“What, you thought this was another Pepsi commercial?” asks Wyclef Jean on his new single, “PJs”—not an ode to Mickey Mouse onesies, but rather a proud rally cry for anyone who grew up in public housing. Say what you will about this famously cocksure rapper-singer-guitarist-producer, but you can’t accuse him of selling out his own … Read more
It has become a bit of a cliché: Aging rocker rummages through decades of demos, acoustic tracks, original recordings, bootlegs, tablescraps, and cancelled checks to put on a sort of garage sale of wares for (with any luck) mass consumption. Most likely it’s only the die-hards and completists who take notice, but then that’s the … Read more
With Car Wheels on a Gravel Road in 1998, Lucinda Williams finally got the attention she so richly deserved. The Texan singer and songwriter had been toiling away to the beat of her own strummer for years, more content to drop out of the music biz than to compromise her own deceptively simple wheat-field lullabies … Read more
No matter how desperately loyal you might be to Minneapolis music, there’s no use begrudging the Goo Goo Dolls for taking the Replacements’ sound farther than the Replacements themselves ever could. As an enlightening exercise, erase the sales figures from your memory, spin the Goos’ new Gutterflower and Paul Westerberg’s new Stereo/Mono back-to-back, and ask … Read more
Amid the unexpected late-90s rush of Lilith fairies and Nick Drake-loving neo-folkies, English singer-songwriter Beth Orton was a standout—if not for her disarmingly fragile voice, then for her ability to flirt with club-music backdrops and borrowed beats without betraying the intimate acoustica that informs her best songs. Even in the company of esteemed electronic icons … Read more
Mourn all you want for the dearly departed Cedarfest, but really, it doesn’t take much to find an outdoor rock stage and a pack of domesticated drunkards pretty much any night of the summer. Meanwhile, it’s an encouraging sign that the Hot Summer Jazz Fest, now in its fourth year, has grown in rep and … Read more
If, like most people over 15, you’re put off by her status as an MTV flavor of the month, you’re really missing something. M!ssundaztood is a teen pop record worthy of the spirit of Phil Spector (we said spirit, though the songcraft and production are very good in their own right). Pink’s a tough, but … Read more
Arthur Miller is arguably the most important thing ever to have happened to American theater. It’s a question for the historians to figure out why it took us until the 20th century to find a voice fit for the stage, while the novelists were already worshipping the yellowing memory of great granddad Mark Twain. At … Read more
When Manet’s Mother Superior dryly asks, “God, when will this nightmare end?” we wonder right along with him. The Nuns has all the essential elements of a nightmare—from absurdly morbid sequences with a circus flavor, to the audience’s voyeuristic pleasure. This dark comedy, set during the Haitian slave revolt of 1804, cloisters the three sisters … Read more
What’s the attraction of panda bears to the children of the world? Like koalas, they’re real-life teddies that combine the fascination of wild animals with the cuddliness of the stuffed variety. Pandas are especially exotic in the western world, and herein lies a story of considerable intrigue. Even by the late 30s, China’s unique giant … Read more