Forget Lil Kim. At this point in her career, Nicki Minaj’s only enemy is herself and “Super Bass.” That track, which catapulted Minaj into a mainstream as cross-genre artist and onto the iPods of Taylor Swift fans everywhere, will be her “Lose Yourself” — the song that defines Minaj’s career…
“Nineteen sixty-seven was a watershed year,” Keith Richards writes in his recently released autobiography, Life. “It was the year the seams gave way. There was a tension in the air. There was that feeling that trouble was coming — which it did.”…
Garland Jeffreys (due Saturday, January 21, at the Lion’s Lair) should be a household name considering some of the shoulders with which he’s rubbed during the course of his long career: He met Lou Reed and Maureen Tucker before the Velvet Underground were properly a band, when Jeffreys and Reed…
Update 1/20/12: Some sad news just coming in from California just now. Etta James has reportedly passed away at the age of 73 due to complications associated with leukemia. RIP, Etta. Originally posted 1/11/12: Etta James is having a hell of a year. Aside from battling leukemia and dementia, being…
As if Katy Perry’s divorce news weren’t bad enough, now there’s an acoustic version of “The One That Got Away” to empathize with. Released yesterday, this rendition, drenched in piano and acoustic guitar, shows greater depth and emotes way more than the video ever could have. Had Perry released this…
Forget Tim Tebow. From now until at least the day after the Super Bowl, everyone’s going to be talking about another figure in pop culture who had the religion thing down long before Tebow did: Madonna. Although Lady Gaga may never admit as much, Madge recently acknowledged the similarities between…
Nurses (due at the hi-dive this Sunday, January 15) moved around a bit before settling down in Portland and completely shedding its previous, more rockist, musical identity. Having pretty much reinvented itself for its 2009 album, Apple’s Acre, Nurses sounds as though some eccentric songwriters got together and used a…
Well, now, this is something different. It’s roughly the exact opposite of how things usually work. Generally you have musicians dipping their toes in the electronic world before eventually taking a full-on plunge into that side of things. Here, meanwhile, we have Ty Tekavec (you know him better as DJ…
The last time you probably heard the name Marshall Gallagher, it was most likely in conjunction with the dearly departed band Solar Bear, with whom he was a member. Sometime after that outfit folded last spring, Gallagher packed up his gear and joined the 3OH!3 dudes on the road as…
Despite the pointed assertion of Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney that rock music is dying because of Nickelback, the genre still appears to be selling quite well. Granted, not quite as well as hip-hop or pop, but it’s still kicking. In a recent Rolling Stone cover story, Carney is quoted…
New year, new things, new rap! You know the deal. Every week we scoured the scene for the freshest hip-hop. This week, we’ve got Spoke in Wordz doing his thing with an Eric Heights-directed joint that was actually filmed inside Denver International Airport; Mr. Midas gets all elevator-sexy on his…
There’s a lot going on with the new Calder’s Revolvers EP, but at the same time, it’s incredibly simple. Recorded in vocalist Andy Schneieder’s basement in the Highlands over the span of seven months, the four tracks on Black Bloc invoke heavy soul sympathies and prove their subtle pop potential…
The Scissor Sisters have two incarnations: campy, carefree guitar-driven band, as was the case for early cuts like “Take Your Mama” and “I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’,” and a new, more hedonistic synth band with one ear to the dance floor and another in the bedroom. The latter vibe dominated…
David Bromberg’s eclectic musical expertise is rooted in the sounds of America. Since the 1960s, the singer and guitarist has drawn from a palette of influences, from bluegrass to ragtime, from country blues to New Orleans jazz. Taking lessons from the legendary Reverend Gary Davis as a Columbia student in…
Together for nearly two decades, Slim Cessna’s Auto Club has played the Bluebird Theater on New Year’s Eve for almost half the time the band has been together. The New Year’s shows have turned into something of a tradition for the band, who usually toss in a little something extra…
Aaron Freeman incorporates a lot of personal history when he takes on the musical alter-ego role of Gene Ween. For nearly thirty years, Freeman and Mickey Melchionda (aka Dean Ween) have been the tongue-in-cheek duo behind Ween, a band that’s evolved from the abstract musical experiments of 1991’s The Pod…
Whichever one of you asked for a new Radiohead song for Christmas, thank you. To be honest, you should have been a bit more specific, but we at Backbeat are counting our blessings regardless. According to the epic Brit rockers’ obsessive fansite, Atease.com, the long-lost track you are about to…
Michael Buble put out a killer Christmas record, and it could not have come at a better time. While the charts are currently flooded with dance-pop beats, synthesizers-laden hooks and auto-tuned vocals, Buble releases an album of Christmas standards — an album so strong Bing Crosby himself could have it…
With major comebacks and massive hits, 2011 was the year of the women, from Beyoncé to Miley Cyrus. Without singers like Adele, we wouldn’t have songs to cry along with, and without Katy Perry, we wouldn’t have any songs to hum at our nine-to-five. So what, exactly, were the biggest…
No matter how hard he tried, David Bowie just couldn’t fit into the ’60s. From having to abandon his birth-name (Davy Jones) to the pop-darling Monkees singer, to staring in Ice Cream commercials in order to finance his tanking music career, fame continually eluded young Bowie. “I must have had…
In the hierarchy of things that happened in the pop metal world after Nirvana’s Nevermind was released, this one has to rank pretty high in the pantheon, at least locally. The year was 1993: The music industry was booming, hair metal was fading and a handful of Denver rock enthusiasts…
The members of Speedwolf (due tonight at the Marquis Theater) specialize in brand of no frills metal in the vein of Motorhead and Venom, played with the playful ferocity of a hardcore band. The guys are not necessarily carrying the torch for that older style of heavy music as much…
