Todd L. Burns
Todd L. Burns is a music journalist / editor. He co-founded Stylus Magazine; served as an editor at Red Bull Music Academy, Resident Advisor, and more; and created the newsletter Music Journalism Insider.
41 articles
List of articles in the library
Squarepusher: Do You Know Squarepusher (Warp Records)
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, December 2002
SQUAREPUSHER's latest release, Do You Know Squarepusher mines a lot of the territory that his return to drill 'n bass, Go Plastic, did. He also ...
Tatu: 200 KM/H In The Wrong Lane (Interscope)
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 9 January 2003
DESPITE THE obviously imperfect title for American audiences, Tatu has constructed an admirable English language album rife with two potentially hit singles and one of ...
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, September 2003
AT THE SAME TIME that ragga is making its presence known in the mainstream with the likes of Sean Paul and Wayne Wonder hitting the ...
Alec Empire: Intelligence and Sacrifice
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 1 September 2003
DIGITAL HARDCORE. These two words, because of one man's influence, have come to encompass an entire genre of music that was once regarded as the ...
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 1 September 2003
CEX IS NAKED. Underneath all of the electronics and the posturing of who has the best software plug-ins and the never ending contest of who ...
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 1 September 2003
FOR ALL YOU KIDS OUT THERE that haven't been on the IDM tip of things, which is... well... uh... 99% of you, the genre is ...
Chris Clark - UK: Chris Clark: Clarence Park
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 1 September 2003
IT SEEMS THAT YOU CAN TELL a lot from album cover art. When looking at the Warp Records output it doesn't take a genius to ...
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 1 September 2003
GLEN BALLARD, Ron Fair, Linda Perry, Scott Storch, Steve Morales, Balewa Muhammad, Rob Hoffman, E. Dawk, Heather Holley, and Christina Aguilera are all labeled on ...
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 1 September 2003
REIGNING IN THE EXCESSES of both, Dolmen is Jason Sloan and Steven Smith. On the recently released solo album of Smith, Daye of Skye's The ...
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 1 September 2003
AS THE SUMMER rushes headlong into its second half, it's perhaps a pertinent portion of information to note: at least half of the hottest summer ...
Jim O'Rourke: I'm Happy And I'm Singing And A 1, 2, 3, 4
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 1 September 2003
CLAIMING TO HAVE been hugely into minimalism and avant garde music by the time he hit high school, Jim O'Rourke's stock took a blow in ...
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 1 September 2003
ONE OF THE FEW SURVIVORS and true innovators of the trip-hop movement, Lamb returns here with the re-release of their third album. Placed on the ...
M83: Dead Cities, Red Seas, and Lost Ghosts (Gooom Disques)
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 1 September 2003
M83: Dead Cities, Red Seas, and Lost Ghosts, 'Unrecorded', 1:40–2:20 ...
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 1 September 2003
SO BEGINS THE SECOND ROUND OF SHEMO. With a live disc in the works for Avril Lavigne and the next full length presumably in the ...
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 1 September 2003
CRITICAL DEAD ENDS for an album full of musical dead ends: Perhaps what Moby does best is construct songs. And when I say construct, I mean ...
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 1 September 2003
NOW, I DON'T HATE MOBY because he uses the same synth string sound in each song, a sound that feels like it needs something. I ...
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 1 September 2003
WHO WOULDA THUNK IT? Pink, much like Vitamin C, seemed to have one interesting portion to her image. The music was capable, but the lyrics ...
The Soft Pink Truth: Do You Party?
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 1 September 2003
EVER BEEN TOLD you're too nice by your soon to be ex-girlfriend? Drew Daniel hasn't either. But consider this his calling out. Drew. Baby. You're ...
Vincent Gallo: Recordings of Music for Film
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 1 September 2003
PEOPLE SEEM TO ONLY LOVE HIM or hate him. I don't understand what all the fuss is about Vincent Gallo. But I've never seen Buffalo ...
The Decemberists: Her Majesty the Decemberists
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 25 September 2003
THE SUCCESS of the Decemberists doesn't lie in the fact that each song that they write is a miniature world, intimately detailed and poetically rendered. ...
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 28 October 2003
WHEN I WAS YOUNGER, I had a lot of strange listening habits. For instance, I vowed in 1995 to listen to no music made after ...
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 27 February 2004
ONE GUITAR AND A CAPABLE HIGH FEMALE VOICE. That's about all that can be said to be missing from the equation from the newest offering ...
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 21 May 2004
NEO-FEMINIST (the kind where everything's quite complicated, frustrating any attempt to truly unpack exactly what's going on), gleefully ignorant of music history (the kind where ...
Cannibal Corpse: The Wretched Spawn
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 21 May 2004
AFTER EIGHT ALBUMS that helped define gore-death metal, Cannibal Corpse are back with only their second studio album of the new millennium. That's not to ...
Slipknot: Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses)
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 28 May 2004
"NOW IT'S OVER" sings Corey Taylor on the opening dirge of the Iowan nontet's newest album. And, for Slipknot, it did look to be all ...
Circle Takes The Square: As The Roots Undo
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 7 July 2004
IT'S HARDCORE. You know the score: grinding and lurching guitars, screamed vocals, blast beats and just a bit of nihilism. Circle Takes The Square does ...
The Icarus Line: Icarus Line: Penance Soiree
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 9 July 2004
IF THE TRANSFORMING POWER of rock has been weakened by various sets of pretenders throughout the years, the first half of Icarus Line's Penance Soiree ...
R. Kelly: Happy People / U Saved Me
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 25 August 2004
THE PIED PIPER, AS THE STORY GOES, came to the town of Hamelin in 1284 playing his flute and swiftly cured its rat plague. After ...
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 17 September 2004
NELLY IS FOR THE CHILDREN. Or, more appropriately, Nelly is for everyone. He’s never made any pretenses otherwise, luckily, so arguments veering towards the thorny ...
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 17 September 2004
BUT IF SUIT COULDN'T PRODUCE SOMETHING that could come close to 'Lose Yourself', Sweat's opening track, 'Heart of Champion', nearly gets there. That is, until ...
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 24 September 2004
IF YOU'VE LISTENED from the beginning, you shouldn't expect much. Hilary Duff's debut was a hit and miss affair. Leaving aside the great 'So Yesterday' ...
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 13 October 2004
CLOCKING IN AT A SVELTE 39 MINUTES, The Blood Brothers third full-length album, Crimes, packs just as many ideas, sounds and punch as its cousin, ...
Cristina: Doll In A Box/Sleep It Off
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 21 October 2004
IT'S SO OBVIOUS, ISN'T IT? You get a record label and then you ask your wife to make a record. What do you care? You're ...
Britney Spears: Under The Covers: Britney
Guide by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 1 February 2005
The Queen of Pop? Since 1999’s …Baby One More Time, Britney has quickly elevated herself to pop royalty via a conflicting series of psycho-sexual messages ...
William Basinski: Silent Night
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 10 February 2005
IT'S HARD to call a person you've never met in real life a true friend, but for someone who has so much correspondence online, it's ...
Omar-S: Just Ask The Lonely (FXHE)
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 1 April 2005
THE FIRST TIME you listen to Omar-S (Alex Smith), especially his debut solo album for his own FXHE Records, you're going to be confused. Which ...
Mariah Carey: The Emancipation of Mimi
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 14 April 2005
SOMEONE RECENTLY POSITED that there was no greater high and low attained in American culture than those had by Michael Jackson. If that's true, you ...
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 21 July 2006
Kitsch is a tough one, innit? Author Modris Eksteins points out that it "replaces ethics with aesthetics." Next sentence? "Kitsch is the mask of death." ...
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 27 July 2006
CELINE'S GOT THE RIGHT IDEA. There are many that complain about electronic music having no soul. That's probably not the idea that Celine had, though. ...
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 2 August 2006
AS MUSICAL PUNCHLINES GO, Alec Empire is getting there. But it wasn't always this way. Back in the 1990's, Empire was at the forefront of ...
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, 7 December 2006
IT'S NOT LIKE I KNEW ANY BETTER. You're stuck in the Midwest, you look up to your significantly older brother, and then he thrusts an ...
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