution in Brazil (Knopf)
Book Review by Will Hermes, The Village Voice, 24 September 2002
IT'S TOUGH TO imagine an American pop star penning a memoir like Tropical Truth. That's not just because our musical celebs are rarely imprisoned for ...
The Streets: Bowery Ballroom, New York City
Live Review by Will Hermes, The Village Voice, 29 October 2002
TALK ABOUT BRINGING coal to Newcastle. Sunday's New York debut of U.K. MC The Streets (a/k/a Mike "A Day in the Life of a Geezer" Skinner) drew ...
Comment by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 5 November 2002
IN THE money scene of 8 Mile, the young white Detroit rapper Rabbit Smith (played by young white Detroit rapper Eminem) battles a series of ...
Comment by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 12 November 2002
TWO EVENTS of lasting significance occurred last week: the breakdown of the Democratic party and the breakthrough of Eminem. His debut film, 8 Mile, became the ...
Profile by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 26 November 2002
THE $64 MILLION question? Why, in a post-Spice Girl world, are black girl groups still forming (and falling apart) as if the Spice Girls never ...
Kenny Lattimore and Chanté Moore: Things that Lovers Do
Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 8 April 2003
Their project may cause pregnancy. ...
Robbie Williams: Fly Like an Ego: Robbie Williams' Escapology
Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 13 May 2003
WHEN LONDON'S Robbie Williams released his 1999 U.S. debut, he warned Americans. The Ego Has Landed, he called the thing, a shrewd compilation of even ...
Profile by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 4 June 2003
NO ONE-SENTENCE summation (no matter how correct or clever) really does justice to the Scissor Sisters. As a girdle-tight, piss-elegant rock unit unafraid to play ...
Drive-By Truckers: Decoration Day (New West)
Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 13 June 2003
COME HEAR ME real well, boogie chillun, for I'ze 'bout to spin this chronicle of a death foretold. The death of truth, justice, and the ...
Review by Amy Linden, The Village Voice, 23 July 2003
ABOUT A YEAR ago, a hard-working street team slapped up promotional snipes that asked: "Who is Joe Budden?" According to a highly subjective survey (conducted ...
Brooks & Dunn: The Long Road Home: Brooks & Dunn Risk Backlash With a Great Rock Album
Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 1 August 2003
IN THE RURAL east Texas graveyard where my father and his parents are buried, just a stone's throw from a black church built on land ...
The Swimming Pool Q's: Royal Academy of Reality
Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 12 August 2003
"HER LIGHT HAS been delayed" are the first words sung by Jeff Calder on a record a decade or more in the making, by a band that's ...
Beyoncé: Pop the Question, Jigga – Miss Fat Booty Gets Some, Gives Some Up Without Shame
Comment by Amy Linden, The Village Voice, 27 August 2003
UNLIKE THE B.Lo affair (so ubiquitous it practically has its own action figures), whatever is going on between Beyoncé Knowles and Jay-Z is under the ...
Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 10 September 2003
SO THE GRAPEVINE has Hollyweird pondering a film based on late-1970s TV Dixiana The Dukes of Hazzard. The Grandfather Clause prevents me from voting for ...
Macy Gray, Mya: Macy Gray: The Trouble With Being Myself/Mya : Moodring
Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 24 October 2003
BOTH WOMEN crouch nearly nude on their album covers, gazing with feral yet somehow fetal reproach at potential consumers, like naughty fairy changelings who've had ...
Macy Gray, Mya: Imps of the Perverse: Mya and Macy Gracy
Comment by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 28 October 2003
BOTH WOMEN crouch nearly nude on their album covers, gazing with feral yet somehow fetal reproach at potential consumers, like naughty fairy changelings who've had ...
The High Llamas: City and Country: High Llamas' Beet, Maize & Corn
Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 9 December 2003
IS ANY SONGWRITER more finely attuned to the shimmering membrane separating city and country than Sean O'Hagan? ...
Nelly Furtado: Folklore (DreamWorks)
Review by Amy Linden, The Village Voice, 24 December 2003
SOME CRITIC I was reading recently (Jayson Blair alert: The following is not this writer's original thought!) observed that the fiddle had emerged as the ...
Profile and Interview by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 20 January 2004
DAPPER, CHARISMATIC, and 68 years young, Johnny Pacheco is one of New York's cultural lions, a Juilliard alumnus who revolutionized the way Afro-Latin swing, a/k/a ...
Jet (Australia): Drunks from Down Under take over the garage: Jet's Get Born
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, The Village Voice, 6 April 2004
WELL! MY MY MY. Let's take a head count of the biggest names in the way overhyped "garage band" revival: the Hives, the Strokes, the ...
Review by Amy Linden, The Village Voice, 19 April 2004
USHER RAYMOND is a star. The faithful have thought as much for years, but recently the masses affirmed it when 1.1 million of them trooped ...
Van Hunt (R&B): Van Hunt: Van Hunt
Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 27 April 2004
PREENING, CONFESSING, aloof Atlanta R&B phenom falls short ...
Joanna Newsom: The Milk-Eyed Mender (Drag City)
Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 4 May 2004
THE INCREDIBLE String Band's cryptic whimsy and Vashti Bunyan's beautiful balladry have quietly resurfaced in a bushel of great new bands, and especially so, it seems, ...
The Cure: Join the Dots: B-Sides & Rarities – 1978–2001: The Fiction Years
Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 25 May 2004
THE CURE'S Join the Dots: B-Sides & Rarities: 1978–2001: The Fiction Years is titled with the exhaustiveness that can, in every sense, characterize box sets. ...
Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 8 June 2004
HAVING PASSED out during Hanson's historical 1999 Bob Weir summit at the late Wetlands, this critic can attest to the inexorable power of the towhead ...
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
Film/DVD/TV Review by Chuck Eddy, The Village Voice, 2 July 2004
LAST FALL, a hilarious 3,000-word review of Metallica's unlistenable St. Anger by some guy named Colin Tappe circulated over the Internet. ...
Putumayo: The Little Label That Could
Report by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 2 July 2004
WHILE THE REST of the music industry downsizes like mad, an 11-year-old independent label the majors used to snicker at has scored a 15 percent ...
Derek Bailey: Ben Watson: Derek Bailey and the Story of Free Improvisation
Book Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 17 August 2004
FREE IMPROVISATION is the automatic writing, the abstract expressionism, or as British critic Ben Watson most aptly describes it, the "stand-up comedy" of musical performance. ...
Salomé de Bahia, Solu Music: Solu Music: Affirmation / Salomé de Bahia: Brasil
Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 4 October 2004
The "Other" R&B ...
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 1 November 2004
The eternal hustler works his gloomy-gus shtick and leaves the hipsters wanting more ...
Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz: Crunk Juice
Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 30 November 2004
"EYE-UNH!," "Hunh!," and "Hiuiiii!" were universally accepted as James Brown lyrics before crunk king Jonathan "Lil Jon" Smith was conceived. Dave Chappelle may have elevated ...
Gwen Stefani: Love. Angel. Music. Baby (Interscope)
Review by Amy Linden, The Village Voice, 13 December 2004
LIKE THAT OF her spiritual mommies Madonna and Debbie Harry, Gwen Stefani's appeal knows few boundaries. ...
Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 21 December 2004
THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS ago on a huge #1, Nancy Sinatra made her suede-toned warning that 'These Boots Are Made for Walkin'.' For the piano finale of ...
Lil' Kim: Big Verdict: Lil' Kim Is Seriously Fucked
Comment by Amy Linden, The Village Voice, 18 March 2005
ON MARCH 3, in the midst of her highly publicized trial in Manhattan Federal court, a clearly beleaguered Lil' Kim issued a statement through the ...
Live Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 19 July 2005
IT SEEMS SLIGHTLY ridiculous now, but Elvis Costello's 1981 Almost Blue came with a sticker warning: "This album contains country & Western music & may produce radical reaction ...
Keyshia Cole, Leela James, Jaguar Wright: Old R&B New Again Again
Review by Amy Linden, The Village Voice, 12 October 2005
Three young divas make soul waters safe for middle-aged Keyshia Cole: The Way It Is Jaguar Wright: Divorcing Neo to Marry Soul Leela James: A Change Is Gonna ...
Retrospective by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 18 October 2005
August 23, 1988 ...
Patti Smith: Apocalypse Then: Patti Smith's Horses
Retrospective and Interview by Will Hermes, The Village Voice, 15 November 2005
ON OCTOBER 30, 1975, the Daily News printed its "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD" cover. But long before that other unelected president refused to bail out our ...
Merle Haggard: Swing Me Back Home
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 2 March 2006
<i>Strangers/Swinging Doors and the Bottle Let Me Down I'm a Lonesome Fugitive/Branded Man Sing Me Back Home/The Legend of Bonnie & Clyde Mama Tried/Pride in ...
Donald Fagen: Morph the Cat (Reprise) — Catdown to Ecstasy
Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 16 March 2006
Steely Dan's unfashionable co-founder catches a New York where things changed forever ...
Saffire – The Uppity Blues Women: Deluxe Edition
Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 24 March 2006
IF YOU BUY only one acoustic blues album this year, why not a best-of from a self-affirming trio of feisty females? ...
Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 1 May 2006
IN HIS LONG-AGO heyday Prince complimented Kid Creole's backup girls by admiring how Adriana Kaegi "used every beat of the music in her choreography." Evidence ...
Outward Is Heavenward: Modern Gospel
Report by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 3 July 2006
THERE'S SO MUCH going on in gospel music today that you may have missed when Kirk Franklin paused from promoting Hero, his latest chart-topping CD, ...
Report by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 9 October 2006
GOTHAM'S HIPPEST and happiest underground nightlife owes its origins to the ever-streetwise and affable duo of Brooklyn's Kenny "Dope" Gonzalez and Bronx-bred "Little" Louie Vega, ...
Jay Z: Hova's Slight Return: Jay-Z: Kingdom Come
Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 21 November 2006
Jay-Z's aura finally outshines his art — what a drag it is getting old ...
Live Review by Amy Linden, The Village Voice, 16 January 2007
WITH HYPE justified by her soon come (and already #1 in the UK) sophomore CD Back To Black), and a Ghostface remix of the slurred, ...
Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 29 January 2007
WHEN LED ZEP covered Kansas Joe and Memphis Minnie's 'When the Levee Breaks', they thought they were making "rock 'n' roll." When the Pointer Sisters ...
Earl Greyhound: The Afrofuture of Rock
Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 26 February 2007
I MOVED TO Manhattan in 1989 to see Earl Greyhound—but they didn't exist yet. At the turn of the '90s, in that aggressive-white- male space ...
Tracey Thorn: Sublimely nonchalant electro-pop majesty: Tracey Thorn's Out of the Woods
Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 20 March 2007
TRACEY THORN, of the now-on-hiatus duo Everything But the Girl, sings with the transparency of country air and the significance of Louis XIV furniture. Alone ...
Comment by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 27 March 2007
MAYHAP YOUR iPod has shuffled a Maxwell or Lauryn Hill tune into your mix lately, and led you to question, "Where they be?" The neo-soul ...
Ozomatli: Don't Mess With the Dragon
Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 7 April 2007
IF YOU'RE A giddy optimist like me, you hope to one day hear Ozomatli's cheerfully rebellious politi-pop wafting from every car radio in New York ...
Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 17 July 2007
IF HE HADN'T choked to death in London's Samarkand Hotel 37 years ago, how many mediocre records would Jimi Hendrix have dropped by now? Stevie ...
Retrospective by Will Hermes, The Village Voice, 31 July 2007
OH YES, it was wicked cool: getting jacked at machete-point on the subway after a night of clubbing, and at bayonet-point outside of high school. ...
Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 25 September 2007
ON HER RECENT Out of the Woods, Tracey Thorn, singing about artists who awed her early on, mentions "Bobby D in '63". But she also ...
Public Enemy: The Public Enemy Remix Project's 'Bring the Noise' b/w 'Give It Up'
Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 26 September 2007
ALTHOUGH TECHNO (and its subsequent sub-genres) is now associated more with its white European exponents than its black American progenitors, Ultra Records' new series of ...
Review by Amy Linden, The Village Voice, 3 October 2007
THE E STREET BAND last convened around Bruce Springsteen on 2001's The Rising; since then, the Boss (who looks finer as he gets older) has ...
Comment by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 16 October 2007
The Detroit Cowboy tells his congregation about the world, flesh, and the Devil. ...
Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 4 December 2007
RIGHT NOW, all we know about Wu-Tang Clan's 8 Diagrams – their first album in six years – is that at least two members (Ghostface ...
Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 4 December 2007
RIGHT NOW, all we know about Wu-Tang Clan's 8 Diagrams – their first album in six years – is that at least two members (Ghostface ...
Kate Nash: Hugs and Kisses 24: The Kate Nash Interview!
Interview by Everett True, The Village Voice, 18 December 2007
LISTEN. I CONDUCTED THIS INTERVIEW — what — almost two months ago, same night as a Kate Nash show in Brighton. ...
Amy Winehouse: The Slow Blackout of Amy Winehouse
Comment by Amy Linden, The Village Voice, 15 January 2008
How a troubled r&b mega-talent's breakout hit turned against her ...
Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 5 February 2008
Michael Jackson's Nigh-Unstoppable Thriller Gets the 25th-Anniversary Treatment ...
Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 26 February 2008
SURE, MADONNA repeatedly toyed with BDSM in her videos, but she never publicly admitted to breast and genital piercings like Miss Jackson did. So, in ...
Kylie Minogue, Robyn: Robyn: Robyn/Kylie Minogue: X
Live Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 29 April 2008
MOST OF Robyn recasts the teenage hitmaker of a decade ago as a formidable 26-year-old Stockholm chick. ...
Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 6 May 2008
A half-centenarian provides more porny pop excellence ...
Britney Spears: On Britney Spears's Sadly Generic Circus
Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 10 December 2008
More blandishments from the dance floor ...
Live Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 13 January 2009
GLOBALFEST SHOWCASES so much high-quality talent that artists accustomed to headlining elsewhere can find themselves opening this three-stage marathon to less-than-capacity crowds. ...
Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 5 May 2009
I CALL THEM anachronauts: performers whose core appeal stems from their ability to transport listeners to another time and place. ...
Comment by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 5 May 2009
I CALL THEM anachronauts: performers whose core appeal stems from their ability to transport listeners to another time and place. ...
Def Jam at 25: The Yankees of Hip-Hop Labels, Reconsidered
Comment by Amy Linden, The Village Voice, 27 October 2009
WHAT IS IT about hip-hop that, inevitably, almost any conversation revolves around dates – around how far back in the day you can claim to ...
Dirty Projectors, Solange Knowles, and the Perils of Music-Racism
Comment by Maura Johnston, The Village Voice, 19 January 2010
On 'Stillness Is the Move' and the uselessness of genre. ...
Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 9 March 2010
Gorillaz Get Serious: Plastic Beach loads up on guest stars and gravitas ...
Oneohtrix Point Never: Brooklyn's Noise Scene Catches Up to Oneohtrix Point Never
Interview by Simon Reynolds, The Village Voice, 6 July 2010
DANIEL LOPATIN, the young man behind the spacey and spacious mindscapes of Oneohtrix Point Never, operates out of a cramped bedroom in Bushwick, mostly taken ...
Indigo Girls, Sarah McLachlan, Cat Power, Suzanne Vega: The Lilith Fair Abides
Report by Maura Johnston, The Village Voice, 4 August 2010
A late-'90s fest returns with great ideas (the Lilipad!), throwback headliners, and terrible marketing. ...
CeeLo Green: Cee Lo Green: The Fearless Cee Lo Green
Interview by Amy Linden, The Village Voice, 10 November 2010
Will The Lady Killer and 'Fuck You' finally turn him into a solo superstar? ...
Mavis Staples Is for the Children
Report and Interview by Amy Linden, The Village Voice, 12 January 2011
MAVIS STAPLES digs her some younger men, but she'd rather lead them to the studio than the bedroom. "I think it really makes for a ...
The Feelies Get Perpetually Nervous All Over Again
Report and Interview by Evelyn McDonnell, The Village Voice, 30 March 2011
SOME PEOPLE pick up guitars and want to be rock stars. Other people pick up guitars because playing music is a cooler hobby than collecting ...
The Rebirth Brass Band: Rebirth of New Orleans
Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 20 April 2011
DURING THE FIRST episode of HBO's Treme, members of the Rebirth Brass Band and the show's trombone-playing character Antoine Batiste end a jazz parade in ...
Concha Buika, Les Nubians: More Than Words: Going Polyglot With Concha Buika and Les Nubians
Retrospective by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 20 June 2011
IN THE '60s and '70s danceable jazz-pop in foreign languages made American radio more exciting: Jorge Ben's 'Mas Que Nada' charted when recorded by Sergio ...
DJ Turmix, Spanglish Fly: Boogaloo! with Spanglish Fly, DJ Turmix: Nublu, New York
Live Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 8 July 2011
IT COULD HAVE been a disaster – subway service to Loisaida was screwed up (again), it was raining, one of the club's turntables was on ...
David Guetta: Nothing But the Beat
Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 29 August 2011
David Guetta's Dance Music Melting Pot ...
Lana Del Rey: Is Lana Del Rey The Kreayshawn Of Moody, Electro-Tinged "Indie"?
Report by Maura Johnston, The Village Voice, 15 September 2011
LAST NIGHT, Glasslands played host to a "secret" show by Lana Del Rey, an up-and-coming singer who was described by the one press release I ...
A Look At Pop Around The Globe — From Operatic Creole Harmonies to Riot-Grrl-Inspired French Rappers
Overview by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 5 October 2011
THE END of the year brings a flurry of world music albums with commercial intentions ranging from the archival to the optimistically opportunistic. ...
Ellen Willis: Out of the Vinyl Deeps
Book Review by Maura Johnston, The Village Voice, 5 October 2011
The late New Yorker pop critic and Voice editor's work still vibrates off the page in Out of the Vinyl Deeps. ...
Deadmau5, Portishead: Portishead: Hammerstein Ballroom/Deadmau5: Roseland, NYC
Live Review by Maura Johnston, The Village Voice, 12 October 2011
AT A LIVE MUSIC event, your eye naturally is drawn to what's happening onstage: guitarists thrashing and sawing at the air, vocalists preening between yawps, ...
Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 15 November 2011
'WEATHER' ISN'T the first Meshell Ndegeocello single to fall into the category of "freak folk," but the album of the same name is her first ...
Report by Maura Johnston, The Village Voice, 30 November 2011
TONIGHT'S GRAMMY nomination concert, airing at 10 p.m. on CBS, will not only jam-pack a bunch of performances by the likes of Lady Gaga and ...
Lana Del Rey Takes Her Place On The Internet's Sacrificial Altar With Born To Die
Review by Maura Johnston, The Village Voice, 2 December 2011
IN ANOTHER era, Lana Del Rey would just be another pretty pop singer with a second-rate voice and big, unrealized ambitions, a major-label footnote maybe ...
Retrospective by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 23 January 2012
ETTA JAMES used to tell a story about meeting Billie Holiday in which Holiday told her — fatherless wild child to fatherless wild child — ...
Yann Tiersen: Irving Plaza, New York
Live Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 30 April 2012
Better than: Most of the Philip Glass and Stephin Merritt music I've heard. ...
Live Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 4 June 2012
Better Than: Being sad that Alice Coltrane and Cesaria Evora are dead and that Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill don't make albums together. ...
Ljuba Davis Ladino Ensemble: Drom, New York City
Live Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 18 June 2012
FOR THOSE OF US who grew up hearing a lot of Yiddish, it can come as a nice surprise to discover that Hebrew modified Spanish ...
Kathleen Battle and Cyrus Chestnut: The Blue Note, New York City
Live Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 20 June 2012
IN 2010, KATHLEEN Battle chose a pianist and a repertoire of classical material to bring to Carnegie Hall for a formal recital. This summer, Battle ...
Gonjasufi: Cameo Gallery, Brooklyn
Live Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 25 September 2012
Gonjasufi Presses On in the Midst of Technical Chaos ...
Why "World Music" Doesn't Mean Anything Anymore: What I Learned at APAP
Comment by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 14 January 2013
IF YOU EVER had any doubts about whether the global pop promotion game was an intellectual enterprise as well as an entrepreneurial movement, this year's ...
Review by Maura Johnston, The Village Voice, 6 October 2016
SAY THE NAME Rick Astley in 2016 and you'll probably get a reply involving his 1987 smash 'Never Gonna Give You Up', a brightly spangled ...
James Chance & the Contortions: Downtown icon James Chance cuts loose
Live Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 16 November 2016
IT WAS WELL after midnight last Thursday by the time James Chance and the Contortions took the stage of the Bowery Electric. Dapper in his ...
Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 20 March 2017
Drake's More Life is Another All-Purpose Emoji ...
Retrospective by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 3 May 2017
Old-school B-boys cold-lampin' at Disco Fever, c. 1979 ...
Eric B. & Rakim: Apollo Theater, Harlem
Live Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 10 July 2017
Eric B. & Rakim play to their die-hard fans at Paid in Full tribute show ...
Interview by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 9 November 2017
Drawn together: Gary Lucas and Nona Hendryx channel Captain Beefheart on their new album. ...
Aretha Franklin: Aretha: The Voice of America
Obituary by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 17 August 2018
IT MAY BE difficult for anyone born after 1980 to fully grasp how important Aretha Franklin has been to America. There is simply no longer ...
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