Turn on any radio station playing “popular music” and it’s hard to not grimace, that is, if you have had any experience as a musician. To a person who has studied the history and techniques of music as an art and language, today’s pop music sounds like baby talk. When once a complex, multi-passage piece […]
The Beginner’s Guide to Learning the Guitar in 60 Days Whether you’re young or old, there’s no better feeling than learning to play an instrument. While many attempt to learn the guitar, it is unfortunately very common for beginners to give up after only a couple of months. Guitar lessons with an instructor can be […]
Last year felt particularly cruel as we watched so many of our pop-culture icons get taken from us without warning. By December, we all yearned for a pause, an ending, a reset. However, none of the comfort that comes with the hopeful act of flipping a calendar page lasted long into 2017. Instead, we’ve felt […]
This weekend, Chance the Rapper will take the stage to host Saturday Night Live, leaving the musical guest duties to Eminem. Last weekend, Taylor Swift rejoined the late-night sketch institution for a couple of songs, but she also handled full hosting responsibilities back in 2009. Ever since Paul Simon emceed the second-ever episode back in […]
What does it mean for Beyoncé to drop a new surprise album on the world within days of a giant like Prince leaving us? It’s a welcome reminder that giants still walk among us. Lemonade is an entire album of emotional discord and marital meltdown, from the world’s most famous celebrity; it’s also a major […]
Has a song ever changed your life? That’s the question KUTX’s This Song asks each episode. Artists like Spoon, Thundercat, and Run The Jewels sit down with host Elizabeth McQueen, zeroing in on specific songs and explaining how they impacted their personal lives and helped shape their own sound. Memorable episodes include Raury describing how […]
Putting a magnifying glass over one song each episode and picking it apart, Song Exploder is a music nerd’s dream. Host Hrishikesh Hirway stays out of the way, letting the musicians themselves break apart their songs and tell in-depth stories about how they were made. Guests range in genre and popularity—from Weezer to Flatbush Zombies—so […]
Few texts in hip-hop are as bizarre as Eminem’s debut LP, Infinite. Released on a local Detroit label in 1996, it was either ignored or dismissed by those who rejected his whiteness and his borrowed aesthetic. Were it released in 2017, it might be celebrated for its scholarship of the form’s early classics, a la Joey Bada$$ or Roc Marciano. […]
“My motto is: try everything, life is short,” says John Dwyer, the leader of San Francisco garage rockers Thee Oh Sees. “We are growing at every turn. Every day you get a little older, a little closer to the grave – you should taste it all.” A master of contemporary garage rock, he came into […]