Jason Gross is the founder and editor of Perfect Sound Forever, the longest-running internet music publication, with its monthly schedule dating back to 1993 (roughly three years before I even knew what a “web” was). Gross has written for numerous publications over the years (Spin, the Village Voice, Blurt, et al.), produced critically acclaimed CD reissues by Delta 5, Kleenex, and Essential Logic (via the Kill Rock Stars label), and for many years was a panelist and organizer at SXSW, which, like everything else in the entertainment industrial complex, is currently on hold due to COVID. Continue reading “Interview with Jason Gross (Perfect Sound Forever)”
I interviewed Jason recently about this feature—19 years in the running—which will be posted here hopefully later this week.
Frank, from his 2021 ballot:
I joked that I was doing the Uproxx [critics’ poll] as a conceptual art piece, i.e., I knew my ballot wasn’t going to make an impact. But I was actually doing it to combat my alienation and to engage with some of my critic friends via email. Continue reading “Frank Kogan’s 2021 ballot”
…singles
Deliberately set out to hear (stream) more new music in 2021 than I have since whenever it was I used to write about the stuff, and that was a good thing. And I previewed a great deal of it in as unfiltered a fashion as is still possible—with zero prior knowledge of song, artist, sometimes even genre. One unintended not so great consequence was that it ultimately meant a lot more stuff to half-listen to. Constantly adding to playlists merely feeds my worst tendencies as a dabbler. Still, these ten are pretty well test-driven (in no specific order), and with more time and energy the list could quite easily be doubled. Continue reading “My year in”
The Boston Phoenix (1973-2013), once home to many great music critics, is now available online, full issues intact, and it includes a search engine. (Navigation, as with 99% of archival stuff you find on the web, is a little less than intuitive, but hey.)
Needless to say, the pandemic figures heavily in my choices this year. Continue reading “Top 12 Songs of 2021 (Howard Druckman)”
My friend Isabel Cole explained to me that in horoscope-speak your “moon” is the secret Spotify playlist that you’d make to soundtrack your inner life. She also reminded me that astrology is fake, which is why it’s good—it’s like an improvisational prompt with arbitrary parameters to ensure it’s not just an act of confirmation bias. Continue reading “Top 50 Favourite Songs: David Cooper Moore”
(Originally posted in 2005)
By Steven Ward
Matt Resnicoff crossed a line. The former Musician Senior Editor and Guitar Player and Guitar World writer is now a professional guitarist and record producer. During the e-mail interview below, Resnicoff talks about working for Musician (a magazine he once described as “The New Yorker of music magazines”), and the good and not-so-good aspects of interviewing and writing about musicians. Although he doesn’t miss his music-writing past, he admits it was fun working with such talented people. Continue reading “From the Archives: Interview with Matt Resnicoff (2005)”
I could have done another fifty, but I’m sure everybody says that. These aren’t in order of preference as much as the order I remembered them; I did a similar list when I turned 50 so this cannibalizes that a bit. As my friend Chris Buck said about his list, the period when I really, intensely connected to music lasted roughly from the ‘70s till maybe the turn of the millennium. Continue reading “Top 50 Favourite Songs: Rick McGinnis”
RockCritics.com 