In a sign that the Gen X nostalgia market remains viable, especially for indie rock, the Replacements’ revered 1984 album Let It Be is returning — again. An expanded version of the album was rolled out many years ago, but on Nov. 21, it will be blown out into an …
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“As exciting as watching trees sprout” is decidedly a pejorative idiom. Still, it’s somehow the perfect way to describe these elegiac bops. Indeed, Devonté Hynes, on his fifth studio LP as Blood Orange, manages to make life’s contemplative moments seem urgent, celestial, and rehabilitative. No actual trees sprout on the …
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The Hall, the Hall will tear us apart. Again. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has announced its new crop of inductees, revealing that New Order got rejected this year. The Hall nominated Joy Division and New Order as one band, which meant that Hall voters had a chance …
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When Craig Finn wants to make an L.A. album, he doesn’t mess around. He might be best known as the Minnesota-via-Brooklyn frontman of the Hold Steady, a punk bar-band wordsmith specializing in down-and-out tales with a Midwest flavor. But on his great new Always Been, he takes inspiration from Southern …
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Pictoria Vark is the spoonerism alias of the young singer-songwriter Victoria Park, who turned heads with her 2022 debut album The Parts I Dread. She aims even higher on her excellent Nothing Sticks — it’s the perfect springtime road-trip indie-rock album you didn’t realize you deserved, full of soft-spoken guitar …
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Bob “Slim” Dunlap, the beloved “replacement Replacement” who joined the band in 1987, has died at the age of 73. The musician’s family confirmed his death in a statement, per the Minnesota Star Tribune. “Bob passed at home today at 12:48 p.m. surrounded by family. We played him his ‘Live …
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Like so many other Replacements fans, no doubt, the first thing I did with the new version of Tim was skip right to “Left of the Dial.” One of those “bury my soul in these guitars” songs that any music fan collects over time. It’s a highlight of the classic …
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The Replacements‘ beloved major label debut, 1985’s Tim, will be expanded into a four-CD, one-LP box set this summer with a remix, previously unreleased recordings (including a few cuts with Alex Chilton), and a live recording from 1986 recorded a week before their shambolic SNL appearance. The rarities include alternate …
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Pleased to Meet Me was the sound of the Replacements trying for once. The band’s previous five LPs were snarky slacker masterpieces full of chintzy songs about hating music ’cause it’s got too many notes, ironic Kiss covers, and the occasional tender ballad, and their concerts were more like drunken …
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