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Music Features

Monday November 18, 2013

Garret Klahn of Texas Is The Reason performing in London this summer during the band's reunion tour. Brigitte Engl/Redferns via Getty Images hide caption

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Brigitte Engl/Redferns via Getty Images

A Rational Conversation: Is Emo Back?

November 18, 2013 • Follow the jibber jabber on the music internet and it sounds like emo — the broadly defined, male-dominated, compositionally complicated, often pained offshoot of American punk rock — is back. But what kind of emo has returned, exactly? And is it the beloved or the maligned parts?

Thursday November 14, 2013

Business As Usual At The Brooklyn Electronic Music Festival

John Digweed, shown here performing in August at Electric Zoo, was one of the biggest names at the Brooklyn Electronic Music Festival last weekend. Daniel Zuchnik/Getty Images hide caption

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Daniel Zuchnik/Getty Images

Business As Usual At The Brooklyn Electronic Music Festival

November 14, 2013 • Underground dance music is retreating from the EDM juggernaut by moving toward tastefulness. But in dance music, as in life, the line between polite and tedious is perilously thin.

Wednesday November 13, 2013

'12 Years A Slave' Is This Year's Best Film About Music

Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon Northup in 12 Years a Slave. Courtesy of Fox Searchlight hide caption

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Courtesy of Fox Searchlight

'12 Years A Slave' Is This Year's Best Film About Music

November 13, 2013 • Director Steve McQueen semi-submerged a narrative that roots out the way music has fed both racism and the fight against it, from the time in which his hero Solomon Northup lived to the present.

Thursday November 7, 2013

Eminem, in a still from his video for "Don't Front," a bonus track on The Marshall Mathers LP 2. Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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Courtesy of the artist

Review

Eminem: The Great Confounder

November 7, 2013 • It's almost as if, on The Marshall Mathers LP 2, he's trying everything to be accepted and unacceptable, all at once. Yet his ability to be lyrically captivating through it all is astounding.

Tuesday November 5, 2013

A Rational Conversation: Molly Lambert On Music Biopics

The real TLC (from left to right, Tionne 'T-Boz' Watkins, Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes and Rozonda 'Chilli' Thomas) in the early-'90s. Tim Roney/Getty Images hide caption

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Tim Roney/Getty Images

A Rational Conversation: Molly Lambert On Music Biopics

November 5, 2013 • What do viewers want from musician biopics, like last month's VH1 movie about TLC? And what makes some of them work while others fail (horribly, horribly fail)?

Saturday November 2, 2013

Paramount Records: The Label Inadvertently Crucial To The Blues

King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band in Chicago in 1923: Louis Armstrong is kneeling, from left to right behind him are Honore Dutrey, Baby Dodds, King Oliver, Lil Hardin, Bill Johnson and Johnny Dodds. Frank Driggs Collection/Getty Images hide caption

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Frank Driggs Collection/Getty Images

The Record

Paramount Records: The Label Inadvertently Crucial To The Blues

November 2, 2013 • A furniture company recorded all of the top African-American blues and jazz performers of the 1920s. Despite its roster's firepower, the label folded after just 15 years in business. A new reissue project tries to recapture some of the Paramount Records magic.

Paramount Records: The Label Inadvertently Crucial To The Blues

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Friday November 1, 2013

Holding Music History In Your Hands: Why Archives Matter

Ma Rainey Georgia Jazz Band posing for a studio group shot in the mid-1920s, with Thomas A. Dorsey at the piano. JP Jazz Archive/Redferns hide caption

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JP Jazz Archive/Redferns

The Record

Holding Music History In Your Hands: Why Archives Matter

November 1, 2013 • Listening to lost sounds, even in gorgeous new packages, isn't all that's needed when it comes to really understanding how popular music has shaped Americans' lives.

Thursday October 31, 2013

Lonnie Holley. Courtesy of Force Field PR hide caption

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Courtesy of Force Field PR

The Record

Lonnie Holley: Self-Made Man

October 31, 2013 • The sculptor and painter has been making music for decades, sending tapes to his friends, but only recently began releasing albums.

Wednesday October 30, 2013

Where Rock The Bells Fails, Drake's Tour Succeeds

Drake backlit at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Monday night. Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images hide caption

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Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images

The Record

Where Rock The Bells Fails, Drake's Tour Succeeds

October 30, 2013 • In these days of dusty, overbooked festivals run rampant, a smooth-sounding, tight bill with the promise of a good-looking, down to party hometown crowd makes that cash register sing.

Monday October 28, 2013

Street Queens Bury Competition In Brass Band Blowout

The Pinettes Brass Band parading into the judges area on Saturday. Courtesy of Matt Sakakeeny hide caption

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Courtesy of Matt Sakakeeny

The Record

Street Queens Bury Competition In Brass Band Blowout

October 28, 2013 • In New Orleans this weekend a Red Bull-sponsored battle of the bands corporatized a tradition but still hit all the right notes.

Sunday October 27, 2013

Lou Reed onstage in Amsterdam in 1975. Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns hide caption

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Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns

The Record

What Lou Reed Taught Me

October 27, 2013 • Reed made me realize that, for all of my self-stylings as a rebel in love with noise that stripped away the unnecessary, I didn't know the first thing about rock music inflicting the pain of clarity.

Lou Reed onstage in London in 1975 playing a transparent, Plexiglass guitar. Reed died Sunday. He was 71. Denis O'Regan/Getty Images hide caption

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Denis O'Regan/Getty Images

The Record

Lou Reed, Beloved Contrarian, Dies

October 27, 2013 • An American rock musician born in Freeport on Long Island, N.Y., Lou Reed epitomized New York City's artistic underbelly in the 1970s, with his songs about hookers and junkies. Reed was 71.

Lou Reed, Beloved Contrarian, Dies

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Wednesday October 23, 2013

Arcade Fire In The Throes Of Transformation

Arcade Fire on Saturday night in Bushwick. Win Butler on the left, Richard Reed Parry on the right. Courtesy of Sachyn Mital hide caption

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Courtesy of Sachyn Mital

The Record

Arcade Fire In The Throes Of Transformation

October 23, 2013 • The masquerading group that played in Brooklyn this weekend was clearly neither a set of wide-eyed naïfs dropping their first 12", nor the band that made sneaking out of your parents house feel like toppling the Berlin Wall.

Tuesday October 22, 2013

Do We Really Need Bob Dylan And Van Morrison Box Sets?

Van Morrison, Bob Dylan and The Band's Robbie Robertson (from left to right) onstage in 1976. The performance was filmed for Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz. United Artists/Getty Images hide caption

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United Artists/Getty Images

The Record

Do We Really Need Bob Dylan And Van Morrison Box Sets?

October 22, 2013 • Recent collections of the musicians' outtakes enhance our understanding of transitional portions of monumental careers. That doesn't make them essential, though.

Monday October 21, 2013

Do Surprise Album Releases Work For Everyone?

Courtesy of Def Jam Records

The Record

Do Surprise Album Releases Work For Everyone?

October 21, 2013 • An industry vet weighs the pros and cons of musicians dropping albums with little warning.