"Why I Can't Listen to Elliott Smith's Music"
Six years after the tortured singer-songwriter's suicide, SPIN contributor Ellen Carpenter talks about the day the music died.
By Ellen Carpenter 10.21.09 12:13 PM
Today marks the sixth anniversary of Elliott Smith’s death.
For me, it marks the fifth anniversary of not listening to his music. This isn’t because I don’t like it. I actually share the view that Smith was one of the best two or three singer-songwriters of his generation.
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Hot New Band: The Big Pink
Shoegazing Brits formed a band and lived the rock life -- but not necessarily in that order.
By Ellen Carpenter 10.15.09 11:56 AM
Despite releasing their first single, "Too Young to Love," just a year ago, British noise-pop duo the Big Pink already boast a career's worth of triumphs: winning NME's Philip Hall Radar Award for emerging talent, touring with TV on the Radio, and, best of all -- per multi-instrumentalist Milo Cordell -- sharing quality time naked, bound, and abused.
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Breaking Out: Wye Oak
Move over Matt and Kim: Indie rock's newest couple act makes lush music academic.
By Ellen Carpenter 08.19.09 7:08 PM
Many bands endure the galling process of getting grades from critics (A for "next Radiohead," D for "next Nickelback, if they practice harder"). Wye Oak is one of the few to be graded by actual professors.
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Phoenix: Rise & Shine
They've been churning out shiny pop gems in relative obscurity for a decade. Now, the breakout success of Phoenix is the feel-bon story of the year.
By Ellen Carpenter 08.19.09 6:12 PM
Chefs, vintners, and Impressionists may consider success in France the only kind worth having. Rock bands, not so much. But even as teenagers jamming in the basement of singer Thomas Mars' house, Phoenix set their sights on les États-Unis.
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Regina Spektor's Joy Ride
A somber ditty about the fickleness of God isn't your typical summertime hit, but the old-world, otherworldly Regina Spektor isn't your typical rising star. Under the boardwalk with pop's unlikeliest diva.
By Ellen Carpenter 06.20.09 3:51 PM
"Aaaaaaaaaaaahh!
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The Tonys' 6 Great Rock'n'Roll Moments
SPIN's Ellen Carpenter explains why even headbangers should care about Sunday night's Broadway awards show.
By Ellen Carpenter 06.08.09 12:06 PM
On the scale of Rockingness, Broadway's Tony Awards generally register somewhere between Golden Girls and Hannah Montana. But at Sunday night's show (which I had the privilege -- yes, privilege! -- to attend) devil horns outnumbered jazz hands.
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