Celebration Rock

Every year of my professional life as a music critic, I've made year-end lists. Sometimes it was because I simply had to do it, but more often (especially when I was younger) I did it because I thought it was fun. Making a year-end list was like saying, "Here I am, this is what I think, and here's why I believe you should actually care." But now that I'm a little older and wiser, list-making feels more like work. In 2018, it was practically a job. 

I don't know if that has to do with my age or the fact that, to me, 2018 felt like a "good, not great" year for music. As always, there were scores of albums that I really enjoyed. But in terms of records that felt like instant classics, or at least inspired me to get obsessed for a good week or two, 2018 seemed a little fallow. 

Nevertheless, the 10 albums on my year-end list did manage to strike a chord with me, and I was excited to talk about them with my friend Ian Cohen, who shared his own top 10 list. Surprisingly, there's not a ton of overlap on our lists –- listen to us debate the merits of the 1975, Arctic Monkeys, Boygenius, Father John Misty, and Kacey Musgraves in this special "best of 2018" episode. 

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This week we return with another installment of Contrarian's Canon, our semi-regular series with Ryley Walker where we talk about great albums that for some reason have been maligned or forgotten about in the course of music history. This time, we explore an under-appreciated should-be classic by one of the greatest singer-songwriters ever, Joni Mitchell.

While Mitchell is rightly celebrated for landmark '70s albums like Blue, Court & Spark, and The Hissing of Summer Lawns, she continued to put out excellent albums as she entered her 40s. After a fallow period in the '80s, Mitchell forged a comeback with 1991's Night Ride Home, an album that nodded to the jazzy folk sound of 1976's masterpiece Hejira while also reflecting on the changes in her life as a middle-aged artist. 

For Walker, Night Ride Home is one of the best albums that Mitchell ever made, and for him the highlight "Come In From The Cold" is one of her best ever songs, with a sophisticated musical and lyrical structure that is communicated with simple, straight-forward grace. We both also confess our love of other early '90s albums by boomer-era rockers, including Jackson Browne's I'm Alive and Van Morrison's Hymns to the Silence. Are these late-career landmarks worth revisiting, or have Ryley and I slipped into an adult-contemporary coma? Step into the smoothness with us!

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Last month, we started a new game called Fantasy A&R, where we take a classic album and attempt to improve/mutilate it by making our own stupid suggestions, such as adding or subtracting songs, swapping in alternate versions, and other probably ill-advised ideas. The first time we played Fantasy A&R, it was with the Beatles' "White Album." This time, we decided to play with a band who's even bigger than the Beatles, at least in their own minds: Oasis. Between 1994 and 1996, Oasis put out two classic albums, Definitely Maybe and (What's the Story) Morning Glory, along with a series of classic singles that included scores of B-sides beloved by fans and later compiled on The Masterplan. But what if Oasis' record company decided instead to take the best songs from the albums and singles to create a 14-track super album? What it would look like? How painful would it be to cut songs out of two '90s masterpieces in order to make it happen?  In this episode, I'm joined by fellow music critic and Oasis fan Stuart Berman to come up with our own "ultimate" mid-'90s Oasis album. Naturally, we intensely disagreed when it came to our choices, particularly when it came to which Morning Glory deep cuts to include. 

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Back in 2016, I wrote a column in which I declared that The Last Waltz is the best Thanksgiving movie. "It affirms the faith in the power of ritual to heal — at least temporarily — whatever is awkward or unresolved or plain broken about your familial bonds," I wrote. "Sometimes, that belief is just enough to make things okay for a little while." Last year, I invited friend of the pod Hanif Abdurraqib to revisit the film with me, and marvel at the majesty of Van Morrison's purple suit and Robbie Robertson's ill-considered gold-plated guitar. 

This Thanksgiving, I decided to keep the tradition going, firing up The Last Waltz once more with another friend of the pod, Steve Gorman. As the drummer of the Black Crowes, he watched the movie repeatedly on tour buses throughout the '90s, and over time came to recognize the weariness on the faces of The Band after years and years of touring. We talked about the unspoken resentments that linger in the film's interview sequences, as well as the subtle power of The Band's performances, which have not been diluted by the passage of time or the many, many rewatches. 

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In the week's episode of Celebration Rock we introduce a new game called Fantasy A&R, where we take a classic album and attempt to improve/mutilate it by making our own stupid suggestions, such as adding or subtracting songs, swapping in alternate versions, and other probably ill-advised ideas. 

The first album up for discussion is ripe for editing: The Beatles self-titled 1968 double-record, popularly known as "The White Album." This masterpiece turns 50 on Nov. 22, a milestone recently commemorated with a pricey box set. But we're not interested in making "The White Album" even longer. Instead, we've posed the opposite challenge: What would a tight 12-track version of this classic look like?

To help me figure this out, I've invited my friend Rob Mitchum to play Fantasy A&R with me. To be clear: We both agree that "The White Album" is better as a sprawling experience, in which weird curveballs like "Wild Honey Pie" sit next to undeniable bangers like "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." However, it's still fun to imagine what a shorter "White Album" would look like, if only because it's our chance to finally wipe "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" out of existence. Or is it? That song is kind of good, isn't it? Let's find out! 

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In the late '90s, the Dave Matthews Band was one of the biggest bands in the world. Each of their first three albums went multi-platinum, and their improvisational live shows made them a stadium headliner. And yet this hippie-friendly collective couldn't just put out any album that it pleased. In 1999 and 2000, they gathered at a house outside the band's hometown of Charlottesville, Va. to record songs that were eventually shelved in favor of a much poppier record released in 2001, Everyday. But when those songs, subsequently dubbed The Lillywhite Sessions — after the band's producer, Steve Lillywhite — leaked on Napster, they were adored by DMB's hard-core fans. 

In this episode, I revisit The Lillywhite Sessions wth one of those fans, indie-rock artist Ryley Walker, for another installment of our Contrarian's Canon series. Unlike other albums discussed in Contrarian's Canon, Ryley and I disagree sharply on The Lillywhite Sessions — he loves the album so much that he covered it in its entirety for an upcoming record due out Nov. 16, whereas I ... can't stand this album or DMB in general. But I am willing to be persuaded! Can Ryley pull off the impossible make me actually like the Dave Matthews Band, the scourge of my late-'90s college years?

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On this week's episode of Celebration Rock I invited Pitchfork senior editor (and now friend of the podcast) Stacey Anderson to discuss this month's most notable indie-rock albums. Our discussion began with Pinegrove, who's latest album Skylight is an affecting alt-country-leaning album that's a worthy follow-up to the band's 2016 breakout Cardinal. But much of the discussion of this band — or conspicuous lack of discussion — stems from the charges of sexual coercion levied against frontman Evan Stephens Hall that prompted Hall to voluntarily push back the album's release and reschedule tour dates. Stacey and I explored whether it's possible to set that baggage aside when listening to the music — or whether it's even right to do that. 

In the second half of the episode, we talked about two of the most reliable legacy artists in indie rock. Chan Marshall, who has put out records since the mid-'90s as Cat Power, returned in early October with her first album in six years, Wanderer, which ranks among her very best. As for Kurt Vile, he's been putting out consistently strong albums on a regular basis for a decade now. While his latest Bottle It In doesn't radically reinvent his formula of languid and meditative guitar jams, it suggests that his craftsmanship and lyrical insight are only growing richer with time. 

Finally, Stacey and I share some recent recommendations: Robyn's pop confessional Honey for her, and Colter Wall's country throwback Songs of the Plains for me. 

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In the past few weeks, two of 2018's most anticipated rock albums have been released: Trench by Twenty One Pilots and Anthem of the Peaceful Army by Greta Van Fleet. In my review of Trench, I noted that Twenty One Pilots have created a deep and fascinating mythology that extends over several albums, while also creating mild, kind of bland music that's been hugely successful on streaming platforms. If Twenty One Pilots epitomize the trends that dominate pop in the current moment, Greta Van Fleet is a conscious throwback to the classic-rock past. The group is shamelessly derivative of Led Zeppelin, but is it possible to be good at imitation? For this episode, I invited my friend and Celebration Rock producer Derek Madden to discuss these albums. Turns out that we don't quite see eye-to-eye: Derek likes Twenty One Pilots more than I do, and he also can't quite excuse Greta Van Fleet's "borrowing" of Zeppelin's sound. Who's right? Listen to us politely disagree!

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Last month, I invited great indie-rock guitarist and hilarious Twitter user Ryley Walker on the podcast to talk about an album that impacted both of our lives as teenagers, dc Talk's '90s Christian-rock opus Jesus Freak. It was so much fun that it inspired a new semi-regular series that I'm calling Contrarian Canon, in which Ryley and I will discuss an album that we love that hasn't gotten a ton of love critically over the years. The latest record that we're adding to the Contrarian Canon is 1994's The Division Bell, which might very well be the least well-regarded Pink Floyd album ever. At the time, The Division Bell was controversial because it was made without Pink Floyd's long-time leader and principal songwriter, Roger Waters. Over time, it has come to be regarded as an afterthought in Pink Floyd's catalogue, an empty artistic shell made by a once-great band. But Ryley and I both really like this record! While it's true that The Division Bell doesn't compare with indisputable classics like Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, and The Wall, it does a surprisingly good job of restoring Pink Floyd's classic sound, with extra emphasis on David Gilmour's majestic guitar playing. At the very least, we had fun revisiting the album recently while hanging out backstage and drinking Maker's Mark out of plastic cups.

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This month is the 15th anniversary of Logic Will Break Your Heart,the debut album by Montreal quartet The Stills, one of many scruffy, post-punk bands that followed in the wake of the Strokes in the early '00s. For a while, any band that sort of looked like the Strokes or sort of sounded like the Strokes had a shot at a major-label record deal. Many of those bands are now forgotten, but there are a handful of groups, like the Stills, that had at least one really good album in them. In this episode, critic Ian Cohen joins Steve in remembering some of those post-Strokes bands, including Secret Machines, Longwave, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Hot Hot Heat, and The Bravery. 

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Last Friday, a career-spanning box set called An American Treasure was released delving into the work of Tom Petty, in time for the one-year anniversary of the venerable rocker's death on Oct. 2. Unlike most retrospectives, An American Treasure largely eschews hits in order to illuminate some of the lesser known corners of Petty's music. But does this approach serve the man who wrote some of the best rock singles ever? I called up Steve Kandell, a writer and journalist whose work has appeared in Spin, Pitchfork and Buzzfeed, to talk about An American Treasure, and how our perceptions of Petty have changed (and in some cases improved) in the time since he passed. 

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If you've spent any time reading the liner notes of classic '90s rock albums, there's a very good chance you know the name Michael Beinhorn. As one of the era's top record producers, his credits include some of the best and most popular records of the decade: Soundgarden's Superunknown, Hole's Celebrity Skin, Marilyn Manson's Mechanical Animals, Soul Asylum's Grave Dancers Union, and many more. In a way, it was all a happy accident for Beinhorn, who got his start in New York City's avant-garde music scene in the early '80s. But after he co-wrote Herbie Hancock's electro-jazz smash hit "Rockit," Beinhorn became an in-demand producer, getting his big break in rock by working with the Red Hot Chili Peppers on their commercial breakthrough, 1989's Mother's Milk.  From there, he worked with some of the biggest personalities in alt-rock. Beinhorn is a warm conversationalist, and he was happy to tell stories about the making of some of his biggest projects. He discussed the struggles of making Superunknown, the awkwardness of dealing with drummer-related drama on Celebrity Skin, and whether the chaotic party atmosphere of Mechanical Animals ever got in the way of work. 

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Last month, I did a Celebration Rock episode on my favorite sleeper albums of 2018. This week, I figured that the need to talk about lesser known records is so great that it could sustain a semi-regular series of episodes. So, I called up my friend Jeremy Larson, the reviews editor at Pitchfork, and asked him if there were three albums from the past month that he thought could merit some extra conversation. Fortunately, he came up with three great choices: Low, Yves Tumor, and The Necks. And I had three picks of my own: The Lemon Twigs, Ruston Kelly, and Tomberlin. Between us, we came up with quite a variety of music, from a glam-style rock opera to confessional country to a mind-bending electronic to improvisational jazz. I guarantee you'll find something you love in this episode that you haven't already heard about.

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There used to be an old saying about how you should never talk about politics or religion in friendly conversation, because those are the topics guaranteed to make any interaction decidedly un-friendly. However, in the past few years, it's been seemingly impossible to avoid the most pressing social issues of the day, even in traditional sanctuaries like sports and pop culture. For this episode, I wanted to explore whether it's still possible for people who disagree ideologically to come tougher as music fans and geek out over a shared love of particular songs and albums. I also wanted to delve into a question I've long found fascinating: Given that pop music generally is dominated by liberal-minded artists, how do conservatives put that aside and enjoy the music? 

I figured a good person to discuss this was Jeff Blehar, host of the Political Beats podcast, which features journalists and pundits from the left and right expounding on their favorite artists, including MSNBC's Chris Hayes and National Journal's Charles C.W. Cooke. A "Never Trump" conservative, Blehar regularly listens to bands who don't adhere to his personal viewpoints, including Radiohead and the Clash. Given the struggles that liberals have had in 2018 reconciling Kanye West's apparent support of Donald Trump, is it really possible to "separate the art from the artist" in terms of politics? It's a hard question, and Blehar and I had a great conversation trying to figure it out. 

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Back in May, I interviewed the hilarious and talented singer-songwriter Ryley Walker about his very good recent album, Deafman Glance. But one of the most memorable parts of the conversation was a tangent about Christian rock, which had been a part of both of our lives as teenagers growing up in the midwest. Ryley mentioned an album I hadn't thought about in years but had heard a lot in high school, dc Talk's 1995 double-platinum smash Jesus Freak. Clearly, this was a topic worth exploring in greater detail, so I called Ryley up and did a deep dive into an album that doesn't get mentioned much in official histories of '90s alt-rock, even though it was a touchstone for millions of semi-rebellious, church-going kids.

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In this episode, we review some of the most notable rock albums from the month of August, including the latest from two legacy acts and recent highlights by two of indie-rock's brightest young acts. Joining me is "friend of the pod" Ian Cohen, whose name you surely recognize from his many bylines at Pitchfork, Stereogum, Spin, and many other outlets. On the legacy end, we have Interpol and Death Cab For Cutie, two indie-rock favorites that have weathered some recent hit-or-miss albums to put out some well-regarded comeback records. While Ian and I disagree on the Interpol vs. Death Cab divide, we both concur that Mitski's Be The Cowboy and Foxing's Nearer My God are among the very best albums of the year.

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If you have read any music writing at all online in the past 20 years, there's a very good chance you have encountered Mark Richardson in some way. As a long-time writer and editor for Pitchfork, Richardson has been reviewing records for one of the internet's top music sites for two decades. But he's arguably had more impact as a mentor to countless music critics, many of whom paid tribute to Mark when he announced earlier this year that he was departing Pitchfork after serving as executive editor and editor-in-chief since 2011.

Now that Richardson is no longer employed by Pitchfork — he plans to teach and write a new book — I figured I would invite him on the podcast for an exit interview of sorts. Thankfully, he agreed. 

Not only does Mark give an insider account of Pitchfork's early days, we also talked about the many ways that music writing has changed since the late '90s and early '00s. In short, social media changed everything — it was once possible to write something totally silly and brave (and even kind of brilliant) in a record review and have it come and go like the proverbial felled tree in the forest. Things are different now, of course — better in some ways, worse in others. But Mark was thoughtful about all of it.

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Fifty years ago this summer, one of the greatest debut albums in rock history was released. Though when The Band put out 1968's Music From Big Pink, they weren't exactly unknown. Two years prior, they had backed Bob Dylan on his first "electric" tour, supporting the iconic singer-songwriter as he faced hostile audiences all around the world. When the tour ended and Dylan retreated to upstate New York, the members of The Band joined him, setting up camp at a large house they dubbed "Big Pink," because of the faded red siding. 

What happened at that house has since become rock legend — Dylan and the Band collaborated on The Basement Tapes, a trove of home recordings that included future classics like "I Shall Be Released," "Tears Of Rage," and "This Wheel's On Fire." The Band also started working on the songs that would appear on their first record, like "The Weight," which was written by guitarist Robbie Robertson. 

In order to delve deep into the album's creation, and celebrate the music that was created — which will be reissued Aug. 31 as part of a special anniversary edition — I figured the best person to speak with was Robertson, who fortunately agreed to share some of his favorite stories from that period. We discussed the brilliance of The Band's troubled piano player Richard Manuel, the identity of the real-life "Fanny" from "The Weight," how the Band evolved from a loud, bluesy bar band to a pastoral folk-rock outfit, and the way that the band members perfected their unique vocal blend, which Robertson's likens to "passing the ball around."

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Throughout the year, really good albums come and go with minimal attention. What happens to those records once they are sucked into the black hole of bottomless content? Are they gone forever? In this episode, we try to rescue some worthy recent releases that might have slipped your attention in the past several months. We guarantee that you will discover at least a few records that you didn't know about already. The guest this week is Chris Deville, a staff writer at Stereogum. 

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One of the best things about being a music critic with a podcast is being able to ask an artist you've written about to confirm or deny opinions and theories you have about their music. For instance, when I reviewed Courtney's Barnett latest album Tell Me How You Really Feel, I suggested that her latest songs hint at a certain exhaustion from constant touring and weariness over her growing indie fame. But when I met up with Barnett recently before a large outdoor show in Minneapolis, she didn't really buy into this take on the record. Though she also didn't totally dispel it. A fascinating songwriter and powerful live performer, Barnett can be guarded in conversation. But during this podcast, she did manage to shed some light on her creative process and backstage life, as well reveal her ambitions to write a novel someday.

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On July 27, one of the greatest rock albums of modern times turns 25. At least I count Siamese Dream as one of the best guitar records of the past quarter-century — it seems like the overall stature of Smashing Pumpkins has slipped a bit. The band's current reunion tour is underperforming in some markets, after a botched launch marred by in-fighting and the departure of original bassist D'arcy Wretzky. And then there's the head Pumpkin, Billy Corgan, who's always had an uneasy relationship with the press. In recent years, he's flirted with the far right, becoming a repeat guest on Alex Jones' show. Some fans have wondered whether it's actually immoral to listen to his music now. 

This is heady stuff for those of us who still admire the guitar symphonies of Siamese Dream. To talk about the record, and whether the Pumpkins missed their window for a triumphant comeback, I called up friend of the podcast Ian Cohen, a long-time music writer of Pitchfork and Stereogum, and one of the staunchest Smashing Pumpkins fans you'll ever meet. 

Together, we talk about Corgan's recent foibles, and argue about whether Siamese Dream falls off after an all-time great side one. (I say yes while Ian, a loyal "Spaceboy" defender, says no.) 

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Even if you don't know the name Shawn Everett, it's very likely that you've enjoyed an album that he's produced, engineered, or mixed in the past several years. In 2015, he rose to prominence for his work on Alabama Shakes' Sound + Color, possibly the best-sounding rock record of the decade, which garnered him two Grammys. Everett won his third Grammy earlier this year for The War On Drugs' A Deeper Understanding, an album he helped to construct with Adam Granduciel in some of the finest studios in Los Angeles and New York City. 

Everett's resume doesn't stop there — his recent clients run the gamut of indie rock, pop, and country, including Grizzly Bear, John Legend, Perfume Genius, Kesha, The Killers, Hinds, Mike Gordon, The Voidz, and Kacey Musgraves. But no matter who he works with, Everett applies a personal aesthetic that melds the best of traditional recording techniques with big-eared adventurousness that always feels modern. 

I invited Everett on the podcast to talk about his recent experiences in the studio, and to also help clarify the mysteries of record production. Fans love to talk about how records sound, do we really know what we're talking about? What exactly does a producer or engineer do, aside from simply pressing the "record" button and capturing what musicians perform naturally? Everett provides a lot of insight into his process, while speaking in terms that anyone can understand. 

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This summer, Counting Crows will be back on the road for their "25 Years And Counting" tour, celebrating a quarter-century since the release of 1993's classic debut, August and Everything After. During that time, Counting Crows have maintained a sizable fanbase, even if the band hasn't always been fashionable or visible in the mainstream. According to singer-songwriter Adam Durtiz, people might feel differently about Counting Crows now if the band hadn't been so huge so early in its career — thanks to the success of the smash single "Mr. Jones," August sold seven million copies and made Duritz a fixture in the tabloids. But that notoriety also made Counting Crows a target for those who quickly tired of their earnest, emotional heartland rock. Nevertheless, great songs are great songs, and Duritz's work holds up as well as any artist from the '90s alt-rock generation. I've long been a fan of Duritz's songwriting, which stayed strong on subsequent albums like 1996's Recovering the Satellites up through Counting Crows' most recent album, 2014's Somewhere Under Wonderland. In this episode, Duritz opens up about his career, his beginnings as a songwriter, his feelings about how the media has covered his band, and the stories behind favorites like "Round Here," "Perfect Blue Buildings," and "A Long December."

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In the past decade. Starting with 2009's North Hills, the quartet has been distinguished by strong, understated ensemble playing and Taylor Goldsmith's earnest, narrative songwriting, which evokes the tenderness of Jackson Browne and the evocative storytelling of Warren Zevon. Dawes' latest album, Passwords, is the band's quietest, most austere effort, a marked contrast with 2016's adventurous and overstuffed (mostly in a good way), We're All Gonna Die. Reunited with producer Jonathan Wilson, who oversaw the first two Dawes albums before he went on to work with Father John Misty, much of Passwords is composed of shellshocked soft-rock tunes about the state of the world. I recently talked with Goldsmith about songwriting as well as the interesting place that his band has in contemporary rock — not quite mainstream, not quite indie. We also talked about what it's like to be engaged to the star of one of TV's most popular shows (pretty cool!), and whether it's ever awkward to work in the same business as your fiancee's ex-husband (sometimes but not really!). 

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Can you believe that we're already (almost) six months into the year? What better time to count down some of our favorite albums of 2018 so far. Joining Steve this week is friend of the pod Hanif Abdurraqib (They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us), who kindly took a break from a vacation getaway in New Mexico to give us five recommendations to match Steve's five choices.  

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On June 29, Jim James will release his third solo album, Uniform Distortion.  It's a loose, raw collection of guitar-heavy songs that rail against the darkness of modern times.   James is trying to fight that darkness in his personal life, too.   In our interview, he talks about going on a silent retreat in order to purify himself, how it felt to recently turn 40, and why believes in fighting the Trump Administration with kindness.  James also gives an update on My Morning Jacket, the ban's plans for its upcoming 20th anniversary, and the status of the two (!) MMJ albums currently in the can.

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The best part of having a podcast is that it gives me an excuse to reach out to people who I think are smart or interesting, and talk to them about topics that I find fascinating. Last month, when I was holed up in a Nashville hotel room for several days (I'll explain later), I had the chance to pick the brain of Tyler Mahan Coe, who you might know as the host of Cocaine & Rhinestones: The History Of Country Music. If you don't know Tyler, rectify that immediately, because Cocaine & Rhinestones is the best longform music podcast out there. 

I wanted to talk to Tyler about one of the great songwriters of the last 50 years, an enigmatic genius who endures 20 years after his death as the archetypal Texas troubadour, Townes Van Zandt. While his catalog of studio albums isn't large — he put out nine proper albums in his lifetime, over the course of about 25 years — Van Zandt is remembered as a foremost chronicler of romantic desolation, resigned fatalism, and profound loneliness. Since his death in 1997, his music has become a popular signifier of a kind of dusty southwestern noir, appearing in movies like Hell Or High Water and Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri. But in the popular consciousness, Van Zandt remains mysterious, known for standards like "Pancho And Lefty" and "If I Needed You" and but not usually celebrated with the likes Dylan, Cohen and Mitchell.

In this episode, Tyler and I talked about Van Zandt's career, and provide some tips for how to explore this man's rich, if also complicated career.

Support provided by:  Mack Weldon

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On June 1, big albums dropped by Kanye West and Father John Misty, and one of them was much better than the other. I talked about both records with Jeremy Larson of Pitchfork, who also shared his thoughts on how both artists' careers have evolved this decade. Jeremy and I also talked about Parquet Courts, who released the solid Wide Awake! in May, and whether they should be considered one of the best indie bands of the '10s.

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Recently, I had the chance to talk with two of the leading lights in contemporary indie rock. First, we visit 19-year-old phenom Lindsey Jordan of Snail Mail, whose full-length debut due next month, "Lush," is one of the most anticipated indie releases of 2018. But when we spoke, Jordan was eager to get past the hype and talk about two of her great loves: hockey and guitar shredding. Next, we met up with Molly Rankin of the delightful fuzz-pop group Alvvays in late April at the National's Homecoming Festival in Cincinnati. She told us about her Celtic folk past, and how studying Teenage Fanclub's 1991 classic "Bandwagonesque" helped her become one of contemporary indie's best writers of melancholy rock songs. 

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May has been a good month for notable rock releases, including albums by Arctic Monkeys, Courtney Barnett, and Beach House. For this episode, I contacted friend of the podcast Ian Cohen, whose writing has appeared at Pitchfork and Stereogum, to go over our thoughts on these records and more. Does Ian agree with me than Arctic Monkeys' Tranquility Base Hotel & Casinois one of the year's best albums? Does he like Courtney Barnett's Tell Me How You Really Feelas much as I do? Or do we just end up arguing for 50 minutes? Tune in to find out!

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Last week, I released my new book, Twilight Of The Gods: A Journey To The End Of Classic Rock. It's about the generation of rock stars from the '60s and '70s that is currently in the process of either retiring or passing away. (You can check out an excerpt here.) For this week's podcast, there was one person who I wanted to discuss this topic with, and that is Chuck Klosterman. Fortunately, when I invited Chuck to come on the podcast, he said yes. Chuck has his own book out right now, the paperback version of his recent compilation of magazine profiles, Chuck Klosterman X: A Highly Specific, Definitely Incomplete History Of The Early 21st Century. One of my favorite pieces in that book is about Jimmy Page, a figure who also features prominently in my book. This lead to a conversation about how the "Led Zeppelin phase" remains a fixture in the lives of many young people. From there we talked about a variety of rock topics, from the value of rock mythology to Nine Inch Nails' The Fragile to whether the #MeToo movement will change the ways that past behavior by rock stars is regarded. 

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In late April I visited Cincinnati to attend the first ever Homecoming, a festival headlined and curated by The National that also featured Father John Misty, Feist, Alvvays, The Breeders, Julian Baker, Moses Sumney, and many other great acts. I had a really good time! When I was there, I also had the chance to sit down with Matt Berninger and Aaron Dessner in their tour bus, and talk about the band's future. Lately, the band members have been involved in various activities, including writing a musical based on Cyrano de Bergerac and a collaborative album with another artist that they don't want to name yet. Matt and Aaron discussed those projects with me, as well as their feelings about their hometown, Matt's tendency to occasionally forget lyrics, and the greatness of their 2007 album Boxer. It's an essential listen for any National fan

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In 2016, I published my first book, Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me: What Pop Music Rivalries Reveal About the Meaning of Life. For all of the famous rivalries that I wrote about — The Beatles vs. the Rolling Stones, Kanye West vs. Taylor Swift, Tupac vs. Biggie — there is one rivalry that I didn't cover that readers have continually asked me about over the years: What about the Smiths vs. the Cure? To be honest, I thought this was only a debate that fans of '80s alternative rock cared about. And, really, how much of a debate is there anyway? If you like one band, there's a good chance you like the other, right? Yes ... but also no.  Not only do fans argue about these bands, the bands themselves have a legitimate beef.  Given that Morrissey was back in the news recently for saying some awful things once again in an interview, and the Cure also is back in the cultural conversation due to an anticipated 40th anniversary concert this summer in London, I decided to finally address this rivalry. I called up Elizabeth Bracy of The Paranoid Style, a huge Smiths fan, and I tried to convince her that the Cure might actually be the better band. Between you and me, I think I succeeded!

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A few months ago, I was on a serious Pete Yorn kick. The singer-songwriter, whose best-known album is his 2001 debut Musicforthemorningafter, has put out several quality LPs over the past two decades, including 2003's Day I Forgot and 2006's Nightcrawler. In 2016, he released a really good (and largely unheralded) comeback record, ArrangingTime, which arrived after a six-year hiatus. Because Yorn himself is unassuming and workmanlike, he's often been overshadowed by some of the flashier rock artists of the early '00s. But for all the talk about Is This It, White Blood Cells, Fever To Tell, and Turn On The Bright Lights, Yorn's early records are just as worthy of canonization.  One day, I decided to blindly reach out to Yorn on Twitter and ask if he would want to come on my podcast. To my surprise, Yorn responded and agreed to chat. Even better, he had new music to promote — a just-announced EP with friend Scarlett Johansson called Apart, the followup to their 2009 collaborative album Break Up, due out June 1. Thanks Twitter! I can't believe you were good for once!

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Way back in January 2016, I launched a podcast. Over the course of 99 episodes, I've interviewed musicians, writers, and lots of other interesting people. It's been a blast. For the 100th episode, I invited one of my favorite guests ever, Rolling Stone critic Rob Sheffield, and we answered listener questions. Our conversation touches on the secret links between Pavement and Taylor Swift, Rob's experience covering Woodstock 99, and of course The Five-Albums Test.

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Last fall I wrote about Go Farther In Lightness, the second album by Australian indie band Gang Of Youths. At the time, Gang Of Youths had a low profile in the United States in spite of great success at home. While the band plays arenas, tops the albums chart, and wins ARIAs (the Australian version of the Grammys) back home, they couldn't fill small clubs state-side. Nevertheless, I loved Go Farther In Lightness, and eventually put it at No. 5 on my year-end list. When I met up recently with Gang Of Youths' passionate singer-songwriter Dave Le'aupepe before a show in Minneapolis, he admitted that the band's previous gig in town drew just 20 people. But on Gang Of Youths' latest tour, things have dramatically shifted. Thanks to burgeoning support on streaming services and radio, as well as a recent appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers, Gang Of Youths played to packed clubs on the most recent leg of its tour. Le'aupepe seemed buoyed by the buzz around Gang Of Youths, though he insists that playing to 20 people can be just as inspiring. During our conversation, we talked about the band and the state of rock music, as well as his childhood and struggles with sobriety. It was a fun and emotionally intense conversation — just like Gang Of Youths' music.

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Let's go back 20 years to a fascinating time in music history. In 1998, the internet had not yet become the hub of how we listen to music — Napster was still one year away from taking over college campuses, and listeners were still required to fork over $18 for a CD to hear that one Barenaked Ladies song they heard on the radio. And yet 1998 was in many ways the beginning of what music would become in the 21st century. Alternative rock and gangsta rap, which had dominated youth culture just a few years prior, were basically over, paving the way for a new generation of artists. To help me revisit 1998, I called up Judy Berman, a fine critic who has written for the New York Times, Pitchfork, The Atlantic, and many other publications. We talked about our personal favorites, our "most 1998" albums, and the one 1998 classic that I feel is kind of sort of overrated. 

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"Boarding House Reach" is an utterly unique Jack White album — made with the assistance of ProTools, it's as layered and overstuffed as the White Stripes were austere and straight-forward. Unsurprisingly, some people love it and some people hate it. Steve falls on the love side, while his guest, Pitchfork senior reviews editor Jeremy Larson, definitely leans to the not-love side. So is this record a fun curveball or a confused mess? Could it possibly be both? 

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Of course Dean Ween is one of the founders of Ween, a band that has been putting out albums since 1990, though they haven’t had any new albums in a while. But he's also the leader of the Dean Ween Group, which just put out a new record, called "Rock 2." Now, my conversation with Dean is interesting. This was my second time talking to him, and I think he’s generally a friendly, funny, and gregarious guy. But I think you’ll notice that he’s also a little wary about delving too deep into his relationship with Gene Ween, his long-time partner in Ween. The state of their reunion is good but perhaps fragile. But Dean has plenty to say about this own music and his renewed passion for touring. I also talk with Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic.com about Ween's career and our favorite Ween albums. 

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If Robert Plant had stopped making music after 1980, his legacy would still be eternal as the lead singer of perhaps the greatest rock band ever, Led Zeppelin. But Plant has spent the past nearly 40 years following his own path, building a solo career that matches the output of any of his contemporaries. In this special interview, Plant looks back on his career and discusses how his need for constant change has keep him vital artistically for so long. Also, Steve talks with friend of the pod Steve Gorman about his experiences touring with Plant and his ex-bandmate Jimmy Page in the '90s. 

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The '90s are easily the least well-regarded decade of Bruce’s career. If people make note of this period, it’s to illustrate how far he fell without the E Street Band, who finally reunited with Bruce at the end of the decade to great acclaim and popular excitement, and have remained with the Boss ever since. And yet I’ve always had a soft spot for '90s Bruce. This period coincides with my coming-of-age years as a music fan. Bruce had been a fixture in my life since "Born in the U.S.A.," but it wasn’t until the '90s that I started to become a true hard-core fan and get deep into his catalogue. For fans of my generation, "Human Touch" and "Lucky Town" were the first big “new” Bruce albums of our lives. And then there's "The Ghost of Tom Joad," which as a piece of writing stands with anything he has ever done.  To talk about '90s Bruce, I called up Tim Showalter of Strand Of Oaks, who over time has evolved, like Bruce, from being a moody folkie to the maker of widescreen rock reocrds like 2014’s excellent "Heal" and 2017’s "Hard Love." In early 2018, he put out a very good outtakes collection form that album called "Harder Love."

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Released on Oct. 9, 1987, "Tunnel Of Love" has a reputation among some Springsteen fans as his “soft rock, baby boomer divorce record.” It’s true that "Tunnel Of Love" doesn’t exactly rock, and it’s definitely not guitar-heavy. Instead, it’s dominated by synthesizers, drum machines, and Springsteen’s weary, mature croon.If you care about lyrics, "Tunnel Of Love" is every bit as gut-wrenching as "Nebraska." And the music suits those lyrics — this is an introspective record, and the contemplative music inevitably sends the listener inward, evoking a sleepless night filled with various shades of blue poring through a bedroom window, the kind that a married person looks out as he or she wonders why in the hell their spouse still isn’t home at 2 a.m. To talk about "Tunnel Of Love," I called up John Darnielle, who started writing and recording songs under the moniker of the Mountain Goats in the early '90s. Since then, he’s earned a reputation as one of the best songwriters in indie rock, known for a literary style that, like Springsteen, touches both on autobiographical material and, more notably, fictional characters who are sketched out with flesh blood authenticity. 

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After the stripped-down "Nebraska," Bruce Springsteen went in the opposite direction for 1984's "Born In The U.S.A.," one of the most popular rock albums ever made. Springsteen was so popular at this time that he was inevitably commodified and turned into a caricature. As much as "Born In The U.S.A." made him beloved, it also instilled overwhelming dislike in his detractors. I was curious to talk to someone who loves Bruce and loves "Born In The U.S.A." but still retains some skepticism about what the album signifies and how it impacted his career. Fortunately I was able to get hold of Patterson Hood, co-founder of one of the great American rock bands of the last 20 years, Drive-By Truckers.

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In 1982, Bruce Springsteen released "Nebraska," a stark collection of acoustic songs recorded at home on a four-track in one marathon session. It's an album about criminals and economic hardship and flawed father figures, with lots of spooky echo and heavy shadows. While it was considered at the time his least accessible record, "Nebraska" now stands as one of Springsteen's popular releases, particularly with younger audiences raised on indie rock. To discuss "Nebraska," I called up Phoebe Bridgers, an exciting 23-year-old singer-songwriter from Los Angeles. In 2017, she put out a very good debut album, "Stranger In The Alps." "Nebraska" had already been out for 20 years when Bridgers heard it for the first time, but she was still able to find something personal in this iconic reord. 

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For Bruce Springsteen 1980 double-album "The River," I spoke with Patrick Stickles of Titus Andronicus, whose latest album, "A Productive Cough," comes out March 2. I met up with Stickles at his apartment in Brooklyn right after my plane landed, and there's a definite late-night vibe to this episode that suits the album. "The River" is a fulcrum in Springsteen's career, summing up what he had done on his other albums up to that point, and also providing some clues as to where he was headed. 

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Our Bruce Springsteen series continues with Julien Baker, a wonderful artist whose 2017 album "Turn Out The Lights" was one of my favorite LPs of that year. Even though she was born almost 20 years after it was released in 1978, Baker is a huge fan of the angry, musically ferocious "Darkness On The Edge Of Town," which spawned Springsteen classics like "Badlands," "Racing in the Streets," and "Prove It All Night." 

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In episode two of our special Bruce Springsteen series, Jeff Rosenstock dives into the first true masterpiece of Springsteen's career, 1975's "Born To Run." While Rosenstock was raised on punk and ska music, he was also drawn to Springsteen's most uplifting and spirited record, highlighted by classics like the title track, "Thunder Road," and the climactic "Jungleland," which boasts the greatest and most dramatic sax solo in rock history. How did Bruce pull off an album that walks the tightrope between poetic transcendence and potential self-parody? Jeff helps us figure it out!  

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Welcome to 20th Century Boss, our in-depth series on the albums that Bruce Springsteen released in the '70s, '80s, and '90s. In episode one, Brian Fallon of The Gaslight Anthem joins us to discuss 1973's "Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.," and "The Wild, The Innocent, and The E Street Shuffle." In many ways, these are the "prequel" albums for Springsteen's peak era, which commenced with Born To Run. But Fallon remains a steadfast fan of "Greetings," the album that ushered him into Bruce fandom when he was a teenager in the early '90s. While Springsteen's songwriting was less refined on these releases, the sheer exuberance and invention of his wordy, image-filled songs are still plenty thrilling.

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