Posts by Garin Pirnia

With the record industry in flux, 2008 will be full of surprises. Expect new mainstream releases from Coldplay, Madonna and Weezer sometime this year, and indie releases from Toyko Police Club’s, M83, Raveonettes, and Deerhunter's Bradford Cox new band, Atlas Sound. In the first quarter alone, a lot of spectacular releases are expected. And away we go.

Beyond top 40 radio spinning Rihanna every half hour, there is another realm of music waiting to be snatched up. This summer, turn off the radio and plug into a couple of internet music blogs and webzines to unearth gems from these engrossing performers and to conceive an indie soundtrack to the season.

Seattle based sextet, Pretty Girls Make Graves (yes, like that Smiths song) have been recording their punk/goth music since 2002

Box is an audacious debut from a band and Bates, who will continue to cultivate his aural inclinations into unexpected directions.

Rocky Votolato shouldn’t be written off when if comes to earnest
folk music, but most of the album is banal with not enough distinction
between the songs. He is a fine songwriter and musician, but his music
doesn’t burst to life like some of his more refined predecessors.

The beginning of the year can be a sluggish time, so the following is a list of artists and bands to look forward to along with some long-awaited albums from a plethora of our favorite artists.

Not evolving into the mediocrity of Counting Crows, The Long Winters fall into the category of indie in the vein of more than one hit wonder bands Harvey Danger and Nada Surf, who are passionate and attentive about personal experiences yet have commercial appeal. Ultimatum becomes a genial sample for a band that isn

Here are fifteen Brit Rock bands focusing on quality versus quantity and thus may get lost in the clutter of bigger hyped bands, but they

The Rosebuds are one of those charming indie bands emerging from the storied North Carolina scene featuring such legends as Superchunk and Archers of Loaf.

Here’s our list of re-imagined or re-interpreted covers, meaning the artist took the song and made it a completely new entity juxtapositioning genres

Infectious 60s tinged pop music isn

While the music industry defines a hit by how it ranks on the Billboard Charts, the essence of a hit is something else. It

Every year the media deems a few bands

Lead singer Rachel Hagen sounds a bit like Gwen Stefani, except with better vocalizations on the rock tracks. On slower songs she sounds like Amy Lee of Evanescence, except coarser.

David Singer

The Scissor Sisters may be the ephemeral band of the moment, a novelty act if you will, but at least they look like they have as much fun as the audience, living right in the moment and basking in the warm glow while it lasts.

Omaha, Nebraska is slowly turning into the new New York with a couple of bands emerging from the cornfields to make big names for themselves. The first to do so was the emo band Bright Eyes headed by Omaha native Conor Oberst. Now it’s the electro-dance group The Faint.

R.L

What is the significance of a song? A single song can conjure up a memory from a certain period in one

Since Titanic went way overboard, not a single soundtrack has made a major breakthrough, despite the fact there are some really good ones out there waiting to be discovered. So we compiled a list of some of the best contemporary soundtrack albums in the past 20 years, from some beloved, and some not so beloved films.