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The Village Voice

Village Voice, The

Founded in 1955, The Village Voice was a free weekly tabloid-format newspaper in New York that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City. It was the first of the urban tabloid-format newspapers that came to be known as alternative weeklies. The paper's print edition closed in August 2017.

434 articles

List of articles in the library

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Bob Dylan: Blonde on Blonde (Columbia)

Review by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, June 1966

LOOKING LIKE a man who's been waiting in line for two hours to find a vacant john, Bob Dylan peers in full color from the ...

The Beach Boys, The Byrds, Ray Charles, The Marvelettes, The McCoys, Stevie Wonder: Ray Charles, Little Stevie Wonder, The Beach Boys, the Byrds, the Marvelettes, the McCoys: Yankee Stadium, the Bronx NY

Live Review by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 16 June 1966

Pop Eye: Soundblast '66 ...

The Shangri-Las: The Soul Sound from Sheepshead Bay

Profile and Interview by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 23 June 1966

THEY STARTED with a twinkle in their eyes and leatherette on their hips. Out there on the stage of the Brooklyn Fox, with Murray the ...

The Rolling Stones: Pop Eye: The Rolling Stones

Report by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 7 July 1966

THE JET landed amid a churning blast of mechanical thunder. The portable staircase was fixed in place. The stewardess and health officials departed. Finally, the ...

The Beatles: Revolver (Capitol)

Review by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 25 August 1966

SWINGING LONDON, August 17 — The reception which the Beatles have received so far on their American tour has been less than ecstatic. But it ...

The Beatles: Revolver (Capitol)

Review by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 25 August 1966

SWINGING LONDON, August 17 — The reception which the Beatles have received so far on their American tour has been less than ecstatic. But it ...

Simon & Garfunkel: The Sound of J.D. Salinger Clapping

Profile and Interview by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 3 November 1966

WE KNOW about the sound of two hands clapping. We're pretty sure these days what one hand clapping sounds like. But what is the sound ...

The Mothers of Invention: The Balloon Farm, New York NY

Live Review by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 1 December 1966

THE BALLOON Farm became much more than a discotheque last weekend, and the resident combo became much more than a pop-music ensemble. ...

The Beatles, George Harrison, Ravi Shankar: Pop Eye: Ravi and the Teenie Satori

Report by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 5 January 1967

THEY ARE waiting for him in the glass-enclosed library of Asia House, over coffee, cream, and croissants. All the regulars are there: the lady reporter ...

Jefferson Airplane: The Jefferson Airplane: Webster Hall, New York NY

Live Review by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 12 January 1967

(RBP Editor's note: this article was extracted from Goldstein's "Pop Eye" column. The opening paragraph refers to the previous item) ...

Tim Hardin, The Rascals, The Velvet Underground: Pop Eye: Mover

Profile and Interview by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 19 January 1967

"HOW MANY columns you get in Newsweek?" ...

Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds, Donovan, The Rolling Stones, The Supremes: Pop Eye: Singles

Review by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 26 January 1967

YOU KNOW something's fishy when you see that elastic grin on Brian Jones's face for the record jacket The title above tells all: 'Let's Spend ...

The Beach Boys, Jackson Browne, Buffalo Springfield, Love: Los Angeles: The Vanishing Underground

Report by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 16 February 1967

LOS ANGELES — Sunset Strip is dead. ...

Buffalo Springfield, The Fabulous Fakes, The Mamas and The Papas, The Monkees, Ike & Tina Turner: Pop Eye — Ike & Tina Turner: 'River Deep, Mountain High' et al

Review by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 23 February 1967

PHILLERS ...

Big Brother & The Holding Company, Charlatans, The (US), Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Sopwith Camel: San Francisco: The Flourishing Underground

Report and Interview by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 2 March 1967

SAN FRANCISCO — Forget the cable cars; skip Chinatown and the Golden Gate; don't bother about the topless mother of eight. ...

The Diggers: In Search of George Metesky

Report by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 16 March 1967

ON A WINTER evening, knots of anxious hippies assembled at San Francisco's Howard Presbyterian Church, overlooking the treelined mall called the Panhandle. Now and then ...

The Doors: Ondine, New York NY

Live Review by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 23 March 1967

OPENING NIGHT at Ondines, that Queensboro Bridge of the soul, vast enough to encompass local beasts of prey, an occasional Rolling Stone on holiday, and ...

Donovan, The Lovin' Spoonful, The Rolling Stones: The Psychedelic Yenta Strikes Again!

Report by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 23 March 1967

THE LOVIN' Spoonful may soon find their names anathema to the very underground which nurtured them. ...

The Who: Rock 'N' Wreck

Report and Interview by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 30 March 1967

IN THE backstage halflight of the RKO 58th Street Theatre, Peter Townshend awaits his cue. Stagehands pace furiously, shouting orders in bizarre New York-ese. A ...

Grateful Dead: The Grateful Dead: The Grateful Dead (Warner Bros.)

Review by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 13 April 1967

A GOOD ALBUM, like those long lasting cold remedies, is filled with tiny time capsules which burst open at their own speed. Cuts that astound ...

Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground & Nico (Verve)

Review by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 13 April 1967

THE VELVET Underground is not an easy group to like. Some of the cuts on their album are blatant copies: I refer specifically to the ...

The Animals, The Association, Big Brother & The Holding Company, Country Joe & The Fish, Electric Flag, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, The Mamas and The Papas, Hugh Masekela, Moby Grape, Laura Nyro, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Lou Rawls, Otis Redding, Johnny Rivers, Ravi Shankar, Simon & Garfunkel: Monterey Pop Festival: The Hip Homunculus

Report by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 29 June 1967

"The West is the best: Get here and we'll do the rest!" — The Doors ...

The Beatles: I Blew My Cool Through The New York Times

Comment by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 20 July 1967

IF BEING A critic were the same as being a listener I could just enjoy Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Other than one cut ...

Jimi Hendrix, The Monkees: The Monkees, Jimi Hendrix Experience: Forest Hills Stadium, Queens NY

Live Review by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 27 July 1967

DAVY JONES pretended to dip his microphone in a goblet of water. And Micky Dolenz admitted he had bought a Moog synthesizer ("I'm fooling around ...

Jackson Browne, Penny Nichols: The Billy James Underground

Report by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 3 August 1967

HE CRUISES along the Freeway out of Los Angeles in an open Rolls, the kind that used to have upholstery and windows. His young son ...

Cream: They Play Blues, Not Superstar

Report and Interview by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 5 October 1967

IT'S SATURDAY night at the Village Theatre, New York's sad-eyed answer to the Fillmore-Avalon scene. Under the marquee, Slavs gape and Ratner's rejects mourn the ...

Leonard Cohen: Beautiful Creep

Profile and Interview by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 28 December 1967

And the child on whose shoulders I stand whose longing I purged with public, kingly discipline today I bring him back ...

The Beach Boys, The Beatles: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi: The Politics of Salvation

Report by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 25 January 1968

The question of the hour is: can an honest man still be a fraud? ...

Theatre of Fear: One on the Aisle

Report by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 5 September 1968

CHICAGO — I brought the Fear out with me from New York, a white plastic helmet and a bottle of Vaseline. The same fear that ...

Country Joe & The Fish: C.J. Fish on Saturday

Interview by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 3 October 1968

IT WAS Saturday afternoon and the Algonquin Hotel smelled of old marble and mahogany. In his suite, Country Joe MacDonald sat on a sofa and ...

The Who: Sensation

Essay by Geoffrey Cannon, The Village Voice, 22 May 1969

Update, 2019: WHO PLAYS concept albums now? With a couple of exceptions, not me. I don't mean albums whose separate numbers have a common approach, ...

Blind Faith, Donovan, Richie Havens: Blind Faith: A Fine Day

Report by Geoffrey Cannon, The Village Voice, 19 June 1969

LONDON — take a sheet of thin cardboard. Sprinkle iron filings on top. Place a magnet underneath. All the filings will start and shift, and ...

Tim Buckley, Frank Zappa: Frank Zappa, Tim Buckley: Felt Forum, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 28 September 1972

JOY JUICED ...

Family, Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, Elton John, Sailcat: Elton John, Family: Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale NY; Dan Hicks & his Hot Licks, Sailcat: Carnegie Hall, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 19 October 1972

ON THE CUTTING EDGE ...

John Hammond, Hot Tuna, Peter Kaukonen, Johnny Winter: Hot Tuna, Black Kangeroo, John Hammond: Academy of Music, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 2 November 1972

SATURDAY WAS white blues night at the Academy of Music. But the evening really began with a semi-frenzied escape from Captain Beefheart's disappointingly dull and ...

The Kinks, Mom's Apple Pie: Felt Forum, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 23 November 1972

OVER THE past three years, Ray Davies and the Kinks have acquired a reputation for drunkenly inept live performances. But their appearance at the Felt ...

Chick Corea, Return to Forever: Chick Corea & Return to Forever: Carnegie Recital Hall, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 14 December 1972

AS THE FIRST in a four-concert series, the Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies presented Chick Corea and Return to Forever last Friday at the Carnegie ...

John Simon, Weather Report: John Simon: Max's Kansas City; Weather Report: Bitter End, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 28 December 1972

AIN'T BLUE NO MORE ...

Mose Allison, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters: Muddy Waters, Mose Allison, John Lee Hooker: Philharmonic Hall, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 11 January 1973

UNMASKED FLAVORS ...

Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show, Robey, Falk, & Bod: Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show: Bitter End, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 25 January 1973

DR. HOOK and the Medicine Show celebrated the release of their second album, Sloppy Seconds (Columbia), with a party in the Bitter End last Thursday, ...

Stevie Wonder: Talking Book (Motown)

Review by John Swenson, The Village Voice, 25 January 1973

STEVIE WONDER possesses a unique vision that has enabled him to encompass a wide range of influences without being controlled by any of them. Coming ...

Biff Rose, Bruce Springsteen: Bruce Springsteen, Biff Rose: Max's Kansas City, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 8 February 1973

EVERYBODY GRUMBLES about Max's for some reason, but most of us keep climbing through the dark to the top of the stairs once or twice ...

David Bowie, Fumble: David Bowie & the Spiders from Mars: Radio City Music Hall, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 22 February 1973

THE BEST that New York had to offer came out in the rain to witness David Bowie's triumphant return last Wednesday. No less a personage ...

Manassas, Doug Sahm: Manassas, the Academy of Music; Doug Sahm: Max's Kansas City, New York NY

Live Review by John Swenson, The Village Voice, 1 March 1973

HOT AND COOLED OFF ...

John Paul Jones (not Led Zeppelin), NRBQ: NRBQ, John Paul Jones: Max's Kansas City, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 8 March 1973

ASSORTED GOODS ...

Pink Floyd: Radio City Music Hall, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 22 March 1973

A PINK FLOYD appearance here has always been worth coming out in the rain for and has often been a full-fledged event, like the American ...

Joe South: A Look Inside (Capitol)

Review by John Swenson, The Village Voice, 12 April 1973

BEFORE HE recorded his first album, Joe South spent years honing down his material — from the age of 15 he had been playing steadily, ...

Beck, Bogert and Appice, Andy Bown, The Brats, Little Feat, Bonnie Raitt, Wet Willie: Beck, Bogert & Appice: Felt Forum; Bonnie Raitt, Little Feat: Max's Kansas City; Andy Bown: Max's Kansas City; the Brats: 54 Bleecker Street, NYC NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 19 April 1973

SPARKLING PLENTY ...

King Crimson, Spooky Tooth, the Strawbs: Academy of Music, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 3 May 1973

BRITON REVISITED ...

The Faces, Jo Jo Gunne: The Faces: Jo Jo Gunne: Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 17 May 1973

SOME PIZZAZZ ...

Howlin' Wolf, Larry Johnson: Howlin' Wolf: Max's Kansas City, New York NY

Live Review by Howard Wuelfing, The Village Voice, 7 June 1973

WELL, IT'S OFFICIAL now. New York is the glitter capital of the rock world and Max's is its major stronghold. That's what an article in ...

Old And In The Way, Doug Sahm: Old & In the Way, Doug Sahm: Capitol Theatre, Passaic NJ

Live Review by John Swenson, The Village Voice, 14 June 1973

ON THE strength of the fact that Jerry Garcia would be playing there, the Capitol Theatre in Passaic was jammed full last Wednesday night with ...

Blue Oyster Cult, Claudia Lennear & Bump City: Schaefer Music Festival, Wollman Rink, Central Park, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 26 July 1973

OYSTER CRACKING ...

Allman Brothers Band, The Band, Grateful Dead: Allman Brothers Band, the Band, the Grateful Dead: Summer Jam at Watkins Glen, Watkins Glen, NY

Live Review by John Swenson, The Village Voice, 9 August 1973

It was about music too ...

Mott The Hoople, New York Dolls: Felt Forum, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 9 August 1973

MOTT THE Hoople is a British all-rock band, 'All the Young Dudes' of course. But they're about to break really big, with 'Honaloochie Boogie' already ...

Jethro Tull, Mott The Hoople, New York Dolls, Livingston Taylor: Jethro Tull, Livingston Taylor: Madison Square Garden, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 6 September 1973

WHERE THERE'S SMOKE ...

Louis Jordan, The Pointer Sisters: The Pointer Sisters, Louis Jordan & his Tympany Five: Roseland Ballroom, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 20 September 1973

THE FALL is upon us at last, and the theme for the season, the dreary, greasy '50s having run their course, is the revival of ...

Elton John, Sutherland Brothers and Quiver: Elton John, the Sutherland Brothers and Quiver: Madison Square Garden, New York NY

Live Review by John Swenson, The Village Voice, 27 September 1973

ELTON JOHN is the embodiment of pop consciousness. Few performers have an on stage personality that so totally reflects their audience, a fact that was ...

Gram Parsons Dies in Desert

Report by Bill Wasserzieher, The Village Voice, 27 September 1973

PARK RANGERS found the half-charred body of country-rock musician Gram Parsons in a burned casket at Joshua Tree National Monument in California last Friday. ...

Raspberries, Stories: The Raspberries, Stories: Carnegie Hall, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 4 October 1973

RIDING HIGH ...

The Rolling Stones: The Stones: Still rolling, slowly

Comment by John Swenson, The Village Voice, 11 October 1973

THE ROLLING Stones currently occupy a unique position in the music world — the only veteran supergroup left from the early '60s that has captured ...

Back Door, Foghat, The Strawbs: Foghat, the Strawbs, Back Door: Academy of Music, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 18 October 1973

BACK DOOR is Ron Aspery on saxes, flute, and keyboard, Colin Hodgkinson on bass and mouth, and Tony Hicks on drums. All experienced London session ...

Mike Oldfield

Profile by John Swenson, The Village Voice, 25 October 1973

DURING THIS past summer a work of uncompromising brilliance by a relatively unknown composer on a fledgling independent label has shaken the British rock industry. ...

Bobby "Blue" Bland, Mott The Hoople, Roomful of Blues: Mott the Hoople: Radio City Music Hall; Bobby Blue Bland, Roomful of Blues: Max's Kansas City, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 1 November 1973

I RAN INTO Eric Emerson (Formerly of the Magic Tramps and now playing guitar and singing with his new band Angel) on the way into ...

Al Green, Laura Lee: Apollo Theatre, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 15 November 1973

I WONDER WHAT the regular Apollo Theatre audience thought when they saw a contingent of 20 or so white writers (limoed all the way from ...

Elliott Murphy

Profile and Interview by John Swenson, The Village Voice, 29 November 1973

I DOUBT IF anyone has ever taken a poll, but Blonde on Blonde seems to be recognized in a lot of circles as Dylan's "best" ...

Hawkwind: Academy of Music, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 29 November 1973

HAWKWIND BROUGHT their Space Ritual to the Academy of Music Sunday night. They should have left it upstairs with all the other garbage orbiting the ...

Average White Band: Academy of Music, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 13 December 1973

ONE OF the pleasantest surprises of the musical year awaited those B. B. King and ZZ Top fans who arrived at the Academy of Music ...

The Pink Fairies: Kings of Oblivion (Polydor)

Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 13 December 1973

JUST RELEASED: The Pink Fairies' third album (first in America) Kings of Oblivion (Polydor). The Pink Fairies are the successors to the Deviants, a politico-raunch ...

Dr. John, Gary Farr: Bottom Line, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 21 February 1974

DR. JOHN AND his Revue and Gary Farr gave the Bottom Line, Allan Pepper and Stanley Sandowsky's new 450-seat cabaret-theatre, a rousing inaugural send-off last ...

Bedlam, Black Sabbath, Lynyrd Skynyrd: Black Sabbath, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Bedlam: Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 7 March 1974

FANNED FIRES ...

The Dillards: Bottom Line, New York NY

Live Review by John Swenson, The Village Voice, 7 March 1974

Who was top at the Bottom? ...

Maggie Bell, Foghat, Peter Frampton: Foghat, Peter Frampton, Maggie Bell: The Academy of Music, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 21 March 1974

NO ROCK, NO ROLL ...

Sly & the Family Stone, Stevie Wonder: Stevie Wonder: Madison Square Garden, New York NY

Live Review by John Swenson, The Village Voice, 11 April 1974

In synch with the shaman ...

Herbie Hancock, Return to Forever: Carnegie Hall, New York NY

Live Review by John Swenson, The Village Voice, 25 April 1974

Casting pearls before whines ...

The Dictators: Coventry Club, Queens NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 2 May 1974

PUNKOID PLEASURE ...

Ray Charles: The Empire Room at the Waldorf Astoria, New York NY

Live Review by John Swenson, The Village Voice, 9 May 1974

Falling on swank ears ...

Roxy Music, Sharks: Academy of Music, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 13 June 1974

Energy: Patchy and pure ...

James Brown, Mandrill, George McCrae: Madison Square Garden, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 11 July 1974

GODFATHER'S GROOVE ...

David Bowie: Madison Square Garden, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 25 July 1974

Dancing at disaster's edge ...

The Jimmy Castor Bunch, Funkadelic, Parliament: Funkadelic pee in your Afro

Report by Vernon Gibbs, The Village Voice, 5 September 1974

LAST WEEK, Rare Earth punked out of a gig at the Apollo, a rare honor for which Mick Jagger might conceivably give up eyeshadow. The ...

Stevie Wonder: Fulfillingness' First Finale (Motown)

Review by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 12 September 1974

What's the storeee, Stevie? ...

Dolly Parton: The — travails of dualism

Profile by Nick Tosches, The Village Voice, 26 September 1974

SINCE SHE first hit the country Top 20 with 'Something Fishy', Dolly Parton has earned a reputation as one of the best songwriters in country ...

John Denver: Madison Square Garden, New York NY

Live Review by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 26 September 1974

John Denver? How about John Terre Haute? ...

Lou Reed: Felt Theater, New York

Live Review by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 17 October 1974

LOU REED stepped out on the Felt Forum stage Friday night looking like something out of a Casey Donovan movie. ...

New York Dolls: Les Dolls' petit Altamont

Report by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 31 October 1974

EXPLAINING THE attraction of the New York Dolls, one tells an out-of-towner about their aggressive intelligence, nearly jingoistic hometown pride, and effortless projection of the ...

Barry White: Can't Get Enough (20th Century)

Review by Vernon Gibbs, The Village Voice, 7 November 1974

Barry White: Love of Lush ...

Bachman-Turner Overdrive, David Barretto, Bob Seger: Bachman Turner Overdrive, Bob Seger, David Barretto: NFE Theater, New York NY

Live Review by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 15 December 1974

BTO at NFE, OK for the USA ...

Jimmy Cliff, Bob Marley & the Wailers, Toots & The Maytals: Why Reggae Won't Be the Next Big Thing

Essay by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 16 December 1974

FOR A WHILE it appeared that reggae was Pop Salvation. This was determined by a small number of white music taste makers who'd seen Jimmy ...

Booker T. Jones, The Persuasions: Booker T., the Persuasions: Bottom Line, New York NY

Live Review by Vernon Gibbs, The Village Voice, 6 January 1975

Booker T. and the Persuasions: Black Folk Music ...

In Memory Of Max's

Report by Glenn O'Brien, The Village Voice, 6 January 1975

Is its closing an act of terror by the forces of Art Detention? Who is Donald Soviero and why didn't he pay the light bill? ...

Led Zeppelin: Led Zep Zaps Kidz

Report by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 3 February 1975

"For this high school generation, attendance at a Led Zeppelin concert is as mandatory as freshman English." ...

Charlie Daniels, Lynyrd Skynyrd: Lynyrd Skynyrd, Charlie Daniels Band: Academy of Music, New York NY

Live Review by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 10 February 1975

Lynyrd Skynyrd's Closet Crackers ...

Led Zeppelin: Madison Square Garden, New York NY

Live Review by Vernon Gibbs, The Village Voice, 17 February 1975

Led Zep Zaps Kidz? ...

Funkadelic, Graham Central Station, The Ohio Players: Ohio Players, Graham Central Station, Funkadelic: Radio City Music Hall, New York NY

Live Review by Vernon Gibbs, The Village Voice, 24 February 1975

Progressive Soul: Where Were You? ...

Bette Midler, Barbra Streisand: The Dark Side of Bette Midler

Essay by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 21 April 1975

I wear a red heart like others, and have a dark, inconsolate, ugly destiny. — Rahel Varnhagen, in Hannah Arendt's study ...

Bad Company: Straight Shooter (Swan Song)

Review by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 26 May 1975

Bad Company Zaps Kidz ...

John Fahey: Hunter College, New York NY

Live Review by Paul Nelson, The Village Voice, 9 June 1975

John Fahey Is a Tough Guy ...

Pink Floyd: Notes for an Iron Baptism

Essay by Vernon Gibbs, The Village Voice, 30 June 1975

THERE ARE only three British groups who matter anymore: the Stones, the Who and Pink Floyd. ...

Wings: Venus and Mars (Capitol)

Review by Paul Nelson, The Village Voice, 30 June 1975

Venus & Mars & Rona & Barrett ...

James Brown: Is James Brown Obsolete?

Comment by Vernon Gibbs, The Village Voice, 28 July 1975

Last summer, when I visited Afriac with James Brown for one of his "triumphant" blitzes, I was surprised at the discontent among his employees. The ...

The Isley Brothers: The Heat Is On (T-Neck)

Review by Vernon Gibbs, The Village Voice, 18 August 1975

The Isleys Play With Themselves ...

Nils Lofgren: Bottom Line, New York NY

Live Review by Paul Nelson, The Village Voice, 1 September 1975

Nils Lofgren: Quicksand ...

The Bay City Rollers: Bay City Rollers: Top of the Pops?

Profile by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 8 September 1975

IF YOU believe, as I do, that 'Sugar Sugar' was a brilliant record, you may like the Bay City Rollers. On the other hand, it ...

Patti Smith: Horses: Patti Smith Exposes Herself

Review by Greil Marcus, The Village Voice, 24 November 1975

THE FIRST QUESTION about Horses, Patti Smith's debut album, might be called the Janis question – it comes up whenever a particularly exciting performer has ...

Neil Young Paints It Black: Zuma

Review by Paul Nelson, The Village Voice, 24 November 1975

NOTE: ON APRIL 14, 1983, Elliot Roberts, Neil Young's manager, wrote a letter to Paul: "This is to advise you that we will co-operate with ...

Jessi Colter, Tompall Glaser, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson: Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Jessi Colter, and Tompall Glaser: Wanted! The Outlaws (RCA)

Review by Nick Tosches, The Village Voice, 26 January 1976

Waylon &c. Pull a Fast One ...

Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, Teddy Pendergrass: Is Teddy or David the Real Harold Melvin?

Report by Vernon Gibbs, The Village Voice, 2 February 1976

UNBELIEVABLE AS it may seem, at 9:01 p.m. on the night of January 24, 1976, 10 minutes before Harold Melvin & the new Blue Notes ...

Talking Heads Hyperventilate Some Clichés

Report by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 2 February 1976

TALKING HEADS offers a fragile middle finger to bands in which anonymous sidemen play powerhouse back-up through a Luftwaffe of amplifiers, while the man with ...

Queen: Does Queen Out-Led Zep — Or Out-Uriah Heep?

Comment by John Swenson, The Village Voice, 16 February 1976

TWO MONTHS ago Warner Communications pulled its latest executive shakeup, moving David Lessen from Elektra/Asylum to the board of directors and replacing him with former ...

Kate & Anna McGarrigle: Kate and Anna McGarrigle: Kate and Anna McGarrigle (Warner Bros.)

Review by Susin Shapiro, The Village Voice, 16 February 1976

Kate and Anna Carry Through ...

Phoebe Snow Has No Regrets...Yet

Interview by Susin Shapiro, The Village Voice, 15 March 1976

'Which will prove more important, keeping open the WATS line to her career or being the best possible mother, in a first-person plural world?' ...

Smokey Robinson: Felt Forum, New York NY

Live Review by Susin Shapiro, The Village Voice, 26 April 1976

On Top With Old Smokey ...

Johnny Paycheck: John Austin Paycheck Tries It Again

Profile by John Morthland, The Village Voice, 9 August 1976

JOHN AUSTIN Paycheck bounded onto the stage at the Other End last Wednesday, repeatedly rubbed his belly or tugged at his new beard, talked too ...

Burning Spear: Schaefer Music Festival, Wollman Skating Rink, Central Park, New York NY

Live Review by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 23 August 1976

Burning Spear Overkills Message ...

Joan Armatrading: What Are We To Do with Joan Armatrading?

Profile by Susin Shapiro, The Village Voice, 20 September 1976

INTO THE non-genre of thinking women's music steps Joan Armatrading, more British than black, more good folks than badass lady of the Midlands. Joan does ...

Al Jarreau Composes, Too

Profile by Vernon Gibbs, The Village Voice, 18 October 1976

THE LINES that stretched around the block welcoming Al Jarreau to his second New York appearance at the Bottom Line were evidence to his devotees ...

Funkadelic, Parliament: Parliament: The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein (Casablanca); Funkadelic: Tales of Kidd Funkadelic (Westbound)

Review by Joe McEwen, The Village Voice, 25 October 1976

Parliament-Funkadelic: Bummer in the City ...

Robert Palmer: Some People Can Do What They Like (Island)

Review by Susin Shapiro, The Village Voice, 13 December 1976

LETTER TO PALMER ...

Robert Palmer, Graham Parker, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes: Robert Palmer, Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes, Graham Parker & the Rumour: Palladium, New York NY

Live Review by Paul Nelson, The Village Voice, 20 December 1976

Graham Parker Pours It All Out ...

J.J. Cale Knocks Himself Out

Report and Interview by Susin Shapiro, The Village Voice, 14 February 1977

J.J. CALE IS not smiling. He hasn't smiled for 53 minutes of his set at My Father's Place. The set — highlights from all four ...

Ian Hunter, Elton John, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, The Who: Britain's Tax Exiles; Keeping a Piece of the Rock

Report by Simon Frith, The Village Voice, 28 March 1977

It's difficult to feel sorry for an exile whose alternative to an impoverished Britain is unfettered hedonism in the south of France. ...

The Clash, The Damned, Sex Pistols: Punk Is Just Another Word for Nothin' Left To Lose

Essay by Mary Harron, The Village Voice, 28 March 1977

The worst insult in the English punks' vocabulary is "poser". These are working-class kids who resent it when the middle classes ape their style. ...

The Moments: The Moments Greatest Hits (Stang)

Review by Joe McEwen, The Village Voice, 5 September 1977

The Moments Move Into the Bedroom ...

The Ramones, Sex Pistols, Patti Smith, Talking Heads, Television: The Possibilities of Punk

Comment by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 10 October 1977

UP UNTIL about six months ago, CBGB's was the only rock bar I ever felt comfortable in. All you needed was a long scarf and ...

Dwight Twilley: Twilley Don't Grind

Profile by Susin Shapiro, The Village Voice, 17 October 1977

AWKWARDNESS IS the new vogue. No more smoothies and impeccables to make us feel 10-thumbed; clumsiness is the cornerstone of humanity, or so say the ...

The Clash, Sex Pistols: Beyond the Dole Queue: The Politics of Punk

Essay by Simon Frith, The Village Voice, 24 October 1977

The Clash and the Pistols have established social realism as an essential part of punk ideology, but this does not make their music the "direct ...

Dolly Parton, Porter Wagoner: Dolly Parton: Here You Come Again (RCA Victor); Porter Wagoner: Porter (RCA Victor)

Review by John Morthland, The Village Voice, 14 November 1977

Porter and Dolly Go Their Own Ways ...

Al Green: The Belle Album (Hi)

Review by Joe McEwen, The Village Voice, 26 December 1977

Al Green: Between Time and Feeling ...

Lou Reed: Bottom Line, New York NY

Live Review by Susin Shapiro, The Village Voice, 20 March 1978

A FUNNY THING happened to Milton on the way to Paradise. He discovered the devils to be more fascinating than the angels, and that gave ...

Kool and the Gang: Kool & the Gang: Kool's Nasty Silly

Profile by Joe McEwen, The Village Voice, 24 April 1978

YOU'D NEVER know it from their last couple of albums, but there was a time when Jersey City's Kool and the Gang had a real ...

Eddie Hinton, Frankie Miller: Eddie Hinton: Very Extremely Dangerous (Capricorn)

Review by Joe McEwen, The Village Voice, 3 July 1978

Blue-Eyed Soul ...

Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers: Max's Kansas City, New York NY

Live Review by Susin Shapiro, The Village Voice, 4 September 1978

Johnny Thunders: D.O.A., L.A.M.F. ...

The Who: Keith Moon Dies Before He Gets Old

Essay by Simon Frith, The Village Voice, 18 September 1978

I WAS TYPING the last paragraph of my Who review when a news flash on the radio announced that Keith Moon was dead: "We'll bring ...

Rick James's Punk Funk

Profile by Vernon Gibbs, The Village Voice, 9 October 1978

HOT ON THE gold certification of his first single, 'You and I', Rick James has been going around making the preposterous claim that he is ...

Denise LaSalle: Under the Influence (ABC)

Review by Joe McEwen, The Village Voice, 11 December 1978

Denise LaSalle: on Top of the Influence ...

Studio 54: Innocent Until Proven Decadent

Comment by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 25 December 1978

IT OUGHT TO be possible to wish the combined forces of the IRS and the DEA well in their early morning raid on Studio 54 ...

Bill Withers, Soul Singer

Profile by Vernon Gibbs, The Village Voice, 16 April 1979

SINCE NO one else has had the nerve to say it, I might as well. Bill Withers is a great soul singer. Some purists might ...

The Cramps: Palladium, New York

Live Review by Susin Shapiro, The Village Voice, 12 November 1979

PUNK AND PUMPKINS at the Palladium, turned for a night into a seance for Houdini. Garish garb and glorious: the human Quaalude, a walking cassette ...

The Specials in Hit City

Profile by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, January 1980

DADUHDA/DAduhDA/DAduhDA/DAduhDA/DAduhDA/DAduhDA/DAduhDA.... Triplets in two-four, the sound of the Specials: call it ska, call it punky reggae, it's a jumping groove, the group going up and ...

The Cure Play It Pure

Live Review by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 21 April 1980

MOTHER OF GOD, another good English band. It's getting so people are scared to go near record shops, for fear of parting with their fillings, ...

Captain Beefheart's Far Cry

Profile and Interview by Lester Bangs, The Village Voice, 1 October 1980

He's Alive, But So Is Paint. Are You? ...

Carly Simon: Come Upstairs (Warner Bros.)

Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 1 October 1980

Carly Simon Yells and Screams ...

Fab 5 Freddy: In Praise of Graffiti: The Fire Down Below

Report by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 24 December 1980

  JOHN LINDSAY hated graffiti. He vowed to wipe it off the face of the IRT, and allocated $10 million to its obliteration. But the application ...

Joe Jackson: I'm The Man

Review by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, Spring 1980

FOR YEARS JOE Jackson made his money playing covers in English Playboy Clubs, ignored amid the bedroom eyes. His own music was rejected by every ...

The Clash: Sandinista!

Review by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 14 January 1981

CONFRONTING THE Clash's epic monstrosity Sandinista! is like being a teacher (which I once was) and having one of your favorite little buggers show up ...

The Shaggs: Better Than the Beatles (and DNA, Too)

Retrospective by Lester Bangs, The Village Voice, 28 January 1981

I HAVE BEEN getting whiny letters from a lot of you lately complaining about the general state of the art. "What is all this shit?" ...

Pylon Draws the Line

Profile by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 25 February 1981

MY PAL Danny voices the common hipster sentiment when he says, "Pylon, they're like the 52's, but they mean it." Quite so, but then again ...

Adam & the Ants: That's Antertainment

Profile by Susin Shapiro, The Village Voice, 15 April 1981

ANT MUSIC for sex people: what a snappy catechism, what a sly ad for an act, and what an act it is. Adam & the ...

Sly & Robbie: Reggae Titles: Footlong Skanking

Review by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 22 April 1981

IN RECENT MONTHS Riffsters have written paeans to the gritty nudisco and rapperound 12-inch song-and-dances now heard blasting from the shiny boxes on the street ...

Gang Of Four: Solid Gold

Review by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 29 April 1981

GANG OF FOUR called their first album Entertainment!, as if shouting from the rooftops that it wasn't. ...

Wayne Kramer: Trax, New York NY

Live Review by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 15 July 1981

He Walks the Line ...

The Pretenders: Pretenders II

Review by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 12 August 1981

THIS IS NO FUN. Raves for faves are love letters in the sand. Shoveling poseurs onto the garbage heap is heartwarming. But soaking up and ...

John Cale: Music for a New Society

Review by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 23 January 1982

ON THE BASIS of his new LP, it would be too easy to discover that John Cale is a Big Fake, maybe The Big Fake, ...

Soft Cell: Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret

Review by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 23 February 1982

TO CHAMPION AN English electropop duo right now is a poor business; on all sides are heard the virile snickers of those who abominate synthesizers ...

The Human League: In League With The Human League: Dare

Essay by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 13 April 1982

By the charts, the Human League are the most popular band in the U.K., as well as the most successful of the electropoppers: Depeche Mode, ...

The Bongos' Postboybeat

Profile by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 20 April 1982

MAKING SENSE in words of the Bongos' strange, translucent hardpop dreaminess is like trying to tell a stranger about rock'n'roll, or maybe like trying to ...

Talking Heads: The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads

Review by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 8 June 1982

TALKING HEADS: TV shorthand, video argot for the small-screen dance. The words themselves give up little ghosts, conceptual bombs – media as alienation, the medium ...

Kid Creole & The Coconuts: August Darnell And The Creole Perplex

Essay by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 27 July 1982

"The dominant feeling of the black poet is one of malaise, better still of intolerance. Intolerance of reality because it is sordid, of the world ...

Solomon Burke, Little Richard: Little Richard and Solomon Burke: Sex & God & Rock & Roll

Report and Interview by Vernon Gibbs, The Village Voice, 10 August 1982

THE FIRST time I encountered Little Richard, his face was plastered against a Bedford-Stuyvesant wall — the poster advertised a show at the Breevort Theater. ...

The Stray Cats: Stray Cats: Cooneybilly

Live Review by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 13 August 1982

Stray Cats: Roseland Ballroom, NYC ...

The Blasters: Blast From The Present

Profile by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 3 May 1983

I'VE BEEN reveling in the Blasters ever since their first Slash album in late '81, but for no good reason, or so it seemed to ...

Kurtis Blow: A B-Boy's Progress

Profile by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 6 September 1983

WHEN RAP WAS first struggling out of the youth-center playgrounds and into big-time notoriety, Kurtis Blow was there. ...

Def Leppard: What's 'New'?

Comment by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 1 November 1983

DEF LEPPARD is a band that's been greeted with total indifference by everyone except the four million and counting people who bought their third album. ...

The Rolling Stones: Undercover

Review by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 22 November 1983

The Stones Try Harder ...

Luther Vandross, Dionne Warwick: Dionne Warwick: How Many Times Can We Say Goodbye (Arista)

Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 3 January 1984

Dionne's Hot Date ...

Pablo Moses’s Acid Reign

Profile by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 17 January 1984

RASTA IDEOLOGY has always been profoundly Spenglerian. The German philosopher’s contention that our parasitic, capital-based machine age will be defeated by "another power, not by ...

The Replacements: Going Down With the Replacements

Special Feature by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 11 December 1984

Not a Bunch of Loads ...

Start Making Sense

Overview by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 30 April 1985

RIGHT NOW a hit record carries more mass-audience clout than at any moment in the history of show business. Maybe not coincidentally, there are more ...

Mötley Crüe: White Noise: How Heavy Metal Rules

Essay by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 18 June 1985

IT'S FRIDAY NIGHT at L'Amour, Rock Capital of Brooklyn (well, that's what it says on the awning). The smell is smoke and damp, black lipstick ...

John Mellencamp: John Cougar Mellencamp: Scarecrow (PolyGram)

Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 3 September 1985

NOW IS PROBABLY not the time for all good men to sing about their country. That's because most good men are bound to come up ...

Eugene Chadbourne: The President He Is Insane and other albums

Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, April 1986

URBAN ANTHROPOLOGISTS are well aware of the phenomenon of mystico-hysteric telephone-pole manifestoes tacked up by paranoid complusive types who deem it necessary to disseminate their ...

Butthole Surfers: Irving Plaza, NY

Live Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, May 1986

SORRY, THRILL SEEKERS, unlike the Butthole Surfers’ recent Danceteria appearance, there were no Live Sex Acts Onstage this time around. At Irving Plaza April 26, ...

Pato Banton, Smiley Culture: Motormouth Dub: Smiley Culture/Pato Banton

Profile by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 16 September 1986

Some warp-speed world we live in, eh? It’s lucky we’ve got fast-forward buttons on our VCRs, quick-check lines at the A&P, automatic banking, speed-racer drugs, ...

GG Allin: Cat Club, New York City

Live Review by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 21 October 1986

ILLIN' ON 24 oz. Jolt October 6 only made it worse. G.G. Allin, this New Hampshire loser, appeared at the Cat Club, wearing only a ...

Camper Van Beethoven: Camper Van Beethoven (Rough Trade)

Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 6 January 1987

CAMPER VAN Beethoven's first LP, last year's Telephone Free Landslide Victory, contained ‘Take the Skinheads Bowling’, an absurdist manifesto and immediate college-radio hit whose popularity ...

Salt 'n' Pepa: Cool, Hot & Vicious (Next Plateau)

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 27 January 1987

I DON'T KNOW about you but I've been waiting quite a while for a girl rap group to duplicate the success of platinum playboys like ...

fIREHOSE: Ragin’, Full-On (SST)

Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 17 February 1987

LIFETIMES AGO, in 1982, the Minutemen titled their debut album What Makes a Man Start Fires? The Political power trio proceeded to answer their musical ...

Grateful Dead: The Grateful Dead: Meadowlands, New Jersey

Live Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 21 April 1987

‘S FUNNY. Today the Grateful Dead can’t capture the attention of the so-called alternative audience, just as they couldn’t the so-called straight audience in the ...

Lee "Scratch" Perry: Time Boom or De Devil Dead (On-U)

Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 23 June 1987

History. It started as a stripping-down process concocted to provide Jamaican reggae with skanky instrumentals over which crooners might croon and toasters might toast. ...

Girlschool: Nightmare at Maple Cross (GWR)

Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 17 November 1987

MOST ALL-GIRL BANDS are pretty stupid And not always for the same reasons most all-guy bands are – too much attitude, too little attitude, too ...

Negativland: Escape From Noise

Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 15 December 1987

IF I RAN THE marketing department at SST Records, I’d do burritos with someone over at the University of Minnesota Press and make sure Negativland’s ...

Frank Zappa: Frank Generation

Profile by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 17 February 1988

If I may be so crass as to adjudge a rock icon by his fans, I'd say Frank Zappa might have a demographics problem. Admittedly, ...

Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin: Thinking About the Sixties

Essay by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 8 March 1988

Something's happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear. Is the '60s revival a thaw in the Big Chill, or just more evidence of fashion ...

Ofra Haza: Sacred Samples

Live Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 29 March 1988

Ofra Haza: S.O.B.’s, New York ...

Bongwater: Double Bummer

Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 7 June 1988

MARK KRAMER doesn't simply produce records, he saturates them. Even the quieter moments of such swell yet dissimilar albums as Half Japanese's Music To Strip ...

Van Halen: OU812

Comment by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 28 June 1988

VAN HALEN'S resident virtuoso launched a zillion whammy bars and charted heavy guitar's course for the '80s. The band's high-concept ex-vocalist sent a nation out ...

Souled American: Flubber

Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 13 June 1989

BECAUSE DAD SOLD toys for a living (a mixed blessing, believe me), I was the first kid on our block to own a glob of ...

Guns N' Roses, Public Enemy: Public Enemy and Guns N' Roses: Busted Axl

Report by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 22 August 1989

FORTY-EIGHT hours in the feeding-cycle of New York City. There were Uzis, Public Enemy regrouping, and a clique of blond babes orbiting Axl Rose at ...

Van Dyke Parks: A Yen for Japan

Interview by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 3 October 1989

Studiously blasé vibes radiate from within the overlit television studio on West 25th Street. Van Dyke Parks, our downwardly mobile country’s greatest unstaged musical-theater composer, ...

Ice Cube, N.W.A: N.W.A.: Wanted For Attitude

Report by Dave Marsh, The Village Voice, 10 October 1989

HOW'S THIS for government intimidation? In early August, a letter arrived on the desk of Priority Records president Brian Turner. Written on Department of Justice ...

The Residents: Taking Care of Business

Profile by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 23 January 1990

The Residents used to be such irritating misfits, what with their art school disguises and grating resentful satires of '60s pop music. Nerds and outsiders ...

Jack Bruce: Basscapades

Profile by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 13 February 1990

If you were born November 26, 1968, the day Cream gave its farewell concert at the Royal Albert Hall, let me stand you a legal ...

The House that Rap Built

Overview by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 15 May 1990

ON FRIDAY night at the Tunnel, Bronx, Jersey, and Brooklyn posses with high-top fades, or one patch of hair dyed psychedelic orange, bob and weave ...

Poison, Warrant, Winger: Poison: Flesh & Blood (Enigma)/Winger: In the Heart of the Young (Atlantic)/Warrant: Cherry Pie (Columbia)

Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 18 September 1990

KIP WINGER is a hunk. And what a perfect hunk he is. With his Harlequin hero name, decepticon logo, and carefully exposed nipple, he's engineered ...

Lee "Scratch" Perry, Maxi Priest: Lee Perry: From the Secret Laboratory (Mango)/Maxi Priest: Bonafide (Charisma)

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 13 November 1990

THIS YEAR'S New Music Seminar featured a panel called ‘Reggae in the ‘90s: Does Dancehall Rule?’ Both Jamaican and New York’s regional enthusiasm for dancehall ...

Judas Priest: Touch the Hem of His Garment

Comment by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 1 January 1991

I TOUCHED Rob Halford's hem. It happened, if you must know, on a gray afternoon in a Marina Del Rey condo owned by the man ...

Cop Shoot Cop: Consumer Revolt

Review by Simon Reynolds, The Village Voice, 19 February 1991

'BURN YOUR BRIDGES' is where Cop Shoot Cop proclaim their oblique intentions most plainly – their "anthem," if you will. "Know what you like/Like what ...

Morrissey: Kill Uncle (Sire)

Review by Simon Reynolds, The Village Voice, 2 April 1991

"OH MANCHESTER, so much to answer for..." Contradiction has always been at the heart of Morrissey's mythologization of his hometown: this was nostalgia for a ...

Guns N' Roses: Guns N’ Roses: Wimps ‘R’ Us

Essay by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 1 October 1991

SMART BOYS DON'T talk about anarchy; stupid boys don't know about it. It's hard to imagine, say, Emma Goldman (who, true, was not really a ...

Teenage Fanclub: Teenage Fan Club: Bandwagonesque (DGC)

Review by Simon Reynolds, The Village Voice, 3 December 1991

AS A BRIT who spends a lot of time in the U.S., I could hardly fail to notice the scathing scepticism of American hipsters when ...

Michael Jackson: Sound of Breaking Glass: Michael Jackson's Dangerous

Review by Chuck Eddy, The Village Voice, 17 December 1991

HEY, SO HOW COME nobody's compared the fucker to There's a Riot Goin' On? Well, maybe Riot without the cocaine. Or okay, okay, Fresh then, ...

Hole: Pretty On The Inside

Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 4 February 1992

COURTNEY LOVE is scary. Much scarier than the witches old (Macbeth's, say) and new (Lydia Lunch, say) whom she occasionally sounds like and whom she ...

House of Pain: House of Pain (Tommy Boy)

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, July 1992

SPUN OFF from the inspired lunacy of Cypress Hill rapper B-Real's 'Gee, Officer Krupke' whine, the semi-Celtic cartoon called House of Pain is a concept ...

PJ Harvey: Dry (Indigo)

Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 7 July 1992

"SHOW US YER TITS!" is still the rule of thumb for yobbos throughout the global village whenever a woman dares open her mouth a little ...

Louis Jordan, Forefather of Rock 'N' Roll

Retrospective by Nick Tosches, The Village Voice, 18 August 1992

He made some of the greatest music that has ever been made; if any one man is to be given credit for siring rock 'n' ...

Mick Jagger: Wandering Spirit

Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 2 March 1993

HE MAY BE a wandering spirit, but Mick Jagger sure doesn't travel light. This simple fact of life informs both the major tragedies and minor ...

Reefer Redux: Why Pot Is Hot

Essay by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 22 June 1993

"Let me tell you about the first time I got high. It was 1966, and I was a young reporter... There, sitting on the floor, ...

The Breeders: The Breeders' Last Splash (Elektra)

Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 24 August 1993

ANALYZING THE BREEDERS may be as useful as deconstructing a good fuck, or for those less carnally inclined, a strawberry shortcake. When it works, you ...

Aphex Twin: Machine Soul: A History Of Techno

Overview by Jon Savage, The Village Voice, Summer 1993

Oooh oooh Techno cityHope you enjoy your stayWelcome to Techno cityYou will never want to go away– Cybotron, 'Techno City' (1984) ...

Alice in Chains: Jar of Flies (Columbia)

Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 15 March 1994

THE NEAT TRICK Alice in Chains pulled off a coupla weeks ago when their third EP Jar of Flies (Columbia) zipped to the No. 1 ...

Sonic Youth: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star (DGC)

Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 17 May 1994

EXPERIMENTAL JET Set, Trash and No Star (DGC) is not the most experimental, jettiest, or trashiest record Sonic Youth or anyone else, for that matter, ...

Prince: Come (Warner Bros.)/1-800-New-Funk (NPG/Bellmark)

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 30 August 1994

IF YOU HEAR the sound of a gauntlet slapping the floor, it’s only the echo of Come (Warner Bros.) and 1-800-New-Funk (NPG/Bellmark) hitting the racks ...

Sebadoh: Lou Barlow vs. the Riddler

Comment by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 4 October 1994

EVERY GREAT music of self-denial depends on a culture of self-denial. Doo-wop's pained, courtly pleas to remote earth angels had their roots in the layered, ...

Robert Earl Keen: Gringo Honeymoon

Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 31 October 1994

ONCE OR TWICE a year I can count on a new country album to sidle up and tear apart my cement-encrusted heart. More often than ...

Sting: Gentleman's Agreement: Sting dreams a world without junk...

Comment by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 2 December 1994

"IN THE POLICE he was a pop star, the best we've had, a potent force delivering blistering reggae-tinged chart-friendly hits apparently to order." ...

Bill Frisell: America Lost and Found

Profile by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 4 December 1994

GUITARIST BILL Frisell is the cowlick on the towhead of American music. In his most signature mode, he favors a languorous, spacious sound that combines ...

Isaac Hayes: We Like Ike

Profile by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 25 July 1995

As an opinionated teen in the early ‘70s, I hated Barry White for stealing Isaac Hayes’s sound – even though by 1973 Hayes had evolved ...

Everything But the Girl: Missing – the Full Remix EP (Atlantic)

Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 27 February 1996

ALMOST TWO years ago, still relying on the fierce understatement they premiered back in 1984, the English duo Everything But The Girl released Amplified Heart. ...

The Last Poets

Report by Chris Campion, The Village Voice, April 1996

A LONG-RUNNING saga of legitimacy has embroiled the Last Poets in a situation that is rapidly echoing the sentiments of one of their own poems, ...

Chic: Bernard Edwards, 1952-1996

Obituary by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 7 May 1996

Bernard Edwards, Tony Thompson, and Nile Rodgers were in Tokyo for the latest in a recent series of reunion concerts when Rodgers discovered his friend ...

DJ Spooky: Spooky After Dark: The DJ as Dead Dreamer

Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 6 June 1996

DJ SPOOKY'S Songs of a Dead Dreamer (Asphodel) magically distills the mysterioso live performances the artist (and occasional Voice contributor) otherwise known as Paul D. ...

A Murder In Clubland?

Report by Frank Owen, The Village Voice, 25 June 1996

Looking for Angel: Did King of Club Kids Michael Alig really Kill Angel Melendez? Or is it all a hoax? By Frank Owen ...

Surf Pop: The New Wave

Retrospective by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 17 September 1996

WAS ANY underground music more quickly and thoroughly mediated by outside forces than surf music? On the cusp of the ‘60s, California’s coastal teen subculture ...

Silver Apples

Profile by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 23 January 1997

AN AKIMBO version of hippie-band staple 'In the Midnight Hour' was the only thing about the Silver Apples' recent appearance suggesting they were anything other ...

The Prodigy: Prodigy: The Fat of the Land

Review by Simon Reynolds, The Village Voice, 8 July 1997

SOME SAY the Prodigy have betrayed the bright promise of the "electronica revolution", resulting in a techno-rock hybrid that's not so much kick-ass as half-assed. ...

The Verve: Urban Hymns

Review by Simon Reynolds, The Village Voice, 18 November 1997

Damn and blast the Verve. I'd sworn never to fall again for that classic-rock godstar-savior-shaman shtick, that it was gonna be dance music's desiring-machines and ...

Bob Dorough: After-School Special: Bob Dorough

Review by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 24 March 1998

I KNOW THIS couple who think Lou Rawls is the shit. You can look in the books on soul music and find little reference to ...

Tori Amos: Irving Plaza, NYC

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

TORI AMOS believes in the rhythm method. ...

Tom Zé: Fabrication Defect (Luaka Bop/Warner Bros.)

Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, May 1998

TOM ZÉ'S peculiar contribution to the Tropicalistas' highly influential 1968 collaborative album Tropicalia: Ou Panis Et Circencis was the satiric antidevelopment anthem ‘Parque Industrial’, which ...

Breaking's New Ground

Report by Frank Owen, The Village Voice, 26 May 1998

A CIRCLE CLEARS in the middle of the gloomy basement at Konkrete Jungle and into the arena glides 20-year-old Face, top rocking to the mechanical ...

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 ...

Billy Bragg, Woody Guthrie, Wilco: Songs For Woody: Billy Bragg & Wilco's Mermaid Avenue

Review by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 7 July 1998

WOODY GUTHRIE bequeathed us his jumble. Willing in life to play straight man for many right causes, in death he left a tangle of words ...

Gillian Welch: Raising Cain

Overview by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 11 August 1998

THERE OUGHT to be a genre name for the other kind of art-rock — music that includes all the ridiculously extreme stuff, all the stuff ...

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 ...

Fix It in the Mix

Book Review by Simon Frith, The Village Voice, 16 September 1998

Simon Reynolds: Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture (Little, Brown) ...

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 ...

Beck: Mutations (Geffen)

Review by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 24 November 1998

BECK TO THE BASE ...

Vic Chesnutt: Gravity's Rainbow: Vic Chesnutt

Profile by Will Hermes, The Village Voice, 24 November 1998

LIKE PLENTY of other folks in wheelchairs, Vic Chesnutt doesn't want your sympathy. In fact, he can challenge the compassion of even those closest to ...

Bruce Springsteen: Tracks (Columbia)

Review by Evelyn McDonnell, The Village Voice, 15 December 1998

THE GHOST OF BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN ...

The Black Crowes, Gov't Mule, Widespread Panic: Freebirds All: Southern Rock's Undying Appeal

Overview by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 16 December 1998

SOUTHERN ROCK'S masterworks show this century a viable southern heroism: the quest to overcome the dread of Jim Crow and the pall of ruined empire. ...

Ronnie Spector: Life Club, New York City

Live Review by Evelyn McDonnell, The Village Voice, 29 December 1998

"BRIAN WILSON wrote this song for me," Ronnie Spector said on Wednesday at her annual holiday party at Life, "but because of publishing and contracts ...

Thomas Anderson: Flying Saucer Rock & Roll

Profile and Interview by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 29 December 1998

WITH THREE FINE albums and a recent seven-song EP, available respectively from Dutch East India, Bomp, and now Germany's Red River, Thomas Anderson is clearly ...

DMX: Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood (Def Jam )

Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 13 January 1999

It's like, we all got two sides to us, and it depends on what side of the bed you wake up on. That will depend ...

Lo Fidelity Allstars: Out To Lurch: Lo-Fidelity All-Stars' How to Operate with a Blown Mind

Review by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 19 January 1999

MAYBE THE SWELLEST thing about the first wave of electroboogie funk in the early '80s, 'Planet Rock' and the Jonzun Crew, Space Invaders and all ...

Foxy Brown: Chyna Doll

Review by Evelyn McDonnell, The Village Voice, 2 February 1999

FOX ON THE RUN ...

Death of a Disco Dancer

Report by Frank Owen, The Village Voice, 9 February 1999

New details about Tunnel drug overdose allegation ...

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. ...

The Roots: Things Fall Apart

Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, March 1999

USED TO BE, a hiphop love song was something like Rakim's 'Mahogany' or Shallah Raekwon's 'Ice Cream'- tunes celebrating shorties from around the way; hardrocks ...

Prince Paul: The Director's Cut: Prince Paul's Prince Among Thieves

Review by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 2 March 1999

NOBODY IN THE genre today sees more possibility in hip-hop than Prince Paul. I say that in the face of his tour de force A Prince ...

A Tribe Called Quest, Gang Starr, Lauryn Hill, Jay-Z, Mos Def, OutKast: Tribal Movement: Hip Hop in 1998

Overview by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 2 March 1999

A TRIBE CALLED Quest died for the sins of hip hop in 1998, so the story goes. R.I.P. And roll away the stone. ...

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. ...

Kelly Willis: Just Walk Away: Kelly Willis' What I Deserve

Review by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 13 April 1999

KELLY WILLIS HAS the most uncomfortable-making way of saying "thank you". Live a few weekends ago I heard her say it at least a dozen ...

B*Witched: Punkest Band Around

Comment by Metal Mike Saunders, The Village Voice, 20 April 1999

ALL RIGHT! You can turn in my Top Ten List thing already: my favorite music of the whole darn year is B*Witched's 'C'est la Vie' ...

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 ...

Sammy Hagar, Metallica: Bottoms up: Topping the Billboard

Comment by Chuck Eddy, The Village Voice, 12 May 1999

FOR THE PAST month, two of the top five tracks pissing their night away on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart have been celebrations of alcohol consumption, ...

Faith Hill, Tim McGraw: Tim McGraw and Faith Hill: Love and Industry

Profile by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 25 May 1999

COUNTRY MUSIC Nashville is a town of handlers, of purportedly insightful managers and publicists and producers and record company presidents. In 1993, when Tim McGraw ...

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, ...

Captain Beefheart: Grow Fins

Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 1 July 1999

SINCE THE 1969 release of Trout Mask Replica, the artist dubbed Captain Beefheart has incarnated the gold standard by which "weirdness" in rock music has ...

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 ...

Skip Spence : Alexander Spence: Oar; Various Artists: More Oar

Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 3 August 1999

IF EVERY Sgt. Pepper's begets its Satanic Majesties Request, and every Woodstock its Woodstock '99, Alexander "Skip" Spence's post-Bellevue Oar, first released in 1969, resembles ...

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 ...

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. ...

Gomez: Irving Plaza, NYC

Live Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 28 September 1999

WHEN GOMEZ SINGS the line from 'Here Comes the Breeze' that goes, "There's no shame in going out of style," you have to admire the ...

L7: L'Amour, Brooklyn NY

Live Review by Evelyn McDonnell, The Village Voice, 28 September 1999

L7 Blow-Up in Brooklyn ...

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. ...

Tom Verlaine: The Sound of Silents: Tom Verlaine

Live Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 20 October 1999

IF THE MODEST obligation of a silent-film accompanist is to serve the movie, Tom Verlaine succeeded admirably during his Arts at St. Ann's appearance on ...

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 ...

A Tribe Called Quest, Q-Tip: Q-Tip: Amplified (Arista)/A Tribe Called Quest: The Anthology (Jive)

Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 15 December 1999

THE GREATEST AESTHETIC lesson to learn from past masters like David Bowie and Madonna is the value of reinvention. ...

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. ...

D'Angelo: Voodoo

Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, January 2000

I WAS FOREWARNED, and chose not to take heed. You know, how prophecy can get mofos all wound up like Chicken Little with the sky ...

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 ...

Jay Z, Rakim: Jay-Z: Vol. 3... Life and Times of S. Carter (Roc-A-Fella)/Rakim: The Master (Universal)

Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 19 January 2000

THIS ISN'T A generation-gap piece, really. I ain't even 30. But a lot of folks ain't authentically feeling Rakim Allah; they just takin' the "experts' ...

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? ...

Are We the World? Global Music in the U.S. Faces the 21st Century

Comment by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 8 February 2000

SONY MUSIC'S recent and massive Soundtrack of a Century collection includes a two-CD set called International Music, ostensibly to celebrate the geographically diverse roots of ...

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 ...

All Ears: Disney Dreams Up the Best Radio Station in 30 Years

Essay by Metal Mike Saunders, The Village Voice, 14 March 2000

THE SEMINAL moment of the teenpop era is of course in the Clueless movie, where Cher refers to college-rock R.E.M.-crap as "mope rock", or "dope ...

Third Eye Blind's 'Never Let You Go'

Comment by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 4 April 2000

THE KIND OF emotional and formal fire Third Eye Blind build on 'Never Let You Go', their current hit, has rocked producers, radio programmers, and ...

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 ...

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 ...

Wu-Tang Clan is Sumthing ta Fuck Wit

Report by Frank Owen, The Village Voice, 23 May 2000

The world-famous Staten Island hip-hop collective has a government informer working within its ranks; at the same time, the group is being investigated by the ...

Britney Spears: Dear Diary: Britney Spears

Comment by Metal Mike Saunders, The Village Voice, 6 June 2000

NOVEMBER 3, 1998, was the release date of the '... Baby One More Time' CD single and 12-inch (w/ 'Autumn Goodbye' on the B side). ...

Charles Mingus: Town Hall Train Wreck

Retrospective by Gene Santoro, The Village Voice, 6 June 2000

IN MID-1962, Charles Mingus made a deal with United Artists. He wanted to lead a big band, but he wanted to record it live, before ...

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 ...

Chain Store Hairdos: Totally Hits 2

Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 25 July 2000

THERE'S SOMETHING strange about the idea of Totally Hits 2, the compilation of recent pop smashes by various names, a follow-up to 1999's equally incongruous ...

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 ...

Wyclef Jean: The Ecleftic: 2 Sides II a Book (Columbia)

Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 20 September 2000

EVER HAVE A bright idea, a 1000-watt bulb so blazin that it inevitably slides into the collective consciousness of pop culture? Even if the brainstorm ...

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. ...

The Baha Men, Hampton and the Hampsters: I Still Want a Hula Hoop: Hampton and the Hampsters

Comment by Metal Mike Saunders, The Village Voice, 17 October 2000

OK, HERE'S THE hamster scoop: Last fall a U.K. indie-artsy outfit named the Cuban Boys took note of the wacky hamster sample (manipulated from the ...

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 ...

Fatboy Slim: Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars

Review by Simon Reynolds, The Village Voice, 15 November 2000

FEATURING SAMPLES from a bootleg album of the Lizard King's poetry, Fatboy Slim's new single 'Sunset (Bird of Prey)' isn't the first time Jim Morrison's ...

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. ...

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 ...

Rachelle Ferrell, Sade, Spooks: Sade: Lovers Rock; Rachelle Ferrell: Individuality (Can I Be Me?); Spooks: S.I.O.S.O.S. Volume One

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 13 December 2000

WHEN IT COMES to commercial black music, "high concept" makes the record industry very nervous. Motown initially told Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye that people ...

Black Flag, The Dils, The Germs, The Weirdos: Marc Spitz with Brendan Mullen: We Got the Neutron Bomb - The Untold Story of L.A. Punk

Book Review by Barney Hoskyns, The Village Voice, 2001

IT'S KINDA IRONIC that the untold story of the Los Angeles punk scene should be officially told (tolled?) at a time when New York City ...

John Digweed: Mixed Emotions

Comment by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 30 January 2001

DJ Music Builds Its Way Out of the Velvet-Rope Underground ...

Dido: Boots and Beats Beneath the Bed: Dido's No Angel

Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 6 March 2001

WHEN HIP-HOPPERS go anywhere from Spandau Ballet to Annie to Diana Ross and David Bowie to Kenny Rogers for music – as Prince Be, Jay-Z, ...

Remembering Alan Betrock

Obituary by Andy Schwartz, The Village Voice, 7 April 2001

Alan Betrock was the passionate fanatic who founded the groundbreaking New York Rocker. Andy Schwartz, who succeeded him as the magazine’s publisher and editor, here ...

Love: Forever Changes(Elektra/Rhino)

Review by Richard Riegel, The Village Voice, 16 April 2001

LOVE'S THIRD ALBUM mystified both the band's ardent fans and the scene's founding rockwriters almost from the day it appeared in November 1967. ...

Rufus Wainwright: Parlour Of Vices: Rufus Wainwright's Poses

Review by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 19 June 2001

BACK IN THE days of Stephen Foster, the piano was the centerpiece of the parlour. That was the room that women ran, the room where ...

Radiohead: Amnesiac

Review by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 26 June 2001

THE PROP PLANE circled the ballpark, trailing the type of banner you might also see at the beach. The message, though, was not what you ...

Aaliyah: The Highest, Most Exalted One: Aaliyah, 1979-2001

Obituary by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, August 2001

THREE WEEKS BACK, I lay in a sea-salted bathtub with candles, bubbles, and headphones, listening to Aaliyah. Lamenting the state of my love life during ...

Tupac Shakur: Black Blueprint: Holler If You Hear Me: Searching For Tupac Shakur by Michael Eric Dyson

Book Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 18 September 2001

YOU HAD TO BE THERE to understand that the book has yet to be written encompassing all the sheer intensity of suspenseful events, mesmerizing mise-en-scène, ...

Cannibal Ox: The Anti-Bling Kings: Cannibal Ox

Profile by Simon Reynolds, The Village Voice, 2 October 2001

Wormholed futurism with a mouthful of parables ...

Cornel West: Go See The Doctor: Cornel West's Sketches of My Culture

Review by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 16 October 2001

CORNEL WEST'S Sketches of My Culture is probably the first hip-hop record by a Harvard professor. I demand that academia reciprocate and immediately put Ol' Dirty Bastard ...

John Mellencamp: Cuttin' Heads (Columbia)

Review by Richard Riegel, The Village Voice, 5 December 2001

ROBERT ZIMMERMAN wanted to emulate Woody Guthrie, while John Mellencamp aspired to be the next-to-last David Bowie, and here they are at fateful birthdays 60 ...

Kid Rock: Like a Motown Cowboy

Comment by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 18 December 2001

TWO GUYS MARCH into the Victor Recording Company office one summer day in 1922, mad flossing all the way: one dressed like a cowboy, the ...

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 ...

Gary Allan: Scumbag in the Dark: Gary Allan's Alright Guy

Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 19 February 2002

"THIS ALBUM," the booklet inside Gary Allan's current Alright Guy reads, "is dedicated to Willie, Waylon, Johnny, George, Buck & Merle," which is a way ...

Mark Anthony Neal: Soul Babies – Black Popular Culture and the Post-Soul Aesthetic (Psychology Press)

Book Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 2 April 2002

Generation Hiphop's Aesthetics ...

John Medeski, John Scofield, Medeski, Martin & Wood : Jam On It: Hippies, Jazzbos, and Beat Junkies Build One Nation Under a Mutant Groove

Report and Interview by Will Hermes, The Village Voice, 9 April 2002

LET US NOW praise great Americans: Louis Armstrong, Jerry Garcia, and Grandmaster Flash made their history with equal parts pioneer cojones and improvisatory derring-do. They ...

Joi, Kelis, Me'Shell Ndegeocello: Joi/Ndégeocello/Kelis: Walk on Gilded Splinters

Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 1 May 2002

Joi: Star Kitty's Revenge; Me'Shell Ndégeocello: Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape; Kelis: Wanderland ...

DJ Shadow: To The Batcave: DJ Shadow's The Private Press

Review by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 4 June 2002

OUT-OF-BODY Experience, heaven version: "I saw my life before my eyes, and that is no shit… I saw myself walking in and out of countless ...

Lauryn Hill: MTV Unplugged 2.0

Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, July 2002

I can faithfully, honestly say that hiphop is dead. – Q-Tip Hiphop being counterculture, underground culture, that's sorta dead. It's all mainstream. It's just ...

The Chemical Brothers, Matthew Herbert, Stephane Pompougnac, Rinôçérôse: Lifestyles of the Rhythm

Overview by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 2 July 2002

Dance music accesses an unseparatist pop sensibility ...

Caetano Veloso: Tropical Truth: A Story of Music and Revolution in Brazil (Knopf)

Book Review by Will Hermes, The Village Voice, 24 September 2002

IT'S TOUGH TO imagine an American pop star penning a memoir like Tropical Truth. That's not just because our musical celebs are rarely imprisoned for ...

The Streets: Bowery Ballroom, New York City

Live Review by Will Hermes, The Village Voice, 29 October 2002

TALK ABOUT BRINGING coal to Newcastle. Sunday's New York debut of U.K. MC The Streets (a/k/a Mike "A Day in the Life of a Geezer" Skinner) drew ...

Eminem: Crossover Dream

Comment by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 5 November 2002

IN THE money scene of 8 Mile, the young white Detroit rapper Rabbit Smith (played by young white Detroit rapper Eminem) battles a series of ...

Eminem: The Eminem Consensus

Comment by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 12 November 2002

TWO EVENTS of lasting significance occurred last week: the breakdown of the Democratic party and the breakthrough of Eminem. His debut film, 8 Mile, became the ...

Isyss: Nice Girls Finish Fast

Profile by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 26 November 2002

THE $64 MILLION question? Why, in a post-Spice Girl world, are black girl groups still forming (and falling apart) as if the Spice Girls never ...

Kenny Lattimore and Chanté Moore: Things that Lovers Do

Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 8 April 2003

Their project may cause pregnancy. ...

Robbie Williams: Fly Like an Ego: Robbie Williams' Escapology

Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 13 May 2003

WHEN LONDON'S Robbie Williams released his 1999 U.S. debut, he warned Americans. The Ego Has Landed, he called the thing, a shrewd compilation of even ...

Scissor Sisters

Profile by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 4 June 2003

NO ONE-SENTENCE summation (no matter how correct or clever) really does justice to the Scissor Sisters. As a girdle-tight, piss-elegant rock unit unafraid to play ...

Drive-By Truckers: Decoration Day (New West)

Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 13 June 2003

COME HEAR ME real well, boogie chillun, for I'ze 'bout to spin this chronicle of a death foretold. The death of truth, justice, and the ...

Joe Budden: Joe Budden

Review by Amy Linden, The Village Voice, 23 July 2003

ABOUT A YEAR ago, a hard-working street team slapped up promotional snipes that asked: "Who is Joe Budden?" According to a highly subjective survey (conducted ...

Brooks & Dunn: The Long Road Home: Brooks & Dunn Risk Backlash With a Great Rock Album

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 1 August 2003

IN THE RURAL east Texas graveyard where my father and his parents are buried, just a stone's throw from a black church built on land ...

The Swimming Pool Q's: Royal Academy of Reality

Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 12 August 2003

"HER LIGHT HAS been delayed" are the first words sung by Jeff Calder on a record a decade or more in the making, by a band that's ...

Beyoncé: Pop the Question, Jigga – Miss Fat Booty Gets Some, Gives Some Up Without Shame

Comment by Amy Linden, The Village Voice, 27 August 2003

UNLIKE THE B.Lo affair (so ubiquitous it practically has its own action figures), whatever is going on between Beyoncé Knowles and Jay-Z is under the ...

Bubba Sparxx, Kentucky Headhunters: Bubba Sparxxx: Deliverance (Interscope); Kentucky Headhunters: Soul (Audium/Koch)

Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 10 September 2003

SO THE GRAPEVINE has Hollyweird pondering a film based on late-1970s TV Dixiana The Dukes of Hazzard. The Grandfather Clause prevents me from voting for ...

Macy Gray, Mya: Macy Gray: The Trouble With Being Myself/Mya
: Moodring


Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 24 October 2003

BOTH WOMEN crouch nearly nude on their album covers, gazing with feral yet somehow fetal reproach at potential consumers, like naughty fairy changelings who've had ...

Macy Gray, Mya: Imps of the Perverse: Mya and Macy Gracy

Comment by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 28 October 2003

BOTH WOMEN crouch nearly nude on their album covers, gazing with feral yet somehow fetal reproach at potential consumers, like naughty fairy changelings who've had ...

The High Llamas: City and Country: High Llamas' Beet, Maize & Corn

Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 9 December 2003

IS ANY SONGWRITER more finely attuned to the shimmering membrane separating city and country than Sean O'Hagan?  ...

Nelly Furtado: Folklore (DreamWorks)

Review by Amy Linden, The Village Voice, 24 December 2003

SOME CRITIC I was reading recently (Jayson Blair alert: The following is not this writer's original thought!) observed that the fiddle had emerged as the ...

Johnny Pacheco: Latin Swing's Last Lion: 
Johnny Pacheco Returns to the New York His Salsa Once Changed

Profile and Interview by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 20 January 2004

DAPPER, CHARISMATIC, and 68 years young, Johnny Pacheco is one of New York's cultural lions, a Juilliard alumnus who revolutionized the way Afro-Latin swing, a/k/a ...

Jet (Australia): Drunks from Down Under take over the garage: Jet's Get Born

Review by Metal Mike Saunders, The Village Voice, 6 April 2004

WELL! MY MY MY. Let's take a head count of the biggest names in the way overhyped "garage band" revival: the Hives, the Strokes, the ...

Usher: Confessions

Review by Amy Linden, The Village Voice, 19 April 2004

USHER RAYMOND is a star. The faithful have thought as much for years, but recently the masses affirmed it when 1.1 million of them trooped ...

Van Hunt: Van Hunt

Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 27 April 2004

PREENING, CONFESSING, aloof Atlanta R&B phenom falls short ...

Joanna Newsom: The Milk-Eyed Mender (Drag City)

Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 4 May 2004

THE INCREDIBLE String Band's cryptic whimsy and Vashti Bunyan's beautiful balladry have quietly resurfaced in a bushel of great new bands, and especially so, it seems, ...

The Cure: Join the Dots: B-Sides & Rarities – 1978–2001: The Fiction Years

Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 25 May 2004

THE CURE'S Join the Dots: B-Sides & Rarities: 1978–2001: The Fiction Years is titled with the exhaustiveness that can, in every sense, characterize box sets. ...

Hanson: Underneath

Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 8 June 2004

HAVING PASSED out during Hanson's historical 1999 Bob Weir summit at the late Wetlands, this critic can attest to the inexorable power of the towhead ...

Metallica: Some Kind of Monster

Film/DVD/TV Review by Chuck Eddy, The Village Voice, 2 July 2004

LAST FALL, a hilarious 3,000-word review of Metallica's unlistenable St. Anger by some guy named Colin Tappe circulated over the Internet. ...

Putumayo: The Little Label That Could

Report by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 2 July 2004

WHILE THE REST of the music industry downsizes like mad, an 11-year-old independent label the majors used to snicker at has scored a 15 percent ...

Derek Bailey: Ben Watson: Derek Bailey and the Story of Free Improvisation

Book Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 17 August 2004

FREE IMPROVISATION is the automatic writing, the abstract expressionism, or as British critic Ben Watson most aptly describes it, the "stand-up comedy" of musical performance.  ...

Salomé de Bahia, Solu Music: Solu Music: Affirmation / Salomé de Bahia: Brasil

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 4 October 2004

The "Other" R&B ...

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 ...

Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz: Crunk Juice

Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 30 November 2004

"EYE-UNH!," "Hunh!," and "Hiuiiii!" were universally accepted as James Brown lyrics before crunk king Jonathan "Lil Jon" Smith was conceived. Dave Chappelle may have elevated ...

Gwen Stefani: Love. Angel. Music. Baby (Interscope)

Review by Amy Linden, The Village Voice, 13 December 2004

LIKE THAT OF her spiritual mommies Madonna and Debbie Harry, Gwen Stefani's appeal knows few boundaries. ...

Nancy Sinatra: Nancy Sinatra

Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 21 December 2004

THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS ago on a huge #1, Nancy Sinatra made her suede-toned warning that 'These Boots Are Made for Walkin'.' For the piano finale of ...

Lil' Kim: Big Verdict: Lil' Kim Is Seriously Fucked

Comment by Amy Linden, The Village Voice, 18 March 2005

ON MARCH 3, in the midst of her highly publicized trial in Manhattan Federal court, a clearly beleaguered Lil' Kim issued a statement through the ...

Elvis Costello, Emmylou Harris: Elvis Costello with Emmylou Harris and the Imposters: Central Park SummerStage

Live Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 19 July 2005

IT SEEMS SLIGHTLY ridiculous now, but Elvis Costello's 1981 Almost Blue came with a sticker warning: "This album contains country & Western music & may produce radical reaction ...

Keyshia Cole, Leela James, Jaguar Wright: Old R&B New Again Again

Review by Amy Linden, The Village Voice, 12 October 2005

Three young divas make soul waters safe for middle-aged Keyshia Cole: The Way It Is Jaguar Wright: Divorcing Neo to Marry Soul Leela James: A Change Is Gonna ...

Letch Patrol, Missing Foundation: Message in a Bottle: Homesteaders Rock the Lower East Side — The Tompkins Square Riots

Retrospective by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 18 October 2005

August 23, 1988 ...

Patti Smith: Apocalypse Then: Patti Smith's Horses

Retrospective and Interview by Will Hermes, The Village Voice, 15 November 2005

ON OCTOBER 30, 1975, the Daily News printed its "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD" cover. But long before that other unelected president refused to bail out our ...

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 ...

Donald Fagen: Morph the Cat (Reprise) — Catdown to Ecstasy

Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 16 March 2006

Steely Dan's unfashionable co-founder catches a New York where things changed forever ...

Saffire – The Uppity Blues Women: Deluxe Edition

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 24 March 2006

IF YOU BUY only one acoustic blues album this year, why not a best-of from a self-affirming trio of feisty females? ...

Prince: 3121

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 1 May 2006

IN HIS LONG-AGO heyday Prince complimented Kid Creole's backup girls by admiring how Adriana Kaegi "used every beat of the music in her choreography." Evidence ...

Outward Is Heavenward: Modern Gospel

Report by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 3 July 2006

THERE'S SO MUCH going on in gospel music today that you may have missed when Kirk Franklin paused from promoting Hero, his latest chart-topping CD, ...

Kenny Gonzalez, L'il Louie Vega, Masters at Work: Pure Percussive Pleasure: Kenny Gonzalez and Louie Vega

Report by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 9 October 2006

GOTHAM'S HIPPEST and happiest underground nightlife owes its origins to the ever-streetwise and affable duo of Brooklyn's Kenny "Dope" Gonzalez and Bronx-bred "Little" Louie Vega, ...

Jay Z: Hova's Slight Return: Jay-Z: Kingdom Come

Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 21 November 2006

Jay-Z's aura finally outshines his art — what a drag it is getting old ...

Amy Winehouse: Joe's Pub, NYC

Live Review by Amy Linden, The Village Voice, 16 January 2007

WITH HYPE justified by her soon come (and already #1 in the UK) sophomore CD Back To Black), and a Ghostface remix of the slurred, ...

The Holmes Brothers, Coco Montoya, Vesta Williams: The Holmes Brothers: State of Grace/Coco Montoya: Dirty Deal/Vesta Williams: Distant Lover

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 29 January 2007

WHEN LED ZEP covered Kansas Joe and Memphis Minnie's 'When the Levee Breaks', they thought they were making "rock 'n' roll." When the Pointer Sisters ...

Earl Greyhound: The Afrofuture of Rock

Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 26 February 2007

I MOVED TO Manhattan in 1989 to see Earl Greyhound—but they didn't exist yet. At the turn of the '90s, in that aggressive-white- male space ...

Tracey Thorn: Sublimely nonchalant electro-pop majesty: Tracey Thorn's Out of the Woods

Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 20 March 2007

TRACEY THORN, of the now-on-hiatus duo Everything But the Girl, sings with the transparency of country air and the significance of Louis XIV furniture. Alone ...

Macy Gray: Still Tryin'

Comment by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 27 March 2007

MAYHAP YOUR iPod has shuffled a Maxwell or Lauryn Hill tune into your mix lately, and led you to question, "Where they be?" The neo-soul ...

Ozomatli: Don't Mess With the Dragon

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 7 April 2007

IF YOU'RE A giddy optimist like me, you hope to one day hear Ozomatli's cheerfully rebellious politi-pop wafting from every car radio in New York ...

Prince: Planet Earth

Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 17 July 2007

IF HE HADN'T choked to death in London's Samarkand Hotel 37 years ago, how many mediocre records would Jimi Hendrix have dropped by now? Stevie ...

Love Goes To Buildings On Fire: 1977 New York gets the VH1 treatment and, oh my, wasn't it fun back then!

Retrospective by Will Hermes, The Village Voice, 31 July 2007

OH YES, it was wicked cool: getting jacked at machete-point on the subway after a night of clubbing, and at bayonet-point outside of high school. ...

Siouxsie: Mantaray

Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 25 September 2007

ON HER RECENT Out of the Woods, Tracey Thorn, singing about artists who awed her early on, mentions "Bobby D in '63". But she also ...

Public Enemy: The Public Enemy Remix Project's 'Bring the Noise' b/w 'Give It Up'

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 26 September 2007

ALTHOUGH TECHNO (and its subsequent sub-genres) is now associated more with its white European exponents than its black American progenitors, Ultra Records' new series of ...

Bruce Springsteen: Magic

Review by Amy Linden, The Village Voice, 3 October 2007

THE E STREET BAND last convened around Bruce Springsteen on 2001's The Rising; since then, the Boss (who looks finer as he gets older) has ...

Kid Rock: Rock of Ages

Comment by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 16 October 2007

The Detroit Cowboy tells his congregation about the world, flesh, and the Devil. ...

Wu-Tang Clan: 8 Diagrams

Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 4 December 2007

RIGHT NOW, all we know about Wu-Tang Clan's 8 Diagrams – their first album in six years – is that at least two members (Ghostface ...

Wu-Tang Clan: 8 Diagrams

Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 4 December 2007

RIGHT NOW, all we know about Wu-Tang Clan's 8 Diagrams – their first album in six years – is that at least two members (Ghostface ...

Kate Nash: Hugs and Kisses 24: The Kate Nash Interview!

Interview by Everett True, The Village Voice, 18 December 2007

LISTEN. I CONDUCTED THIS INTERVIEW — what — almost two months ago, same night as a Kate Nash show in Brighton. ...

Amy Winehouse: The Slow Blackout of Amy Winehouse

Comment by Amy Linden, The Village Voice, 15 January 2008

How a troubled r&b mega-talent's breakout hit turned against her ...

Michael Jackson: Thriller 25

Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 5 February 2008

Michael Jackson's Nigh-Unstoppable Thriller Gets the 25th-Anniversary Treatment ...

Janet Jackson: Discipline

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 26 February 2008

SURE, MADONNA repeatedly toyed with BDSM in her videos, but she never publicly admitted to breast and genital piercings like Miss Jackson did. So, in ...

Kylie Minogue, Robyn: Robyn: Robyn/Kylie Minogue: X

Live Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 29 April 2008

MOST OF Robyn recasts the teenage hitmaker of a decade ago as a formidable 26-year-old Stockholm chick. ...

Madonna: Hard Candy

Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 6 May 2008

A half-centenarian provides more porny pop excellence ...

Britney Spears: On Britney Spears's Sadly Generic Circus

Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 10 December 2008

More blandishments from the dance floor ...

GlobalFest: Webster Hall, NYC

Live Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 13 January 2009

GLOBALFEST SHOWCASES so much high-quality talent that artists accustomed to headlining elsewhere can find themselves opening this three-stage marathon to less-than-capacity crowds. ...

Leonard Cohen, Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, Etta James: Rise of the Anachronauts: On Dan Hicks, Leonard Cohen, Etta James, Pokey LaFarge and other fearless time travelers

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 5 May 2009

I CALL THEM anachronauts: performers whose core appeal stems from their ability to transport listeners to another time and place. ...

Def Jam at 25: The Yankees of Hip-Hop Labels, Reconsidered

Comment by Amy Linden, The Village Voice, 27 October 2009

WHAT IS IT about hip-hop that, inevitably, almost any conversation revolves around dates – around how far back in the day you can claim to ...

Dirty Projectors, Solange Knowles, and the Perils of Music-Racism

Comment by Maura Johnston, The Village Voice, 19 January 2010

On 'Stillness Is the Move' and the uselessness of genre. ...

Gorillaz: Plastic Beach

Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 9 March 2010

Gorillaz Get Serious: Plastic Beach loads up on guest stars and gravitas ...

Oneohtrix Point Never: Brooklyn's Noise Scene Catches Up to Oneohtrix Point Never

Interview by Simon Reynolds, The Village Voice, 6 July 2010

DANIEL LOPATIN, the young man behind the spacey and spacious mindscapes of Oneohtrix Point Never, operates out of a cramped bedroom in Bushwick, mostly taken ...

Indigo Girls, Sarah McLachlan, Cat Power, Suzanne Vega: The Lilith Fair Abides

Report by Maura Johnston, The Village Voice, 4 August 2010

A late-'90s fest returns with great ideas (the Lilipad!), throwback headliners, and terrible marketing. ...

CeeLo Green: Cee Lo Green: The Fearless Cee Lo Green

Interview by Amy Linden, The Village Voice, 10 November 2010

Will The Lady Killer and 'Fuck You' finally turn him into a solo superstar? ...

Mavis Staples Is for the Children

Report and Interview by Amy Linden, The Village Voice, 12 January 2011

MAVIS STAPLES digs her some younger men, but she'd rather lead them to the studio than the bedroom. "I think it really makes for a ...

The Feelies Get Perpetually Nervous All Over Again

Report and Interview by Evelyn McDonnell, The Village Voice, 30 March 2011

SOME PEOPLE pick up guitars and want to be rock stars. Other people pick up guitars because playing music is a cooler hobby than collecting ...

The Rebirth Brass Band: Rebirth of New Orleans

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 20 April 2011

DURING THE FIRST episode of HBO's Treme, members of the Rebirth Brass Band and the show's trombone-playing character Antoine Batiste end a jazz parade in ...

Concha Buika, Les Nubians: More Than Words: Going Polyglot With Concha Buika and Les Nubians

Retrospective by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 20 June 2011

IN THE '60s and '70s danceable jazz-pop in foreign languages made American radio more exciting: Jorge Ben's 'Mas Que Nada' charted when recorded by Sergio ...

DJ Turmix, Spanglish Fly: Boogaloo! with Spanglish Fly, DJ Turmix:
 Nublu, New York


Live Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 8 July 2011

IT COULD HAVE been a disaster – subway service to Loisaida was screwed up (again), it was raining, one of the club's turntables was on ...

David Guetta: Nothing But the Beat

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 29 August 2011

David Guetta's Dance Music Melting Pot ...

Lana Del Rey: Is Lana Del Rey The Kreayshawn Of Moody, Electro-Tinged "Indie"?

Report by Maura Johnston, The Village Voice, 15 September 2011

LAST NIGHT, Glasslands played host to a "secret" show by Lana Del Rey, an up-and-coming singer who was described by the one press release I ...

A Look At Pop Around The Globe — From Operatic Creole Harmonies to Riot-Grrl-Inspired French Rappers

Overview by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 5 October 2011

THE END of the year brings a flurry of world music albums with commercial intentions ranging from the archival to the optimistically opportunistic. ...

Ellen Willis: Out of the Vinyl Deeps

Book Review by Maura Johnston, The Village Voice, 5 October 2011

The late New Yorker pop critic and Voice editor's work still vibrates off the page in Out of the Vinyl Deeps. ...

Deadmau5, Portishead: Portishead: Hammerstein Ballroom/Deadmau5: Roseland, NYC

Live Review by Maura Johnston, The Village Voice, 12 October 2011

AT A LIVE MUSIC event, your eye naturally is drawn to what's happening onstage: guitarists thrashing and sawing at the air, vocalists preening between yawps, ...

Me'Shell Ndegeocello: Meshell Ndegeocello: Weather

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 15 November 2011

'WEATHER' ISN'T the first Meshell Ndegeocello single to fall into the category of "freak folk," but the album of the same name is her first ...

Adele, Beyoncé, Bon Iver, Kanye West: Will Bon Iver Be The Arcade Fire Of 2012? And Other Pre-Grammy Nomination Show Questions

Report by Maura Johnston, The Village Voice, 30 November 2011

TONIGHT'S GRAMMY nomination concert, airing at 10 p.m. on CBS, will not only jam-pack a bunch of performances by the likes of Lady Gaga and ...

Lana Del Rey Takes Her Place On The Internet's Sacrificial Altar With Born To Die

Review by Maura Johnston, The Village Voice, 2 December 2011

IN ANOTHER era, Lana Del Rey would just be another pretty pop singer with a second-rate voice and big, unrealized ambitions, a major-label footnote maybe ...

Etta James, R.I.P.

Retrospective by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 23 January 2012

ETTA JAMES used to tell a story about meeting Billie Holiday in which Holiday told her — fatherless wild child to fatherless wild child — ...

Yann Tiersen:
 Irving Plaza, New York

Live Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 30 April 2012

Better than: Most of the Philip Glass and Stephin Merritt music I've heard. ...

Imani Uzuri: Joe's Pub, NYC

Live Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 4 June 2012

Better Than: Being sad that Alice Coltrane and Cesaria Evora are dead and that Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill don't make albums together. ...

Ljuba Davis Ladino Ensemble: Drom, New York City


Live Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 18 June 2012

FOR THOSE OF US who grew up hearing a lot of Yiddish, it can come as a nice surprise to discover that Hebrew modified Spanish ...

Kathleen Battle and Cyrus Chestnut: The Blue Note, New York City

Live Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 20 June 2012

IN 2010, KATHLEEN Battle chose a pianist and a repertoire of classical material to bring to Carnegie Hall for a formal recital. This summer, Battle ...

Gonjasufi: Cameo Gallery, Brooklyn

Live Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 25 September 2012

Gonjasufi Presses On in the Midst of Technical Chaos ...

Rick Astley: 50

Review by Maura Johnston, The Village Voice, 6 October 2016

SAY THE NAME Rick Astley in 2016 and you'll probably get a reply involving his 1987 smash 'Never Gonna Give You Up', a brightly spangled ...

James Chance & the Contortions: Downtown icon James Chance cuts loose

Live Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 16 November 2016

IT WAS WELL after midnight last Thursday by the time James Chance and the Contortions took the stage of the Bowery Electric. Dapper in his ...

Drake: More Life

Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 20 March 2017

Drake's More Life is Another All-Purpose Emoji ...

Marley Marl, Rakim, Roxanne Shanté: Rakim, Marley Marl, Roxanne Shanté, and Other Rap Pioneers Celebrate Forty Years of Hip-Hop

Retrospective by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 3 May 2017

Old-school B-boys cold-lampin' at Disco Fever, c. 1979 ...

Eric B. & Rakim: Apollo Theater, Harlem

Live Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 10 July 2017

Eric B. & Rakim play to their die-hard fans at Paid in Full tribute show ...

Captain Beefheart, Nona Hendryx, Gary Lucas: How Nona Hendryx Captured the World of Captain Beefheart

Interview by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 9 November 2017

Drawn together: Gary Lucas and Nona Hendryx channel Captain Beefheart on their new album. ...

Aretha Franklin: Aretha: The Voice of America

Obituary by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 17 August 2018

IT MAY BE difficult for anyone born after 1980 to fully grasp how important Aretha Franklin has been to America. There is simply no longer ...

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