Devon Powers

Richard Ashcroft: Human Conditions

Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, January 2003

PUT ON A Richard Ashcroft record, and suddenly, everything changes. ...

British Sea Power: Northsix, New York

Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, August 2003

NORTHSIX IS JUST a cinderblock box with cold metal pillars that reach from floor to ceiling, obstructing the view in what would otherwise be ideal ...

Mariah Carey: Greatest Hits

Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, May 2002

THERE'S A popular mythology out there that says that certain things–like pop divas and Fortune 500 companies–never die. ...

Charlatans, The (UK), Starsailor: The Charlatans/Starsailor: Irving Plaza, New York

Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, January 2002

What it feels like for a boy: The Charlatans, Starsailor, and musings on transatlantic masculinities. ...

Clinic: Winchester Cathedral

Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, August 2004

CALL IT WHAT you will—consistency versus predictability, innovation versus identity abandonment: whatever the name, this is the most serious quandary that bands face as they ...

Coral, The: The Coral: The Coral

Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, January 2003

IT TAKES BALLS to begin an album as pompously as The Coral begin their eponymous debut. The opening bars of country wrangle swagger into a ...

Coral, The: The Coral: Bowery Ballroom, New York

Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, March 2003

SURE, THE CORAL are just a few yards in front of me, but they're not really here. ...

Cousteau: Village Underground, New York

Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, May 2001

IN THIS ERA of the cult-status rockstar who can elicit bewilderment and terror just with facsimiles of his/her likeness, there's something to be said for ...

Danger Mouse, Beatles, The: More Than Words: Musings on Music Journalism — Life Goes On

Comment by Devon Powers, PopMatters, March 2004

FEBRUARY 24 WAS a banner day for the Copy Left, a loose network of computer activists, intellectuals, forward-thinking musicians and zealous fans who continue to ...

Decemberists, The: The Decemberists: Her Majesty the Decemberists

Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, September 2003

AN IMPORTANT DETAIL about Her Majesty the Decemberists—and one I'm venturing you won't read about in many other reviews of the album—is that there's a ...

Doves: Bowery Ballroom, New York City

Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, February 2001

TONIGHT, IT'S obvious that Doves don't yet think of themselves as proper English rock stars. ...

Elastica: Bowery Ballroom, New York

Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, October 2000

I WENT WITH my friend Shannon, who almost didn't get in. We were both lax in terms of buying our tickets, and it seemed that ...

Elbow: Bowery Ballroom, NYC

Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, March 2009

TODAY IS lead singer Guy Garvey's birthday, and he's in a gaming mood. "How old do you think I am?" he asks the crowd, early ...

Embarrassment, The: The Embarrassment: Blister Pop

Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 2001

BLISTER POP opens with an edited assembly of The Embarrassment trying to characterize themselves for local radio programs. They bounce back and forth between categorizations—rock, ...

Embrace: If You've Never Been

Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 2001

"No, I won't feel ashamed": Embrace-ing Emo-Pop ...

The Fiery Furnaces: Gallowbird's Bark

Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, October 2003

IT'S A HIGH-FALUTIN' seaside carnival from another time, where maidens don pinstripe stockings and pantaloons, click buckled shoes as they jitterbug with spry sailor gentleman ...

Gary Wilson, Interpol, Streets, The, Beth Gibbons, Clinic, Richard Ashcroft, N*E*R*D, Supergrass, Low: Best Music of 2002

Guide by Devon Powers, PopMatters, December 2002

...

Ed Harcourt: Fez, New York

Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, March 2003

ED HARCOURT has always been a solo artist, but tonight, he seems even more alone, maybe even lonely. ...

Richard Hell: Time

Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, April 2002

RICHARD HELL can walk down the street in New York City's East Village without being recognized. ...

Hives, The: The Hives: Veni Vidi Vicious

Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, September 2000

I'M CONVINCED that there's something about Veni Vidi Vicious, that elicits borderline personality. One minute I'm singing its praises to everyone I know (including an ...

Interpol: Turn on the Bright Lights

Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, August 2002

I FIND SOMETHING terribly tragic about Interpol. It's more than Paul Banks' elegiac vocals, which stir my gut every time I hear them, so much ...

Interpol: Bowery Ballroom, New York

Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, September 2002

YOU'D NEVER guess from the pre-show mania that New York rockers Interpol are not yet superstars. ...

Killers, The: The Killers/Menlo Park/The Prosaics: Don Hill's, New York City

Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, October 2003

IT'S 10:15PM, the venue is already behind schedule with the showcase, and nobody cares. Instead, more and more bodies cram their way into downtown venue ...

Liars: They Were Wrong, So We Drowned

Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, March 2004

THE MYTH of the Ugly Duckling is prevalent in our culture; equally important, though with less prominence, is that of the Deteriorating Swan. Let me ...

Lil' Kim: The Notorious K.I.M.

Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 2000

MS. KIMBERLY "Lil' Kim" Jones, here's your most telling lyric: "You can never be me. You can only resemble." ...

Metric

Profile by Devon Powers, PopMatters, December 2003

THE ONLY thing that tops hearing 'Succexy' — the shit-kicking superpop social commentary that is an instant calling card for Metric's debut Old World Underground, ...

Muse: Origin of Symmetry

Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 2001

TO SOME, they were the band that would have been king. Just over a year ago, the now-defunct British music magazine Select boldly went where ...

Psychedelic Furs, The: The Psychedelic Furs: The Psychedelic Furs/Talk Talk Talk/Forever Now

Retrospective by Devon Powers, PopMatters, July 2002

I see the future and it will be the Psychedelic Furs. ...

Pulp: Hits

Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, September 2003

PULP HAVE a greatest hits record, and it’s about goddamned time. The enigmatic group, fronted by the inimitable Jarvis Cocker, are by far the oldest ...

Ramones, The: Joey Ramone 1951-2001

Comment by Devon Powers, PopMatters, April 2001

SINCE JOEY Ramone’s death, countless journalists have commented, with varying mixtures of pessimism and solace, that punk is dead, literally. ...

Red Hot Chili Peppers, The: Red Hot Chili Peppers: Blood Sugar Sex Magik

Retrospective by Devon Powers, PopMatters, December 2003

TRUTH BE TOLD, Blood Sugar Sex Magik is not my all-time favorite album, no matter how you slice it. It's not my desert island album—that's ...

Richard Hawley: Late Night Final

Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, January 2002

WARNING: WHAT you are about to experience contains not a hint of irony or pessimism, skepticism or half-truths, denial or doubt. ...

Robin Thicke : Robin Thicke: A Beautiful World

Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, August 2003

IMPRESSIONS OF sound: the thinness of Thicke ...

Snow Patrol: Final Straw

Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, April 2004

ONE OF THE REASONS we listen to music is because it provides a vehicle for expressing feelings that would otherwise go unexpressed. Rage, passion, fear, ...

Stereophonics: Irving Plaza, New York

Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, February 2002

WHAT COMES AFTER Britpop? Or, the Stereophonics take your American hype and shove it ...

Sufjan Stevens

Comment by Devon Powers, PopMatters, February 2004

POSTMODERNISM HAS jacked it all up. In its wake, the cultural zeitgeist of irony has become so prevalent and requisite that plain old earnestness ceases ...

The Music : The Music: The Music

Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, February 2003

I HAD A dream about The Music. No: I had a memory. ...

Turin Brakes: Bowery Ballroom, New York

Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, July 2003

THEY'VE DEDICATED 'The Road', the second to last number of the night, to Jean. Jean is the slight, wide-eyed woman with her hands in prayer ...

Gary Wilson: The Cult Of Personality

Profile by Devon Powers, PopMatters, June 2002

IN THE LATE 1970s, Gary Wilson was 24 years old and living in the basement of his parents' house in Endicott, NY. ...

Is Music Journalism Dead?

Comment by Devon Powers, PopMatters, June 2004

IF EVER there was a time when writing about music felt utterly pointless, that time is now. ...