So, what’s happened since the release of Narrow Stairs, the last Death Cab for Cutie album/ Well, lead singer Ben Gibbard got married to Zooey Deschanel and created the perfect indie-rock couple. Ben also recently ran a marathon, a feat I take my cap off to seeing as I can’t walk more than 5 blocks without being out of breath. We didn’t get a new Postal Service album, much to my chagrin. They did contribute a song to one of […]
Indie Rock
Support Good Music in 2011: Chapter 1 (Telekinesis)
Are you missing the rocking days of Blue Album Weezer? Are you a closet Robert Smith fan? Do you love Death Cab For Cutie but can’t buy into the emo-ness of it all? If you said yes to any of this then Telekinesis is a band for you. I’ll admit that I discovered Telekinesis through my love of ‘ Chuck ‘ the TV show. It’s not often I find new music through shows I watch so I was pleasantly surprised when the […]
The Strokes “Angles” Their Way Back Into Our Good Graces
I may have been too dismissive when “Under Cover of Darkness”, the first single off of The Strokes’ Angles, debuted a little while back. I felt the song didn’t do anything for the band. It was Strokes-by-numbers, the same old, same old. “Under Cover…” was actually The Strokes re-introducing themselves to us through trickery. “Hey everybody, we’re back! If you liked us before, you’ll still love us now!” One things for sure after listening to Angles is that this is […]
I read AP’s “100 Bands You Need To Know in 2011” so you don’t have to.
You’re welcome. I do not buy a lot of magazines anymore. All of my music news I can usually get from the interwebs and I’m totally fine with that. I was out and about the other day and saw the latest issue of AP which was the annual “100 bands you need to know in 2011” and like a sucker, I bought it. At the very least, this issue is good for laugh and I get to make myself feel […]
Spin Cycle: James Blake “James Blake”
In recent years, hype has often led to fantastic letdown. Most notably in the digital age, where no hope still exists for a proper release, artists have had to combat the wave of early releases mixed with harsh criticism before the work gets a proper release. Arcade Fire, whose 2004 album Funeral brought with it a trove of heartache and hope that has defined our zeitgeist, bled into 2006’s Neon Bible, an album so canonized, its release almost seemed dwarfed by its grand hype. Fast […]
New Release Report 3/1/11: Waking Up Slowly
Indie Rock / music / New Release Report / New Releases / reissues / Release Dates / rock music / soul music
The weather’s supposed to be getting warm soon, right? As spring approaches, the level of music releases arriving in stores and online seems to be picking up as well. No home-runs this week, but a healthy smattering of releases are arriving that should appeal to music fans of all shapes and sizes. Let’s take a look at some of them. Marsha Ambrosius: Late Nights & Early Mornings: The singing half of R&B/rap duo Floetry got caught up in the Dr.Dre/Aftermath […]
Chart Stalker 2/23/11: Love Those Grammys!
With the Grammy Awards achieving their highest ratings in a decade, it figures that this week’s Billboard Chart is one of the busiest in recent memory. Artists who performed on the show, won awards, and even artists that presented on the show have marked increases in sales. Of course, it helps when you not only perform on the show, but release a new album in the same week. Justin Bieber’s Never Say Never-Remixes bows on top of Billboard’s album chart […]
Dynamite, indeed! (Twilight Singers are stil awesome.)
Album Reviews / Indie Rock / music / New Releases / Pop Music / Release Dates / rock music / soul music / Videos
I never thought I would like a song that Ani Difranco had any part of but here I am bobbing my head along to “Blackbird and the Fox” off of Dynamite Steps, the latest from Twilight Singers. Thanks a lot, Greg Dulli. It’s been almost 5 years since their last, Powder Burns, dropped and it sounds as if Dulli and co. haven’t skipped a beat. Twilight Singers make the kind of music I love: hard to describe. It’s a mixture […]
Popblerd! Presents: Your 2011 Grammy Awards Live Blog (& Drinking Game)!
award shows / Country Music / hip-hop / Indie Rock / music / news / pop culture / Pop Music / rock music / soul music
Some folks go crazy over the Academy Awards. Some folks go nuts over the Super Bowl. For me, unless a New York City team is in the World Series or Super Bowl, my most exciting pop culture event has to be the Grammy Awards. It intrigued me as a kid-it was probably the first award show I ever saw. I believe it was the 1980 ceremony, and all I remember is that The Doobie Brothers were performing, I was watching […]
The Black Keys Go Hollywood!?!
Never have I wanted to see a movie so bad. In the flurry of entertainment news in the past few days ( Arnold Schwarzenegger back in Hollywood ! The new Lady Gaga single ! X-Men: First Class trailer premiere !), the one that stood out the most for me was the Howlin’ For You trailer. But, wait! It’s set to The Black Keys song of the same name and…is that The Black Keys in the trailer? Is it a trailer? Is it a music video? Who cares! It’s awesome. While I do still miss Frank the Funkasaurus Rex , I will never say a bad […]
The Viewfinder: “Moves” by The New Pornographers
Canadians are funny. Period. In the vein of “the rise to the top of a rock star/rock band” videos like Tom Petty’s “Into the Great Wide Open” comes the star-studded video for Canuck supergroup New Pornographers’ latest single “Moves”. Even if Horatio Sanz wasn’t completely unrecognizable by virtue of having lost 7,000 pounds since his “Saturday Night Live” days, you’d be hard-pressed to find him here. Even harder to find? Ted Leo in drag. This video, which I discovered thanks […]
Welcome Back Trail Of Dead!
Let me be the first to say welcome back …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead. Source Codes & Tags and Worlds Apart are two of the most epic albums any band could create back to back and then these Texans just went nowhere. The follow-up’s (2006’s So Divided and 2009’s The Century of Self) felt like a band that lost their moo. There were moments on each and Self definitely felt a little like the Dead […]