Music
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Frank Ocean Admiration
We don’t normally link to this sort of thing, but last night, Frank Ocean performed “Bad Religion,” his new song about unrequited love — for another man. On national television. His performance is beautiful, and we just want to celebrate…
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Rumpus Sound Takes: Post Taste
oOoOO Our Loving Is Hurting Us EP (Tri Angle) Pop music rewards prejudice. Discerning listeners operate under the assumption that certain sounds, production tricks, etc., are off-limits, and in so doing spare themselves a lot of schlock.
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Romney Picking Up Good Vibrations
Over at The New York Times, Daniel Nester considers the complicated politics of the Beach Boys and muses on “the need to reconcile an artist’s politics with his art.” “You might say that the Beach Boys’ long history of feuds,…
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Rumpus Sound Takes: Phases and Stages
Plants and Animals The End of That (Secret City) Rock bands age reluctantly, if at all.
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Dirty Projectors’ Clean New Movie
Pitchfork has posted a trailer for funky-afro-prog-pop indie darlings Dirty Projectors’ upcoming short film, “Hi Custodian.” Among the many highlights is the 808 heavy, clap laden introductory track, “Offspring Are Blank,” which is somehow both hymn-like and head-nod-inducing, set against a backdrop…
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Interview (in the mail) with Jonathan Richman
SF Weekly got Jonathan Richman to agree to answer some questions—by way of snail mail. Richman, who is gearing up for a show this Sunday at The Make-Out Room, shares his thoughts on the Internet, air-conditioning, and being called the…
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The Rumpus Interview with Nikki Lane
Rarely do musicians arrive on the scene as fully formed as Nikki Lane. Her full-length debut, Walk of Shame, on Los Angeles-based IM Sounds, reveals a performer with the confidence to move fearlessly between genres while retaining her own singular…
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The Rumpus Interview with Kelly Hogan
Never underestimate the value of knowing how to play well with others.
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Rumpus Sound Takes:
Passionate ImpasseThe Men Open Your Heart (Sacred Bones) If we were to come up with a taxonomy of ways people praise music, a lot of the categories would surely focus on some extramusical rupture the record caused.
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Musical Effects
At The Chronicle, Mark Edmundson, English professor at University of Virginia, explains the emotional importance of pop music, as it “suggests, by its easy, pleasurable repetitions,” that our “static inside” makes sense, as “we can pretend, for the duration of a…