January 2011
13 posts
20 tags
WQHS Blog's Best Albums of 2010
As 2k11 begins, the DJs of WQHS bring you their top albums of the past year
Check out our entire list after the jump:
[photo via hipsterpuppies.tumblr.com]
10. Vampire Weekend- Contra
Vampire Weekend is known for creating contradictions. Its very identity is a paradox; the group formed on the Upper West Side with a sound inspired by African popular music. (This tension is perfectly...
3 tags
R.E.M.: Discoverer
Not many bands stick around long enough to release 55 singles. R.E.M. have. There’s definitely been much more good than bad in R.E.M.’s stacked canon of singles over the years. Lead singles from this millenium like “Imitation of Life” and “Supernatural Superserious” have proven that R.E.M. are still as valuable as they are venerable.
Unlike these previous...
December 2010
8 posts
6 tags
Tame Impala @ The 7th Street Entry (Minneapolis,...
It was the Saturday after Thanksgiving and I was driving a crowded and excited car in downtown Minneapolis, rushing to make Tame Impala’s showon time. It was freezing outside (literally, it never got above 30 the whole weekend) but once inside the 7th Street Entry we warmed up quickly — the place was packed almost immediately. We had luckily bought tickets for the show in advance: the Aussie...
5 tags
Previewing Bright Eyes: The People's Key
“It does feel like it needs to stop at some point,” indie stalwart Conor Oberst said of his band Bright Eyes to Rolling Stone last year. “I’d like to clean it up, lock the door, say goodbye.” If locking the door is indeed what Oberst wants to do, then Bright Eyes’ eighth (and perhaps final) studio album is aptly named The People’s Key. The band’s...
4 tags
Grant Dubler: The Political Imagination of John...
Thirty years ago Wednesday, four bullets pierced the skin of one of the world’s finest musicians and most passionate political activists, forever changing the way we listen to the iconic songs he and has rag-tag band of Liverpoolians wrote and played in the name of peace and love. John Lennon’s untimely death at the hands of a deranged fan in December 1980 brought to an end a life lived in the...
5 tags
The Antlers @ First Unitarian Church 12/3
The people of Philadelphia were treated to a powerful performance last Friday night courtesy of Brooklyn indie-rock band The Antlers. The dim, cramped basement of the First Unitarian Church on 22nd and Chestnut is reminiscent of the Elks’ Lodges and VFW halls which so often play host to punk and hardcore acts, but the bands onstage insisted on playing brilliant, beautiful, soaring music.
...
5 tags
Check this out: Rewards
After five years, two albums, and an iPod nano commercial, Aaron Pfenning is taking a break from Chairlift to carve out his own musical niche in the form of Rewards. Some have compared Rewards’ sound to the Killers’ “desert disco pop” (whatever that means, SPIN magazine/Brandon Flowers), but Pfenning more appropriately relates his own music to the dark, ethereal pop of bands like Echo and the...
4 tags
Norah Jones: ...Featuring
Norah Jones’ new album, …Featuring, is a satisfying compilation of past songs, all tracks on which Jones collaborated with other artists. With musicians as diverse as Ray Charles, M. Ward, Belle and Sebastian, Willie Nelson, The Foo Fighters and Dolly Parton jamming with Jones it’s no surprise to find a great diversity of sounds.
From the wholly Ray-Charlesian “Here We Go Again” to the...