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Eric Weisbard

Eric Weisbard

Eric Weisbard teaches American Studies at the University of Alabama.

He's the author, most recently, of Songbooks: The Literature of American Popular Music (Duke University Press, 2021). Before that, he wrote Top 40 Democracy: The Rival Mainstreams of American Music (University of Chicago Press, 2014).

From 2018-2021, he co-edited Journal of Popular Music Studies. From 2002 to 2018, he's organized the annual EMP Pop Conference, a gathering of music writers of all kinds, and edited three collections of conference presentations: This Is Pop: In Search of the Elusive at Experience Music Project (Harvard University Press, 2004), Listen Again: A Momentary History of American Music (Duke University Press, 2007), and Pop When the World Falls Apart: Music in the Shadow of Doubt (Duke University Press, 2012). Weisbard's monograph in the 33 1/3 series looked at the Guns N' Roses albums Use Your Illusion. He's also the editor of the 1995 Spin Alternative Record Guide (Vintage).

During the alt years, Weisbard worked as an editor and writer at Spin and as music editor and a longtime contributor at the Village Voice.

He curated the exhibit "Disco: A Decade of Saturday Nights" for EMP in 2002.

Experience Music Project Pop Conference

127 articles

List of articles in the library

By date | By artist | Most recently added

De La Soul: Three Feet High and Rising (Tommy Boy)

Review by Eric Weisbard, SF Weekly, 29 March 1989

WELCOME TO the Daisy Age. Do you like daisies? Do you like to buddy? Well, Jimmy and Jenny, buddy up, take a luuden, and try ...

Seven Year Bitch, Tribe 8: Seven Year Bitch: Sick 'Em (C/Z); Tribe 8: Pig Bitch (EP Harp)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, January 1993

THANKS TO the Riot Grrrl revolution, perhaps, or just maybe the fact that indie labels have been sprouting up quicker than McDonald's franchises, women rockers ...

Shonen Knife: Let's Knife (Virgin)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, March 1993

ALMOST TEN YEARS since its recordings first invaded the U.S. as a Japanese import in late 1983, Osaka, Japan's punkiest Barbie doll fans are finally ...

Basehead: Not in Kansas Anymore (Imago)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, April 1993

THERE'S A nice irony in the fact that, give or take a vowel or two, Basehead is almost an anagram for Sebadoh. Like its 'zine-damaged ...

Jellyfish, Lenny Kravitz: Jellyfish: Spilt Milk/Lenny Kravitz: Are You Gonna Go My Way (Virgin)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, April 1993

"DO YOU like Queen?" asks my editor. "I hope not." ...

Arrested Development, Mercury Rev: Mercury Rev, Arrested Development, Charlie Hunter Trio: Lollapolooza: Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View CA

Live Review by Eric Weisbard, L.A. Weekly, 8 July 1993

PASSING THROUGH San Francisco (the fourth stop on the tour) last Tuesday, Lollapalooza '93 showed signs of going to seed: the electronic billboard above the ...

Los Lobos: Just Another Band From East L.A. — A Collection

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, November 1993

BOX SETS generally exhaust you with their completeness; greatest-hits albums worship a few select songs. ...

Moby: Move EP (Elektra)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, November 1993

A LITTLE MORE than 30 minutes after it begins, Moby's new EP, his major-label debut, turns over in my tape deck. Gone is the last ...

Guns N' Roses: The Spaghetti Incident? Geffen

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, February 1994

LISTENING TO The Spaghetti Incident? is like hearing Use Your Illusion I and II refracted through cover versions. The first song, Axl Rose's pipe-bending 'Since ...

Material: Hallucination Engine (Axiom/Island)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, March 1994

BE READY to take a passive role listening to this album, unless you're good enough to recognize Vikku Vinayakram playing the ghatam when you hear ...

Afghan Whigs: The Afghan Whigs: Great American Music Hall, San Francisco, CA

Live Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, March 1994

I ARRIVED full of doubts, prompted by the Afghan Whigs' major-label debut, one of those song-cycle LPs. The story of a man and woman trapped ...

Pavement: Mind Games Forever — Pavement: Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain (Matador)

Review by Eric Weisbard, L.A. Weekly, 24 March 1994

Pavement's fan-boy secrets from the corporate ledge ...

Kurt Cobain, Nirvana: Kurt Cobain: Revolutionary Debris

Comment by Eric Weisbard, Spin, April 1994

I STILL prefer to believe that Kurt Cobain's life was saved by rock'n'roll. ...

Interview: Stephen Dunifer

Interview by Eric Weisbard, Spin, May 1994

Broadcast cowboy, spends his Sunday nights hidden in the dark hills of Berkeley, California, illegally transmitting his version of alternative radio. Is he a transistor ...

Primal Scream: Give Out But Don't Give Up

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, May 1994

YOU DON'T necessarily need the flash and appeal of the New York Dolls or Aerosmith in order to try to be the Rolling Stones and ...

Nirvana: Revolutionary Debris: Kurt Cobain

Comment by Eric Weisbard, Spin, June 1994

I STILL PREFER to believe that Kurt Cobain's life was saved by rock'n'roll. I picture him wearing his favorite T-shirt, the one with the image ...

Travis Tritt: Ten Feet Tall and Bulletproof (Warner Bros. Nashville)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, June 1994

WE COULD try and get worked up about Travis Tritt the woman-baiter, who made it huge with 'Here's a Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares)', sang ...

Frank Black: Teenager of the Year (Elektra)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, July 1994

FRANK BLACK has deliberately turned himself from the leader of the Pixies into the best-kept secret in major-label rock — the Hermit of Highbrow-Lowbrow. ...

Arrested Development: Bimbo's, San Francisco

Live Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, August 1994

AT ARRESTED Development concerts, its not enough to wave your hands around; "put your souls up" is the cry. Three songs in, Speech stopped everything ...

L7: Hungry for Stink (Slash)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, August 1994

AFTER LISTENING TO Hungry for Stink long enough to decide I like it, I put on Bricks Are Heavy, which included 'Pretend We're Dead' and ...

Green Day: Young, Loud, and Snotty

Interview by Eric Weisbard, Spin, September 1994

GREEN DAY's unexpected rise from Gilman Street punk urchins to MTV poster children has not come without a price. Eric Weisbard wonders if they can ...

A Tribe Called Quest, The Beastie Boys, The Breeders, George Clinton, L7, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Smashing Pumpkins: Various Artists: Lollapalooza '94, Sam Boyd Stadium University of Nevada Las Vegas July 1,1994

Live Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, September 1994

THE DIFFERENCE between Lollapalooza 1994 and Lollapolooza Past is that this year Perry Farrell and colleagues decided the music being offered couldn't just be loud, ...

Warren G: Regulate… G Funk Era (Violator/RAL)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, September 1994

THE THING that gets me about 
Nate Dogg and Warren G.'s 'Regulate' is how, when MTV airs the video, you hear Nate Dogg sing the ...

Veruca Salt: American Thighs (Minty Fresh)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, November 1994

THE FACT THAT Veruca Salt sounds as if it was designed in Chicago by a marketing focus group doesn't eradicate its virtues. ...

Leadbelly, Nirvana: A Simple Song That Lives Beyond Time: Leadbelly via Kurt Cobain

Essay by Eric Weisbard, The New York Times, 13 November 1994

IMMEDIATELY after the suicide of Kurt Cobain, lead singer of the rock band Nirvana, last April, MTV broadcasted almost continuously an hourlong Unplugged special that ...

Mary Chapin Carpenter: Stones in the Road (Columbia)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, December 1994

MARY CHAPIN Carpenter is pure country. I'm talking about the format, of course — Carpenter hasn't an ounce of George Jones in her. But where ...

The Jesus & Mary Chain, Mazzy Star: The Jesus & Mary Chain/Mazzy Star: The Academy, New York City

Live Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, January 1995

TWO BANDS, and for the whole evening not one word was exchanged between performers and audience; the spotlight never shined in the musicians' eyes. Wouldn't ...

Bettie Serveert: Lamprey (Matador/Atlantic)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, February 1995

A CERTAIN ubiquitous film director has commented that surf music isn't about surfing, it's just spaghetti western soundtracks sped up. Nice one, Quentin, but why ...

Nirvana: The Ten That Matter Most '85-'95: Nirvana

Retrospective by Eric Weisbard, Spin, April 1995

What does it take to be named one of the top ten artists of the decade? Innovation, influence, imagination, integrity. It all adds up to ...

Pavement: Wowee Zowee (Matador)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, May 1995

THINK ABOUT IT. A band works years to learn its instruments, play out, record, suffer the blows of fortune, regroup, play better than ever — ...

Stephin Merritt: Stephen Merritt: Bubble Gum With a Punk Attitude

Essay by Eric Weisbard, The New York Times, 21 May 1995

TO STEPHIN MERRITT, one of alternative rock's newest cult figures, Top 40 jingles are purer music than any punk. Yet it's punk fans who have ...

Throwing Muses: Great American Music Hall, San Francisco CA

Live Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, June 1995

WHEN KRISTIN HERSH leads Throwing Muses, it's what she doesn't do that scares you. Drummer David Narcizo wastes himself rolling his wrists far past any ...

Aphex Twin: I Care Because You Do (Sire/Elektra)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, July 1995

NO, MR TWAIN, I care because you do. I wasn't sure I did, for a minute — the largely drumless synth moans of 1994's oddly ...

R.E.M.: Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA

Live Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, August 1995

"I DON'T FIND R.E.M. transcendent." complained a friend who had just witnessed one of the band's first U.S. performances in five years. Well, fair enough, ...

David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails: David Bowie and Nine Inch Nails: Great Woods Amphitheater, Mansfield, MA

Live Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, December 1995

THE MOMENT to remember was the two headliners playing together, the end of the Nine Inch Nails set fusing without pause into the beginning of ...

Green Day: Insomniac (Reprise)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, December 1995

GREEN DAY'S success has returned to vogue one of rock's simplest and most crucial sounds, the uptempo party bash that dates to all those garage ...

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Report by Eric Weisbard, Spin, December 1995

THE ROCK and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum opened in Cleveland this past Labor Day weekend, amid vast hype and a thinner layer of ...

Garth Brooks: Fresh Horses (Capitol)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, February 1996

LISTENING TO Walk a Mile in My Shoes, RCA's recent boxed set of 70s-era Elvis Presley, I caught an echo of Garth Brooks. For years ...

Nine Inch Nails, Trent Reznor: Trent Reznor: Sympathy for the Devil

Interview by Eric Weisbard, Spin, February 1996

POLITICAL OPPORTUNISTS MAY HAVE BRANDED TRENT REZNOR MORALLY REPUGNANT, BUT YOU BRANDED HIM SPIN'S ARTIST OF THE YEAR. SENIOR EDITOR ERIC WEISBARD JOURNEYS TO REZNOR'S ADOPTED ...

Lou Reed: Set The Twilight Reeling (Warner Bros.)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, March 1996

LOU REED is old-school about albums; he looked the word up in a dictionary, found it meant a binder of blank of pages used for ...

Girls Against Boys: House of GVSB (Touch and Go)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, April 1996

I WISH THIS review was on a CD-ROM, so you could click and hear 'Super-Fire' open the festivities here for 40-or-so seconds. A fast metal-chime ...

Imperial Teen: Psycho Candy

Interview by Eric Weisbard, Spin, July 1996

Eric Weisbard finds a knotty center inside Imperial Teen's yummy pop. ...

Beck: After the Gold Rush

Interview by Eric Weisbard, Spin, August 1996

Is there life after 'Loser'? Eric Weisbard explores the artistic ups and commercial downs of the boy wonder known as Beck. ...

Sheryl Crow: Sheryl Crow (A&M)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, November 1996

ALMOST ANY song here would sound just fine played next to Beck on the radio. Both artists are rejuvenating the LA singer/songwriter for a digital ...

Moby: Tech no!

Interview by Eric Weisbard, Spin, March 1997

One-time electronic-music evangelist Moby has converted to alternative rock. Talk about bad timing. ...

The Chemical Brothers: Who, Us?

Interview by Eric Weisbard, Spin, June 1997

The world wonders: Can a shlumpy pair of English breakbeat obsessives rescue rock music from its current doldrums? Ugh, groan the Chemical Brothers. Ugh, seconds ...

Michael Jackson: Blood on the Dance Floor: HIStory in the Mix (Epic)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, August 1997

ANYONE CAN BE rebellious or avant-garde — even fanzine writers — but if you hope to be reckoned amongst the truly weird, it sure helps ...

VH1: The Grown-up's Channel

Report by Eric Weisbard, Spin, August 1997

VH1's strange mix of retro specials and toothless rock have turned the network into something, completely unexpected: hip ...

Jane's Addiction: Hammerstein Ballroom, New York NY

Live Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, February 1998

I'M SITTING in a second-story box on the opening night of the Jane's Addiction reunion tour, and suddenly Perry Farrell is floating overhead, lying face ...

Tori Amos: Irving Plaza, NYC

Live Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 29 April 1998

TORI AMOS believes in the rhythm method. ...

Smashing Pumpkins: Adore (Virgin)

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 27 May 1998

TRUE, BILLY Corgan has removed most of the guitars, the pounding, the rat-in-a-cage rage from Smashing Pumpkins' new album. But don't worry: he remains stupendously ...

Quasi: Featuring "Birds"

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 10 June 1998

QUASI CAN play with your ears. Sam Coomes has a '70s electric keyboard that he says he bought for $50; it's called a Roxichord, short ...

Lauryn Hill: Triumph of the Hill — Lauryn Hill: The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (Columbia)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, September 1998

With her solo debut, Fugee Lauryn Hill claims a place in the pantheon of R&B greats. ...

Hole: Celebrity Skin (DGC)

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 2 September 1998

COULDN'T SAY which color most becomes her, but Courtney Love's best vowel is u. She throws herself into them all, of course, like a stage ...

Barenaked Ladies: Theatre at Madison Square Garden, NYC

Live Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 14 October 1998

"A ROCK 'N' ROLL show, for us, is a celebratory experience," said the unbearably revivalistic drummer-singer of the opening band Cowboy Mouth last Wednesday. In ...

Vic Chesnutt: The Salesman and Bernadette (Capricorn)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, January 1999

THIS IS THE best record of the year at making time stop. Vic Chesnutt tells a story. Maybe the tale pulls into it specific figures, ...

Built to Spill: Like a Secret

Profile and Interview by Eric Weisbard, Spin, February 1999

DOUG MARTSCH, the leader of Built to Spill, has this winter coat with a hood and lots of pockets. It was yellow originally, maybe, or ...

PJ Harvey: Hammerstein Ballroom, New York, NY

Live Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, February 1999

IT'S A TRIBUTE to Polly Jean Harvey's gift that this perfunctory hour-plus-encores concert, with most of the songs drawn from her disappointing last two albums, ...

Everlast: Whitey Ford Sings the Blues (Tommy Boy)

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 10 February 1999

THE CDNOW ALBUM Advisor says that Everlast fans should also shop Billy Joel, the Dave Matthews Band, A Tribe Called Quest, the Beastie Boys, Lauryn ...

Conjunction Junction: The All-Music Guide Wants To Make Scrabble out of Babel

Report by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 24 February 1999

THE ALL-MUSIC Guide bills itself as "an ongoing project to review and rate all music" – emphasis on the all. ...

Joe Henry: Fuse

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 10 March 1999

LEONARD COHEN stepped into an avalanche; it covered up his soul. Now, when he is not this hunchback that you see, he sleeps beneath the ...

The Graying of Indie Rock: What do you do for an encore after the spark is gone?

Essay by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 24 March 1999

WHEN THE guy in Fuck announced his 37th birthday, people thought he was joking. The occasion was too cruddy: the rumpus-room attic of a gross ...

Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 7 April 1999

THESE SONGS, derived from an as-yet-unfinished musical that pops open the Verdi opera, are only putatively set in Egypt. ...

Fountains Of Wayne: Utopia Parkway (Atlantic)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, May 1999

WAYNE, NEW Jersey, I don't know, but Utopia Parkway was a mile from where I grew up, and let me tell you, Joseph Cornell's artistic ...

Ben Folds Five: The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner (550/Epic)

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 5 May 1999

THE NOTORIOUS thing about the "college rock" I grew up on, over a decade ago, the same time Ben Folds was gestating in the university ...

DMX, Jay Z, Method Man, Redman: Hard Knock Life Tour: Jay-Z, DMX, Method Man, and Redman: Continental Arena, East Rutherford, New Jersey

Live Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, June 1999

New York State of Rhyme ...

Flaming Lips: The Flaming Lips: The Soft Bulletin

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 23 June 1999

YES, THE FLAMING LIPS. When they appeared in the mid '80s, 'Jesus Shootin' Heroin' got college radio time from fans of Butthole Surfers psychedelic stomps, ...

Generation Ex: Some Get A Decade; We Get A Moment

Essay by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 7 July 1999

THIS TIME IT'S personal. High school student Reese Witherspoon leaves teacher Matthew Broderick cursing his so-called life in Election. No shocker; couldn't be a teen ...

Limp Bizkit: Significant Other (Flip/Interscope)

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 14 July 1999

WHEN MTV and BET air the new Eminem video 'Guilty Conscience', they run into the small problem of the song's conclusion, where bad-angel Slim Shady ...

The Ramones: Anthology: Hey Ho Let’s Go! (Warner Archives/Rhino)

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 28 July 1999

FROM THE punk oral history Please Kill Me to Joey and Johnny Ramone on Howard Stern, the mythology around the Ramones lately seems to emphasize ...

Smart, Lyrical, Even Genteel, But Is It Rock?

Essay by Eric Weisbard, The New York Times, 1 August 1999

FOR ONE breed of rock fan, last year's most important album was probably Lucinda Williams's Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, a dozen perfectly turned ...

Autechre: EP7

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 11 August 1999

AUTECHRE, THE ENGLISH DUO of Sean Booth and Rob Brown, don't so much write songs as program ecosystems. Within electronica, where everyone says Autechre have ...

Mercury Rev, Sparklehorse: Mercury Rev/Sparklehorse: Irving Plaza, New York City

Live Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, September 1999

HERE'S A TRACK worth savoring: Veteran modern-rock band collaborates with Chemical Brothers and incorporates into their music bowed saw, arching melodies, and a gaggle of ...

Tricky: Juxtapose (Island)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, September 1999

IT ONLY SEEMS like Tricky is making the same album every time out. 1996's Nearly God stripped out whatever commercial possibilities Maxinquaye's paradigmatic trip-hop held; ...

Everclear, L.F.O.: L.F.O.: Summer Girls/Everclear: The Boys Are Back in Town

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 1 September 1999

EVERYBODY ACTS like prettyboy bubble-rap trio LFO's 'Summer Girls', biggest-selling single in the land last week, is all non sequiturs. But to me, it's clearly ...

Puff Daddy: Forever (Bad Boy)

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 1 September 1999

The first thing I asked him to do was get me a tape from the studio. He came back with it in five minutes. The ...

The Dixie Chicks, Shedaisy: Dixie Chicks: Fly; Shedaisy: The Whole Shebang

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 15 September 1999

EVERYONE IN NASHVILLE understands that the New Country formula-slick production with a seamless touch of roots and updated suburban family values-isn't enough anymore. ...

Laurie Anderson: Outside the Whale: Laurie Anderson plays Moby

Live Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 13 October 1999

Songs and Stories From Moby Dick, BAM Opera House, Through October 16 ...

A Golden Age: MTV Names The Only 10 Songs That Matter

Comment by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 20 October 1999

A COUPLE OF weekends back, MTV presented a late-night Hard Rock A-Z special: wide-ranging sets of several videos in a row, with minimal VJ banter. ...

Handsome Boy Modeling School: So… How's Your Girls?

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 27 October 1999

AFTER A SOLILOQUY whose family shtick might be parodying a Wu-Tang kung fu sample, the opening track's bodacious soul-funk groove kicks under a jump-cut montage ...

Sally Timms: Cowboy Sally’s Twilight Laments ... for Lost Buckaroos

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 17 November 1999

THE DREAMING COWBOY has been away from his home and his woman for 20 years, riding in rodeos. After his body breaks down he stays ...

Fiona Apple: When The Pawn... (Clean Slate/Epic)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, December 1999

FIONA APPLE presents herself as damaged goods, both a woman wronged and a gleeful wrongdoer. That alone sets her above the teen-pop Mouseketeers; makes her ...

Drive-By Truckers: Pizza Deliverance (Soul Dump/Ghostmeat)

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 22 December 1999

WE DROVE TO Pittsburgh the weekend before Halloween, to watch the leaves change and attend a three-day fest called the Haunted Hillbilly Hoedown. ...

Rage Against the Machine: Band Of The Year: Rage Against The Machine

Interview by Eric Weisbard, Spin, January 2000

The funk was deep. The rock was heavy. The politics were thick. Rage against the machine unleashed a rock-rap masterwork and a series of incendiary ...

Kid Rock: The History of Rock

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, January 2000

WHAT DOES IT say that the guy who led last year's pimp-rock pack was the son of a car dealer and a homemaker, a neat ...

DMX: Sample My Pit Bull

Profile by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 10 January 2000

What follows is extraneous: outtakes and stray threads from my DMX feature in the new GQ. The dictates of celebrity profiles — establishing scene, nut ...

Clinton: Disco & the Halfway to Discontent (Astralwerks)

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 2 February 2000

WHY IS THIS "beat-based" pairing of Cornershop's Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayres not credited to Cornershop? ...

Wu-Tang Clan: Wuclear Fission: A Nutcase and a Point Guard Rise Above Wu-Tang’s Solo Overkill

Overview by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 16 February 2000

THE STUPIDEST, greatest, lovingest, most problematic-yet-simple moment in pop last year was a guy not content to be called Ol' Dirty Bastard letting it all ...

Kid Koala: Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (Ninja Tune)

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 23 February 2000

LISTENING TO Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, it's possible to imagine that generations of musical progress have brought us back to the dawn of jazz, that through ...

Yo La Tengo: And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 8 March 2000

THERE'S A BOOK by Wim Wenders, Emotion Pictures: articles about Kinks albums and genre flicks and other inspirations of his, written as he was turning ...

Shelby Lynne: I am Shelby Lynne (Island)

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 5 April 2000

HERE'S WHAT intrigues me about Shelby Lynne, the country singer whose new album has been enjoying the sort of blanket media salivation only Dave Eggers ...

Bow Wow Wow, Joan Jett, Darlene Love, Tony Orlando: Kenny Laguna: Laguna Tunes

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 29 April 2000

IT'S TEMPTING TO imagine that Kenny Laguna invented the lifework he chronicles in the songs and liner notes of Laguna Tunes, that this parade of ...

Pop in the 90's: Everything for Everyone

Essay by Eric Weisbard, The New York Times, 30 April 2000

GEORGE STRAIT is a middle-aged country singer with an easy grin about him; even his boxed sets go platinum. Ice Cube is an intense rapper ...

Keeping Up With the Napsters

Report by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 10 May 2000

At Pho, a Thousand E-mails a Month Track the Great Digital Debate ...

Marc Spitz: I Wanna Be Adored/Eric Winick: Lay Me Down

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 10 May 2000

NO ONE ROCKS harder in rock and roll theatre than the hangers-on. Rocks, that is, the category of knowingness, like a playwright. Gets corrosive in ...

The Handsome Family, Kelly Hogan, The Mekons: Albums from Kelly Hogan, the Handsome Family and the Mekons

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, June 2000

Kelly Hogan & the Pine Valley Cosmonauts: Beneath the Country Underdog (Bloodshot);The Handsome Family: In the Air (Carrot Top); Mekons: Journey to the End of ...

Sleater-Kinney: All Hands On The Bad One (Kill Rock Stars)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, June 2000

IT'S TIME TO DO BATTLE for the planet of the apes. On last year's The Hot Rock, Sleater-Kinney suddenly became sheepish about pounding folks over ...

Matmos: Where Art Worlds Collide

Profile by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 14 June 2000

I MUST HAVE misplugged my phone adapter before interviewing Drew Daniels and Martin Schmidt of Matmos, because all I hear on the tape are my ...

Jurassic 5: Quality Control (Interscope)

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 19 July 2000

"IN THE sixties we believed in a myth – that music had the power to change people's lives," Stanley Booth writes in the afterword to ...

Daniel Johnston: Irwin Chusid: Songs in the Key of Z – The Curious Universe of Outsider Music (A Cappella)

Book Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, August 2000

BECAUSE ROCK HAS always been about capable amateurism, it's only logical that a certain kind of rock fan prizes outright incompetence. ...

Napsternomics: The Pop Solution to Downloading

Comment by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 2 August 2000

HERE'S THE smallest of Napster's ironies: the service shut down last week by Judge Marilyn Hall Patel, then granted a stay of execution by the ...

John Denver: Various Artists: Take Me Home – A Tribute to John Denver

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 2 August 2000

A FEW YEARS back, King Kong's Ethan Buckler taught me the essentials of a good poem or lyric: "It must have three things: the visual, ...

Nelly, Papa Roach: Nelly: Country Grammar; Papa Roach: Infest

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 30 August 2000

LOOKING PAST Eminem, Britney, and Creed to the unknowns, this summer's most persistent chart-huggers have been a St. Louis rapper whose signing represents a rock ...

Jon Langford, Jim O'Rourke, Wilco: Chicago: Indie City

Report and Interview by Eric Weisbard, Spin, September 2000

Sick of a world ruled by Britney and Backstreet? Visit Chicago: a salt-of-the-earth midwestern town where old-world pleasures like community, cheap rent, cheap beer, gritty ...

Buddy and Julie Miller: Julie Miller: Broken Things; Buddy Miller: Cruel Moon (both Hightone)

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 27 September 2000

SO I CHECKED and no, Buddy Miller didn't have CHRIST written on his baseball cap when he played the Bottom Line September 16; that was ...

Sun Ra: Wooze and Spazz

Overview by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 11 October 2000

IN HIS FAMOUS essay "Kafka and his Precursors," Jorge Luis Borges argues that Zeno, Han Yu, and Kierkegaard, though nothing alike, all now seem Kafkaesque. ...

Proxy Music: Electing the Pop Star in Chief

Essay by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 25 October 2000

IN 1822, NOAH Ludlow dressed himself in a buckskin hunting shirt and leggings, donned moccasins and an old slouch hat, put a rifle on his ...

PJ Harvey, U2: U2: All That You Can't Leave Behind; PJ Harvey: Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 25 October 2000

I'VE PLAYED the Radiohead album about a dozen times, pushed my way in to see them live, and yes, there is a certain pleasure to ...

Paul Simon: You're the One (Warner Bros.)

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 22 November 2000

PAUL SIMON has an image you wouldn't wish on a real estate developer. ...

Laurie Anderson, Bobby Brown, Sandy Denny, Foreigner, Great Plains, Indigo Girls, Aimee Mann, Soul Asylum, Sun Ra, Kelly Willis: Drowning in Genius: Surveying this season's mountain of greatest-hits albums

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, December 2000

SO, WHAT'LL IT BE: Tears for Fears? .38 Special? Whitesnake? It's become impossible to keep abreast of all the best-ofs, as labels keep foisting greatest-hits ...

The Glands, Silkworm: Silkworm: Lifestyle; The Glands: The Glands

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 6 December 2000

THE WORD IS traction. Silkworm and the Glands are indie rock to the gut: both could have sprung out of the fertile crescent in Pavement's ...

Jeb Loy Nichols: Just What Time It Is

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, March 2001

JEB LOY NICHOLS shares a gift with folks like reggae's Joe Higgs, country rock's Victoria Williams, and soul's Bill Withers: He can be corny without ...

Ludacris, OutKast: OutKast/Ludacris: The Theater at Madison Square Garden, New York

Live Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, June 2001

REMEMBER WHEN hip-hop shows were sloppy mishmashes of mistimed records and ten people bellowing at once? ...

Chuck Klosterman: Fargo Rock City – A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural Nörth Daköta

Book Review by Eric Weisbard, The New York Times Book Review, 3 June 2001

SPANDEX MAKES the heart grow fonder. When I was an editor at Spin magazine a few years ago, the article most people gushed over was ...

Rufus Wainwright: Poses (DreamWorks)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, July 2001

AS RUFUS WAINWRIGHT is far too aware, the studied indolence that undercuts his artistry is also the essence of his appeal. ...

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (Music From the Motion Picture)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, August 2001

THIS SOUNDTRACK arrives from a country that doesn't exist (or maybe it's just called Britain). ...

Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes From the American Indie Underground 1981-1991 By Michael Azerrad. (Little, Brown & Company. $25.95)

Book Review by Eric Weisbard, The New York Times, 12 August 2001

WHEN JOEY Ramone died this past April, the flood of appreciations must have surprised casual music fans. The Ramones, quintessential 1970's punks, had never sold ...

Chocolate Genius: Godmusic (V2)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, September 2001

LISTENING TO this album on headphones, I feel like I still need headphones within the headphones. ...

Le Tigre: Feminist Sweepstakes (Mr. Lady)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, November 2001

OFTEN RADICALS get so entrenched they even distrust their own sense of pleasure. But Kathleen Hanna is such a great rocker that at the very ...

David Gray, St Germain, Jill Scott: Jill Scott: Who Is Jill Scott?/David Gray: White Ladder/St. Germain: Tourist

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 27 December 2001

"IRRESISTIBLE: CLASS with an edge," Matthew Cooke of Amazon.com writes in a Best of 2000 Editor's Pick for St. Germain's Tourist, and if that makes ...

Lambchop: Is a Woman (Merge)

Review by Eric Weisbard, Rolling Stone, 14 March 2002

Arty big band with hidden charms ...

Drive-By Truckers: The Mouth of the South

Profile and Interview by Eric Weisbard, Spin, December 2002

The Drive-By Truckers are hard-ass punk rockers from Alabama by way of Athens, Georgia. They drink too much. They love Lynyrd Skynyrd. And their Southern ...

50 Cent: Paramount Theatre, Seattle

Live Review by Eric Weisbard, Rolling Stone, 12 May 2003

Hip-hop's biggest new name plays it safe and quick ...

Hugh Masekela and D. Michael Cheers: Still Grazing – The Musical Journey of Hugh Masekela

Book Review by Eric Weisbard, The New York Times Book Review, 13 June 2004

IN THE MID-1950s, as Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley and all the rest were leading a rock 'n' roll revolution across America, Hugh Masekela found himself ...

Robert Johnson: Elijah Wald: Escaping The Delta; Tim Brooks: Lost Sounds; Ned Sublette: Cuba And Its Music

Book Review by Eric Weisbard, The New York Times Book Review, 31 October 2004

THE IMAGE OF the bluesman Robert Johnson standing at a crossroads in the Mississippi Delta, selling his soul to play guitar as though he had ...

Tom Waits: Real Gone (Anti-)

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 1 November 2004

The eternal hustler works his gloomy-gus shtick and leaves the hipsters wanting more ...

Merle Haggard: Swing Me Back Home

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 2 March 2006

<i>Strangers/Swinging Doors and the Bottle Let Me Down I'm a Lonesome Fugitive/Branded Man Sing Me Back Home/The Legend of Bonnie & Clyde Mama Tried/Pride in ...

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