Laurel Sprengelmeyer, who makes music as Little Scream, named her debut album The Golden Record — which might seem like an act of hubris if you think she means the kind that get framed and hung behind the desks of smug label executives. Fortunately, Sprengelmeyer was thinking more along the lines of the gold phonograph record that was bundled into the Voyager spacecraft in 1977, which bore in its grooves a Carl Sagan-approved playlist of… more »
Datelines Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg and Montreal circa 2003: Something happened in the asymmetrical four corners of Canada. We don't know what it was, but it was perpetrated by Canadians - who are not unlike Americans but, as their socialized medicine, relative humility and widespread knowledge of French make clear, are not like Americans at all. Throughout the '90s, Canada was viewed as an indie-rock backwater, home to oddball outfits - DIY-folk duo Mecca Normal, psych-guitar… more »
James Joyce wrote that his weapons as an artist would be "silence, exile and cunning." Silence isn't generally useful for musicians, and cunning comes with the territory for anyone who wants to play the pop-music game of one-upmanship. In 2004, though, a lot of the best indie records latched onto exile as a weapon, or as a metaphor, or even as their central subject. The international political landscape had collapsed into a mess of lies,… more »
Ronald Thomas Clontle is the author of Rock, Rot & Rule, a controversial music reference book that purports to be "the ultimate argument settler" when it comes to rating an artist's worth. In the book, the uncompromising Clontle ranks thousands of artists under the three headings listed in the book's title (rock = good, rot = bad, rule = great), based on various stringent criteria and extensive surveys. With the newly updated 2007 edition of… more »
In ways that grow more important by the day, the 1972 presidential contest between incumbent Republican Richard Nixon and Democrat George McGovern has dictated the tone, style and execution of every election since. It birthed the modern-day primary format; it defined and honed the press 'approach to all political coverage; it featured the most effective use of the presidency itself as a campaign asset; and, finally, even in defeat, McGovern's campaign dramatically shifted every campaign's… more »
