When Rent Was Cheap and Dance Music Reigned
Sasha Frere-Jones on Tim Lawrence’s book “Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor: 1980-1983,” about four years in the life of a dozen New York clubs.
View ArticleFade Out
Sasha Frere-Jones shares his favorite columns from his time at The New Yorker.
View ArticleThe Sleater-Kinney Solution
For some fans, the band is proof that the dream of rock for and by women isn’t dead. Sasha Frere-Jones reviews the new album, “No Cities to Love.”
View ArticleD’Angelo Reborn
Sasha Frere-Jones on D’Angelo’s new album. “Black Messiah” is an unexpected masterpiece, at the right time.
View ArticleMusic and 2014: Everyday Messiahs
I was bothered by how absent musicians have been from the public protests that have followed the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.
View ArticleTV on the Radio’s “Seeds”
Sasha Frere-Jones on the new album: the group has the curiosity of Radiohead, but there is no “puffed-up rejection of being a live rock band.”
View ArticleParquet Courts and PC Worship at Webster Hall
Sasha Frere-Jones on two bands reviving the city’s rock scene.
View ArticleThe Wu-Tang Clan’s “A Better Tomorrow”
Sasha Frere-Jones on the new album: it’s a bit defanged, but every m.c. is as strong as he was twenty years ago.
View ArticleYo La Tengo’s Thirtieth Anniversary
Sasha Frere-Jones on the cool kids who refuse to act cooler than you, at Town Hall on Dec. 3 and 4.
View ArticleThe Swedish Invasion
Swedish influence is everywhere in pop music—even Taylor Swift’s new album. Sasha Frere-Jones on the rise of Swedepop.
View ArticleThe Sound of Decay
Sasha Frere-Jones on William Basinski. With “The Disintegration Loops” and “Cascade,” he has built a career from fragments of old audio tape.
View ArticleBob Dylan’s “The Basement Tapes Complete”
Sasha Frere-Jones on the new Dylan box set: it captures the moment when, following a 1966 motorcycle crash, he became a different musician.
View ArticleAphex Twin’s “Syro”
Sasha Frere-Jones reviews Aphex Twin’s new album, which may be his most accessible and joyful. It’s “a landscape in which humans are welcome.”
View ArticleMusic Festival, Done Correctly
Do you live in an attractive, semi-rural town? Then you could pull off your own modest, focussed SoundScape.
View ArticleFree Cookies
When I spoke to Ben Sterling, of Cookies, for a piece in this week’s Goings On About Town, we came upon the subject of perfect recordings.
View ArticlePerfume Genius’s “Too Bright”
Sasha Frere-Jones reviews Perfume Genius’s expansive, exuberant new album, which is “outside most conceptions of pop.”
View ArticleAccept Cookies
Sasha Frere-Jones considers “Music for Touching,” Ben Sterling’s project Cookies, at Baby’s All Right.
View ArticleU2’s Forgettable Fire
A track-by-track guide to the new U2 album, “Songs Of Innocence,” that was made available for free to iTunes users at Tuesday’s Apple event.
View Article
