Music Stars

Latest Articles

Billboard's Rap Songs chart

The Big Hurt: Who charted?
In the immortal words of O.D.B., "Rappenin' is what's happenin'."
By DAVID THORPE | July 05, 2010

The Big Hurt: Vince Neil acts his age

Plus The Situation singled, Drake unsurpassed, Pete Doherty denied, Lou Reed exonerated
By the time you read this, the Situation will have his first single out on iTunes. Yeah, that the Situation.
By DAVID THORPE | June 22, 2010

Dare to be filthy

Semi Precious Weapons celebrate partying and poverty
After a few tours, any rock act worth its decibels should be able to name a couple of its wilder shows with little effort, but Justin Tranter’s pick for most memorable Semi Precious Weapons concert sounds especially libertine.
By REYAN ALI | June 28, 2010

Crossword: ''Rumble in the Bowl''

Part of this unbalanced breakfast.
Part of this unbalanced breakfast.
By MATT JONES | July 03, 2010

Bonnaroo 2010 (Saturday): [Photos] The Avett Brothers, Clutch, Norah Jones, and more

Live from Bonnaroo 2010 | June 12, 2010
The Avett Brothers, Clutch, Norah Jones, Dawes, and Elmwood, live at Bonnaroo 2010
By GARY GURTCHEFF | June 14, 2010

Coming soon, unfortunately

Music you don't want
Despite last month's record sales (the lowest since anyone's been keeping track), some artists still don't get the picture: nobody wants music anymore .
By DAVID THORPE | June 15, 2010

Head games

Deb Todd Wheeler and Ben Sloat give conceptual art a kick
One of the best artworks seen around here in recent years was Newton artist Deb Todd Wheeler's installation Live Experiments in Human Energy Exchange , at the (now defunct) Green Street Gallery in Jamaica Plain in 2006.
By GREG COOK | June 10, 2010

Into the weird

Welcome to our many small worlds
No, it's not your imagination: things are getting smaller. Or at least, it seems that way in the funhouse-mirror world of modern music, where the semi-demise of the major-label factory has colluded with the anti-star obsession of the underground to produce a chasing of microgenres into mazes of musical self-selection.
By DANIEL BROCKMAN | June 10, 2010

The Big Hurt: A big country lesbian pissing match

Music news in brief
Reports began to surface recently that a major country star was set to come out of the closet in People magazine. I had high hopes for Chris Gaines, but no such luck.
By DAVID THORPE | May 17, 2010

Review: The Back-Up Plan

It's laughing all the way to the sperm bank
As a pregnant single woman, Jennifer Lopez glows spectacularly. Director Alan Poul’s bland baby comedy, however, appears to have been a light labor.
By ALICIA POTTER | April 28, 2010

The Big Hurt: Dialing up Billboard’s Ringtones Chart

Who Charted?
We may scoff at the very idea of Billboard ’s ignominious Ringtones chart, but mobile phones are one of only three viable revenue channels musicians have left these days (the other two being commercial licensing and crooked charities).
By DAVID THORPE | April 26, 2010

Making change

John Sinclair vs. ‘the dictates of conventional society’
John Sinclair’s poem “Ask Me Now” leaves little question about the poet’s values.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | April 21, 2010

The Big Hurt: ICP take on magnets

Plus Slash loves Axl and Dre does Freddie
Would that I could simply post the entire lyric to “Miracles” by INSANE CLOWN POSSE and call it an article.
By DAVID THORPE | April 13, 2010

Make yourself uncomfortable

Xiu Xiu bloom on Dear God
In the past month, Sandra Bullock’s husband betrayed her by screwing a white supremacist with a face tattoo, a Georgia teenager was granted the right to take his boyfriend to prom, and Ricky Martin declared himself a “fortunate homosexual man.”
By EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | April 06, 2010

The Big Hurt: Say anything

The week in YouTube comments
It’s almost impossible to read a single page of YouTube comments without being confronted by society’s ugliest afflictions: ignorance, pointless fights, horrifying racism, and unfair criticism of Justin Bieber’s haircut.
By DAVID THORPE | April 12, 2010

Asher Roth & DJ Wreckineyez | Seared Foie Gras W/ Quince And Cranberry

School Boy (2010)
Now that Boston boy toy Sam Adams has blown onto hip-hop’s front lines, there’s almost room for original frat rapper Asher Roth to find a respectable position somewhere between the big-indie Atmosphere types and the upper echelon of major-label boom-bap.
By CHRIS FARAONE | April 07, 2010

The Big Hurt: Bieber fever

Plus U2’s purported fans, and Keane hits the green
Of the 45 headlines on mtv.com’s music-news section, nine are about JUSTIN BIEBER . That’s precisely 20 percent.
By DAVID THORPE | March 30, 2010

Peter Wolf | Midnight Souvenirs

Verve/UME (2010)
This Boston music legend’s metamorphosis from party animal to monster songwriter became complete with his previous solo album.
By TED DROZDOWSKI | March 30, 2010

Championship vinyl

Flavorheard, Frank White, and Mister Jason are Fever
You have a better chance of hearing Taylor Swift songs banging out of Kanye’s tinted windows than you do of hearing either of their pop asses on the Good Life speakers during Fever.
By CHRIS FARAONE | March 31, 2010

Review: The Last Song

Emotional kidney punches involving arson, divorce, and sea turtle eggs
Bestselling novelist Nicholas Sparks ( The Notebook , Dear John ) and effervescent ’tween queen Miley Cyrus hook up for one of Sparks’s patented tearjerkers.
By TOM MEEK | March 31, 2010

SXSW 2010 (Friday): [Photos] Thee Oh Sees, Bear In Heaven, Bowerbirds

With Explode Into Colors and Quasi, March 19. 2010
Photos of Thee Oh Sees, Bear In Heaven, Bowerbirds, Explode Into Colors, Quasi at SXSW 2010
By P. NICK CURRAN | March 22, 2010

Joyride

The Worcester Art Museum shows us ‘Who Shot Rock & Roll’
It is May 1966, in the Prelude Club in Harlem, an Atlantic Records release party.
By GREG COOK | March 24, 2010

The Big Hurt: Now hiring

Music news in brief
If you're a musician looking to break into the big leagues, now's your chance.
By DAVID THORPE | March 16, 2010

Home and away

Zach Jones's diasporic Fading Flowers
For many songwriters, home is where the art is.
By SAM PFEIFLE | March 17, 2010

Review: Jay-Z at TD Garden

Jay-Z, live at TD Garden, March 11, 2010
There was something about the way Jay-Z hyped the crowd up at the start of show opener "Run This Town" that was not only emblematic of his performance style, but of his general appeal as a performer -- a key to his likability.
By DANIEL BROCKMAN | March 22, 2010

Photos: Jay-Z at TD Garden

Jay-Z, live at TD Garden, March 11, 2010
Photos of Jay-Z's Boston stop on his BP3 tour.
By KELLY DAVIDSON | March 12, 2010

The Big Hurt: Lightfoot lives!

Plus Weezy tweets and Mayer backpedals
Last week, the world was gripped in the terror of a GORDON LIGHTFOOT death scare when a realistic-looking Twitter obit was picked up by several Canadian papers.
By DAVID THORPE | March 02, 2010

Two great flavors

Freeway and Jake One team up to lay it down
"When I said that I wanted to use 'What We Do' as a single," Freeway explains, "people said it couldn't happen because it didn't have a hook. You know how the rest of that one goes."
By CHRIS FARAONE | February 16, 2010

The Big Hurt: Dispatches from Splitsville

FOB fall out; Scorpions subsist; Tyler frightens shoppers
Ladies and gentlemen, the unthinkable has happened: Fall Out Boy have split up.
By DAVID THORPE | February 09, 2010

Fela Kuti | The ’69 L.A. Sessions

Knitting Factory (2010)
Amiri Baraka put it best in his poem "In the Funk World": "If Elvis Presley is King/Who is James Brown, God?" So, by that logic, is Fela Anikulapo Kuti higher than or equal to God?
By ZETH LUNDY | February 09, 2010