Steely Dan honored Walter Becker with a performance of “Book of Liars,” a song from Becker’s solo debut album11 Tracks of Whack,in Buffalo on Tuesday. “[Becker]’s usually standing right here, and it’s weird for me,” Donald Fagen noted before starting the song. Steely Dan stayed close to the original recording …
Read More »Tragically Hip's Gord Downie Dead at 53
Gord Downie, the lead singer for the beloved Canadian alt-rock bandthe Tragically Hip, died Tuesday at the age of 53. The cause was terminal brain cancer. “Last night, Gord quietly passed away with his beloved children and family close by,” his familywrote in a statement. “Gord knew this day was …
Read More »On the Charts: Rapper NF Grabs First Number One With 'Perception'
Michigan rapper NF notched this first career Number One album as his new LP Perception debuted atop the Billboard 200. Perception sold 55,000 total copies – 38,000 of which were traditional copies – to give NF, born Nate Feuerstein, the top spot. The rapper’s previous Billboard 200 peak was Number …
Read More »Chance the Rapper, the National to Play Obama Foundation Concert
Chance the Rapper, the National and Gloria Estefan are among the artists that will perform at Barack Obama‘s inaugural Obama Foundation Summit. The “immersive” event will take place October 31st and November 1st in Chicago. “As soon as I heard about the summit, I jumped at the opportunity,” Chance the …
Read More »Congress Members Call Out Trump for 'Lamentable' Puerto Rico Tweets
As Republicans struggle to show the American people they can effectively govern, they keep hitting a snag: President Trump, the supposed the standard-bearer for the GOP. So even as the House passed a bipartisan disaster relief package for Puerto Rico – a down payment, really – the press corps and …
Read More »'The Foreigner': Jackie Chan Goes the 'Taken' Route in Revenge Thriller
Legend is a much abused word in the movie business – but Jackie Chan really is a legend. The undisputed king of martial-arts movies kicked up a notch with slapstick and jaw-dropping stunts, the star is acrobatic poetry in motion. American audiences know him best from his three Rush Hour …
Read More »See Elton John, Mary J. Blige Salute George Michael in New Doc Trailer
Pop and R&B icons remember the career of George Michael in a brief teaser for George Michael: Freedom, a new documentary on the singer. Michael died on December 25th, 2016 at age 53. Michael worked on the documentary before his death, narrating the film and co-directing it. The brief trailer …
Read More »Leonard Cohen's Final Poetry Book Gets Release Date
Leonard Cohen‘s final book of poetry, The Flame, will be published in October 2018, the Guardian reports. Cohen finished the book just months before his death, in November 2016, at age 82. The collection will include mostly new material, according to the publisher, Canongate. Cohen’sformer manager and the trustee of …
Read More »Review: Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith Gorgeously Maps the Life Cycle
Pastoral synthesizer landscapist Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith broke out last year with Ears, an acclaimed set of Terry Riley-esque gurgles and flutters, using noise to evoke nature. On her sixth LP, The Kid, a concept album about the human life cycle, she paints an even lusher world using cosmic swoops, squelches …
Read More »R.E.M.'s 'Automatic for the People': 10 Things You Didn't Know
By the dawn of the Nineties, R.E.M. had become that rarest of musical breeds: a globally famous rock band with integrity to match. During the course of the previous decade they parlayed their success as relentlessly gigging college-radio darlings into something far bigger, selling out stadiums while simultaneously avoiding the …
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