By The S&N Staff. Once again, a group of S&N contributors—Hendricks, Mark, Biff, and myself—have voted on our favorite songs of 2016, and we present them to you here as a Spotify playlist for your streaming pleasure. In a year where politics dominated everything, it shouldn’t be surprising that a number of the songs we picked delve into that theme. But it’s still satisfying, nonetheless, to see that two of the most powerful political statements of the year came from A Tribe Called Quest and Drive-By Truckers. To hear East Coast hip-hop and Southern country rock come together on common ground like that speaks to the incredible bridging potential of music, and maybe offers a little hope about our ability to start a meaningful conversation that connects us despite our deep cultural divides. And there’s plenty more here, too, from S&N favorites like Hiss Golden Messenger and Blood Orange and The Range to some under-the-radar artists who deserve far more of our attention, like Lucy Dacus, Pinegrove, Hinds, and Chairlift. Enjoy, and happy holidays! Continue reading
Mark
The Futurist: Artists To Watch In 2016
By Mark. Here in California, 2016 began with rain. That may sound like a bad start to the year, but in a drought-stricken state it’s a hopeful sign. And 2016 brings with it new music and a chance to see LCD Soundsystem! It also means that a new set of artists will emerge and hopefully diversify the EDM-dominated musical landscape. Here are a few artists on S&N’s 2016 radar: Continue reading
The Year In Music 2015: S&N’s Songs Of 2015
By The S&N Staff. As part of our year-end festivities at S&N, we’ve gotten together and voted on our favorite individual tracks of the year. As with all things, democracy yielded a diversity of opinions! And yet after a couple of rounds of balloting, we all found ourselves gravitating toward the same songs. So check out our Spotify playlist, featuring favorite tracks from Alabama Shakes, Kendrick Lamar, Leon Bridges, Houndmouth, Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment, Courtney Barnett, Jason Isbell, Hop Along, Beach Slang, and plenty more. Special thanks to our friend Hendricks for putting this playlist together. Enjoy, and happy holidays! Continue reading
The Projects: The Essential 90s Albums, #5-1
By The S&N Staff. All things must end. And even though it took almost as long to count down our favorite albums of the 90s as it did to actually make it through the 90s, we’re finally ready to give you our top five. While it should come as no surprise that bands like Nirvana and Radiohead top out our list, you just may be surprised at which order they placed once the final votes were tallied. Continue reading
The Projects: The Essential 90s Albums, #10-6
By The S&N Staff. Over the past few months, S&N has been counting down our list of the essential 90s albums. So far, we’ve seen historic albums from Nine Inch Nails, Biggie, Green Day, Beastie Boys, Counting Crows, Rage Against The Machine, Oasis, and plenty of others. Today, we finally reach the top 10, and it should comes as no surprise that there’s hip-hop, nerd rock, and of course, plenty of grunge. We start with a band better known for their 80s output—and a 1992 masterpiece that may (or may not) be their best work. Continue reading
The Projects: The Essential 90s Albums, #15-11
By The S&N Staff. Continuing with S&N’s countdown of the 25 most essential albums of the 90s, we’ve already tackled #25-21 and #20-16. Today we roll out the next five, and just like the decade they came from, they’re full of hope, sadness, and a little Rage: Continue reading
The Projects: The Essential 90s Albums, #20-16
By The S&N Staff. Earlier this month, the S&N staff began our countdown of the 25 most essential albums of the 90s. Number 25-21 featured groundbreaking works from Nine Inch Nails, Modest Mouse, Beastie Boys, Elliott Smith, and The Notorious B.I.G. Today, we continue the list with numbers 20-16: Continue reading
The Projects: The Essential 90s Albums, #25-21
By The S&N Staff. There may be some generational bias at play here, but the 90s just might’ve been the peak of the album experience. In that gap in time between the MTV and radio dominance of the 80s and the Napster and iTunes takeover of the 2000s came a wave of rock and hip-hop artists who saw music as more than just a collection of singles. Whether fueled by nostalgia for the classic rock era of the concept LP, or a reflexive cynicism of “selling out,” these artists had ambitions toward a higher level of creativity. Continue reading
The Year In Music 2014: Mark’s Picks
By Mark. This year’s list took some effort. I ran through top list after top list, but had trouble finding ten records that really stood out. Some early favorites such as Cloud Nothings‘ Here And Nowhere Else faded out of rotation and never came back. Benjamin Booker wowed me for two weeks and then I forgot about him. Sharon Van Etten’s Are We There has some really bright spots, but the album dulls midway through. And as much as it pains me to say it, Ben Howard‘s I Forget Where We Were has the same problem. Continue reading
The Conversationalist: Is Jack White’s Lazaretto An Evolution Or An Endpoint?
By Spencer, Antony, and Mark. Jack White’s second solo album, Lazaretto, dropped this week. Following a tradition started on our previous site, After The Radio, three of our S&N contributors engaged in a bi-coastal email conversation on the album and its place in the broader Jack White pantheon of musical experiences:
Spencer: After my first listen to Lazaretto, I think we can safely say that Jack White has fully walked away now from the minimalism that was so characteristic of his work with the White Stripes (and, to a lesser extent, The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather). It’s a continuation of what he did on his last solo album, Blunderbuss, which saw him experimenting with a much broader range of instrumentation and genres, from pianos and pedal steels to honky-tonk and bluegrass. Here, the use of the fiddle stands out in the transition between “Lazaretto” and “Temporary Ground,” along with more piano, more steel guitar, and a fatter bass sound than we’ve come to expect (especially for a guy whose first band didn’t even have one!). Continue reading
Shadows & Noise 