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Madlib’s Mastery of Beat-Making Knows No Boundaries
From collaborating with Freddie Gibbs and Erykah Badu to the late legends MF Doom and J. Dilla, Madlib has been proving his beat-making skills for over three decades. Known for his meticulous approach to sampling — the act of reusing and remixing sound from another recording — it may seem like the producer has the process of engineering the perfect loop down to a science, but really, he says, anyone can do it. (Turns out, despite being one of hip-hop’s most influential names, he’s also a pretty humble guy.) According to Madlib, sampling is just about listening for a catchy sound to pull from a track and then chop, layer and warp to create something new. It’s a process that launched him to legend status following the release of 2004’s critically-acclaimed Madvillainy, the sole LP to come ou...
5 Things to Know About Molly Tuttle, Best New Artist Nominee at 2023 Grammys
While Molly Tuttle has technically been part of the bluegrass scene since 2006, the 29-year-old reached new heights in 2022, netting two nominations at the 2023 Grammys: Best New Artist and Best Bluegrass Album. This year saw the artist release her first project since 2020’s …but I’d Rather Be With You. Tuttle’s third studio album Crooked Tree, recorded with her band Golden Highway, arrived in April 2022, and landed her the Best Bluegrass Album nomination. As for the Best New Artist nod, Tuttle will be up against Anitta, Domi & JD Beck, Latto, Omar Apollo, Samara Joy, Muni Long, Tobe Nwigwe, Måneskin and Wet Leg in the category, come Music’s Biggest Night on February 5th, 2023. Advertisement Related Video Here are five things to know abut Molly Tuttle prior to the 2023 Grammy Awards, a...
From Guitars to Golf Clubs: Behind James Carbonetti‘s Extremely Limited Brooklyn Putter
In James Carbonetti’s shop, guitars adorn the white walls, red Persian rugs line dark wood floors and vinyl spins on a turntable. No corner is empty and the workspaces are messy yet orderly. It’s a music lover’s paradise, and yet glimpses of another obsession are present. A Golden Tee arcade machine, a set of Ben Hogan irons, an iPad playing the ’86 Masters and a long strip of “turf.” Carbonetti grabs his putter and strokes a ball down the green runway. He holds the club in his hands as if it were a newborn child. As the owner of Carbonetti Guitars, he has made instruments for musicians like Richard Fortus of Guns N’ Roses, Matt Sweeney of Chavez and Willie Weeks of Joe Walsh’s band, but this putter is one of his proudest creations. When you’re holding a Carbonetti Brooklyn putter, yo...
Whitney Houston Comes to Life (At Least On Stage) In I Wanna Dance With Somebody: Review
The Pitch: In 2012, America lost its Voice — Whitney Houston, the once-in-a-generation pop music icon, tragically died at the too-young age of 48. She was on the verge of a comeback after a stint in rehab, haunted by the twin specters of drugs and expectation; that we never got to see that beautiful second act makes her passing all the more tragic. In the meantime, we’ve got the songs and story Whitney left behind, and Kasi Lemmons’ I Wanna Dance with Somebody (or, as Sony’s SEO-focused title change goes, Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody) tries to stuff that into a two-and-a-half-hour speedrun of her life and career, featuring Naomi Ackie as the tragic figure. We see her early days as a gospel singer, groomed for greatness by her ambitious mother Cissy (a perfectly-balance...
Samuel L. Jackson’s 10 Best Roles
Top Performances is a recurring feature in which we definitively handpick the very best performances from an iconic actor or actress. Samuel L. Jackson is far, far more than a series of memes. It’s a fact worth remembering as time goes on, and the actor’s most iconic performances have become inexorably linked to “say what again” image macros and a great many jokes about motherfuckin’ snakes on motherfuckin’ planes. But there’s so much more to the venerable performer than younger audiences may realize and perhaps even more than Pulp Fiction enthusiasts do either. Over a staggering 178 onscreen appearances since 1972 (and with nine more on the way, at various stages of production), Jackson has carved out a distinct niche as an untouchable tough guy with a disarming humor about...
Beyond the Boys’ Club: Pioneering Rocker Leather Leone
Beyond the Boys’ Club is a monthly column from journalist and radio host Anne Erickson, focusing on women in the heavy music genres, as they offer their perspectives on the music industry and discuss their personal experiences. Erickson is also a music artist herself and has a new EP and single out, “Last Love,” with Upon Wings. The latest edition of Beyond the Boys’ Club features an interview with Leather Leone. Throughout the 1980s, Leather Leone was a strong voice in metal music. From her early days in Rude Girl to her high-profile performances with guitar icon David T. Chastain’s band Chastain, Leone was one of the pioneers for women in heavy music. After a long break away from the music scene, Leather is as active in the industry as ever. She recently released her third solo album, We...
Frank Zappa in 10 Songs
This feature was originally published in August 2012, but we’re dusting it off for Zappa’s birthday on December 21st. Ever felt overwhelmed by an artist’s extensive back catalog? Been meaning to check out a band, but you just don’t know where to begin? In 10 Songs is here to help, offering a crash course and entry point into the daunting discographies of iconic artists of all genres. This is your first step toward fandom. Take it. You’re a Serious Music Fan. You like artists who have a “Genius With a Capital G” tag affixed to them. You’re looking to immerse yourself in the world of a composer who will always keep you guessing, a musician who gave great interviews, broke new ground every time his or her feet touched the floor, and has a catalog so densely packed that it would make even Robe...
Every Pearl Jam Album Ranked From Worst to Best
This article originally ran in 2016 and has since been updated; we’re dusting it off for Eddie Vedder’s birthday on December 23rd. “Fuck.” That was the only word Michael Roffman texted me late Monday night. As I shrugged off sleep to try and figure out what exactly that meant, the rest of his message came through: “Tonight’s set was so much better.” I stopped getting dressed and sank back into bed. I knew what he was upset about. No apocalypse, no emergency, just a Pearl Jam setlist that he liked better than the one we got two nights earlier at Wrigley Field. I clicked on the setlist link, scanned down, and texted back: “Oh fuck…” Advertisement In words barely more eloquent than those, we spent the next hour, on and off, bemoaning that we had covered the wrong show — like two spoiled brats...
We Asked the A.I. Program ChatGPT About EDM—It Knew Too Much
Following the release of the now-viral sensation, ChatGPT, it took OpenAI’s eerily sophisticated chatbot just five days to amass over one million users. And it’s become the most successful story at the intersection of artificial intelligence and meteoric tech adoption in the last decade. There’s many reasons why ChatGPT has become an instant hit. Some have called it a creative enhancer, others a search query replacement. But no matter what you think ChatGPT’s future use cases are, there’s no denying it has a tremendous trove of information to draw upon, including niche topics like electronic dance music. Despite our best efforts to stump ChatGPT with absurdly specific questions—and even thought-provoking, nuanced topics—it seems the algorithm has a deeper unde...
Pearl Jam’s 10 Best Deep Cuts
This article originally ran in 2020, but we’re dusting it off for Eddie Vedder’s birthday on December 23rd. Pearl Jam 30 continues with a look at the band’s finest Deep Cuts. Be sure to see all of our Pearl Jam content, old and new, here. The idea of a deep cut usually isn’t so complicated. They’re the padding, the filler, the less marketable tracks buried deep on records or used as buffers between the singles both band and record company pin their joint hopes on. Of course, what’s beautiful about deep cuts is that once we’ve grown tired of the singles we’re urged to consume again and again, we stumble upon these afterthoughts, and they can often become our favorite songs off a record. Advertisement Pearl Jam kinda throw a wrench into that idea, though. First off, the band at one point wer...
Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo Discusses the Sad, Elliot Smith-ness of SZNZ: Winter and Teases “Big Tour Announcement”
It’s ambitious, it’s sprawling, it’s creative, it’s Weezer‘s new SZNZ project. Back when the California band announced four EPs based on the seasons cycle at the beginning of this year, questions were raised: How similar to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons would this be? Has the band now entered the “Classical Weezer” era? Would Summer‘s songs all sound like “Island in the Sun”? Will Rivers Cuomo continue rocking the mustache + mullet combo he boasted on the “Hella Mega Tour”? Now that Weezer has released the final installment of SZNZ, Winter (out Wednesday, December 21st), we’ve got our answers. Though inspired by Vivaldi’s original concept, SZNZ is Weezer through and through — that being said, Cuomo has based each season around emotions, rather than lean solely into the environmenta...
RM of BTS Wants To Be More Like a Wildflower
On December 2, 2022, Kim Namjun, the 28-year-old leader of the South Korean boy band BTS, who goes by the moniker “RM,” released his debut solo album Indigo. For RM, who started putting out his music on online hip-hop communities under the pseudonym of Runch Randa in 2007, this album has taken 15 years to materialize. In that time, he changed his name twice (from Runch Randa to Rap Monster before settling with RM), made his debut with BTS as the leader of the boy band, achieved worldwide superstardom, and rewrote K-pop history. He is now back as a solo artist with an album that commemorates the end of his twenties (In Korea, newborns are considered 1 year old at birth and turn a year older on January 1 rather than on their birthday. RM would be turning 30 in Korean age on January 1, 2023 a...
