Greg is next up with a list of this year’s best music, a list that includes albums by El-P as both a producer and a performer!
Author Archive
Spin Cycle: Oddisee, People Hear What They See
Popblerd looks at recent changes in the hip-hop underground and reviews the latest effort by DC rapper/producer, Oddisee. Come for the rant, stay for the review.
Hear Here!: Clams Casino, Instrumental Mixtape 2
Clams Casino is one of the most insanely talented producers working today. If for whatever you missed out on his acclaimed Instrumental Mixtape or the equally badass EP Rainforest: Clams produces these dank hip-hop/ambient instrumentals, loaded with fuzzed out synthesizers, warped vocal samples, crunk snares, wind chimes or whatever the fuck else he can squeeze into a track. If Burial, Aphex Twin and Juicy J collaborated on a project together—well, it probably wouldn’t sound anything like Clams’s work, but for […]
Spin Cycle: El-P’s Cancer 4 Cure
El-P’s at a point in his career where very few people could fault him for half-assing, if only because there’s nothing really left for him to prove. Hell, you could probably single out any of his accomplishments over the past fifteen or so years (Fantastic Damage, Weathermen, Def Jux, Company Flow, The Cold Vein, etc. etc.) and use that to justify any lackadaisical bullshit released since then. Artists have stopped giving a fuck for accomplishing much less. The Stone Roses: […]
So You Want to Be a Music Critic: An Insider’s Guide
I started doing album reviews for Cavalier magazine back in the summer of ’66, my first being a review of Velvet Underground and Nico’s Banana Album, written in the form of a brief adventure story about a man whose plane crashes in the woods, who fights off a boar with an Italian penny loafer. The buxom blonde he hoists into the sunset is supposed to be emblematic of Nico’s contributions, though how exactly I can’t remember. You know what they say […]
Spin Cycle: Every Time I Die’s “Ex Lives”
An arm is pinned under the hood of a pink Cadillac—it comes free, flops into the desert dirt and kicks a dust cloud into the air. He drops the gun and walks back to the vehicle. There are pink fluorescent lights taped inside the trunk, shining on a book of gnostic gospels with seaweed rot, a riot shield with the initials “H.L.” written into a strip of duct tape, a fire-axe with a broken neck and a grocery bag […]
Spin Cycle: Burial’s “Kindred”
Dubstep/electronic act Burial have a new EP out called “Kindred.” Check out our review.
The Viewfinder: Mark Lanegan’s “The Gravedigger’s Song”
Mark Lanegan’s been a busy man these past few years: he’s released albums with the Gutter Twins, Soulsavers and Isobel Campbell, collaborated with guys like Bomb the Bass and UNKLE, and even contributed an excellent Bob Dylan cover to the I’m Not There soundtrack. Still, Blues Funeral will be his first proper solo album in almost eight years, and the Popblerd family is damned excited to hear it. The official video for “The Gravedigger’s Song” debuted a few days back. Directed by Alistair Legrand, it […]
Calculating Hipsterdom: Determining Your Overall Hipster Magnitude (OHM)
A little over a year ago, I wrote an editorial piece about Pitchfork’s cultural hegemony and the “dullard hipster masses” that keep it afloat, arguing that the collective idiocy of Pitchfork’s readership was responsible for their stranglehold-verging-on-monopolization of the critical tide. It was part of a long line of anti-hipster rants and ravings I produced before taking an extended sabbatical from music writing (which I took to fulfill my lifelong dream of sleeping on a couch and working retail). I’ve noticed a lot […]