We never set out to be a minimal band. We just couldn’t play our instruments very well. | | | | | The XX's Romy Madley Croft in Brighton, England, March 2010. (Kate Fisher) | | | | | | “We never set out to be a minimal band. We just couldn’t play our instruments very well.”
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| | rantnrave:// THE XX kick off the promo cycle for their upcoming third album, I SEE YOU, with major features in PITCHFORK and the NEW YORK TIMES. The Pitchfork piece, by LAURA SNAPES, is an especially good portrait of what it's like to be in a band, especially a band of insecure, uncommunicative friends who were once so weird around each other that they wrote songs by email to avoid having to look at each other as they were writing. About each other. Co-frontperson OLIVER SIM opens up to Snapes about his alcoholism—he's been sober for a year—and his awkwardness, while the Times' JON PARELES offers a glimpse into ROMY MADLEY CROFT's terrifying but enlightening experience at pop songwriting camps in LOS ANGELES. ONEREPUBLIC's RYAN TEDDER (back to Pitchfork now): "I’ve been referencing the xx sonically for three or four years in writing sessions. And their ‘hauntingness’ gets referenced at least every other session, without question.” Now you know. Also, the album, due Jan. 13, starts with a brass fanfare, which is probably not the thing about the xx that LA songwriters are referencing... This should go without saying, but unfortunately it does not. Thank you, ARIANA GRANDE, for saying it... The family of late drummer ALPHONSE MOUZON is using GOFUNDME to raise money for his funeral and, as of Wednesday night, they had a long way to go. This is Mouzon playing with WEATHER REPORT in 1971, in case you're not clear on the righteousness, and sadness, of this cause... RIP DEBBIE REYNOLDS :( | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| Staying close with childhood friends is hard. Staying close with childhood friends while being in one of the most painfully vulnerable bands on earth is even harder. | | |
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| The tragic December 2nd fire at Oakland's Ghost Ship space has had serious repercussions for DIY venues across the country. | | |
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| From the "Stairway to Heaven" trial to the ongoing litigation surrounding pre-1972 recordings, 2016 was a big year for music law - but 2017 is shaping up to be even bigger. | | |
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| Even music made it difficult to escape the fever dream that was 2016, but this quiet country tune, written by Lori McKenna and performed by Tim McGraw, was a welcome respite. | | |
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| She also discusses CuckooLander, the first artist she's signed to her Vroom Vroom Recordings label. | | |
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| What makes Desert Island Discs so intimate? As the programme celebrates 75 years on air, it’s the music that continues to crack open its castaways. | | |
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| The musician appeared on albums by Kanye West and Chance the Rapper this year, as barriers between genres continued to soften. | | |
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| "There was a sense that she was really there in front of me." | | |
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| After George Michael's death at 53 on Christmas Day, stories began pouring in about the ways the pop icon privately supported fans and charities. Like Prince, Michael was largely uninterested in recognition but focused on doing good in the world, wielding his immense financial privilege in small ways that would change peoples' lives. | | |
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| 2016 yielded a bumper crop of high quality TV series, many of which have catchy, infectious soundtracks. But only a handful yielded scores so integral to their show's dramatic execution that they rose above the level of simple auditory accessory. | | |
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| Dawn Richard discusses her path from NBA dancer to reality-TV star and budding R&B mogul, and how the ugliness of the Trump era fuels her creativity. | | |
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| Though some moments seemed to indicate a pop takeover, 2016 was also a year when country tended to its traditions. In the end, the genre decided it was big enough to hold both. | | |
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| Co-founder Frankie Hutchinson looks back on the collective and booking agency’s year of genre-obliterating parties. | | |
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| Sexism and homophobia are forever tied to the Beasties’ debut-30 years on. So is their maturity and repentance. | | |
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| With the suite “America’s National Parks” and “A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke,” with the pianist Vijay Iyer, the jazz trumpeter enlightened minds in 2016. | | |
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| "I think that’s what collaborations should do. They should bring forth something that you didn’t see in yourself and something you can’t stop thinking about, something that changes you, something that opens you up to something." | | |
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| Paul Zollo interviews The Grateful Dead's Bob Weir on the inner workings of the band's songwriting process at the height of their career. | | |
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| Lil Peep is the 2016 version of mallcore: a white rapper who samples Brand New and sings about suicide. | | |
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| We speak to Leah Dou, the daughter of two of China’s most successful musicians who played her first UK show at London’s O2 arena before she was 20 years old. | | |
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| Blackstar, the album Bowie released days before his death in January, set the tone for a fraught year. "This was an album that many of us returned to to cope with 2016," says NPR's Ann Powers. | | |
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| © Copyright 2016, The REDEF Group |
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