There was always something a little disreputable about INXS. Despite being one of the bigger rock bands on the planet for the better part of a decade, releasing a string of critically and commercially successful albums worldwide, the Australian six-piece never really shook the perception that it was more style than…

There’s a lot of music out there. To help you cut through all the noise, every week The A.V. Club is rounding up A-Sides, five recent releases we think are worth your time. You can listen to these and more on our Spotify playlist, and if you like what you hear, we encourage you to purchase featured artists’ music…

There’s a lot of music out there. To help you cut through all the noise, every week The A.V. Club is rounding up A-Sides, five recent releases we think are worth your time. You can listen to these and more on our Spotify playlist, and if you like what you hear, we encourage you to purchase featured artists’ music…

It can take years, if not decades, for the saddest songs to reveal themselves as such. The symphonies of Sergei Rachmaninoff, Type O Negative’s thundering doom, the cracked and withering voice carrying Johnny Cash’s America recordings—biography and context inflame their impact. Their sadness radiates over time. Death,…

Bubble-gummy singles, a relentless touring schedule, and a viral TikTok tune helped pave the way for last year’s Honeymoon, the debut LP from Chicago indie-rock outfit Beach Bunny. The album, a crunchy, hyper-caffeinated ode to turn-of-your-20s romance and doe-eyed yearning, delivered upon the band’s budding promise,…

New year, new you: Whether you’ve adopted some resolutions for 2021 or are just trying to keep it together until we can all get vaccinated, there’s a burst of new releases coming in January to help pave the way for what has got to be a better year than the last one, right? (Knock on fucking wood, ad infinitum, of…

Note: Originally posted on 1/5/21 @ 2:42 PM CST.

Yes, this year’s stable of Grammy nominees is a bit more diverse than last year’s, but there’s still a ton of room for improvement. Take, for instance, the category of Best Children’s Music Album. This year, the categories only recognized one woman and only white artists—Joanie Leeds, Alastair Moock And Friends, Dog…

It’s been true throughout the entire pandemic: One of the activities that could most alleviate our prolonged isolation—getting together! With lots of people! At a party!—is one of the most dangerous, and one that would only further prolong said isolation. So, no New Year’s Eve parties this year. It’s best, as it’s…

As the United States faces its worst COVID-19 numbers yet and U.K. prime minster Boris Johnson cancels everyone’s Christmas travels in light of a “new variant” of coronavirus that is more contagious, Eric Clapton and Van Morrison have decided the timing is right to release a song raging against the stay-at-home orders…

Yes, it’s been a hard year, and yes, we’re also tired of confronting that fact. But the bizarrely repetitive and numbing hermetic existence most of us have endured this past year has made for a strange experience, one thankfully made more tolerable by all the art and pop culture streamed, downloaded, mailed, and…

The A.V. Club’s list of 2020’s best albums was determined by 10 critics, who each submitted a ranked ballot of their top 10 to 20 records of the year. Those ballots can be found below, along with their picks for additional nominations—including best EPs and best reissues. If you’re looking to explore the best records…

Taylor Swift always commemorates her December birthday by doing something special: having a gigantic party, announcing a Netflix tour special, or appearing at the high-profile Jingle Ball at Madison Square Garden. This year, however, the musician celebrated turning 31 with an even bigger surprise: Roughly four and a…

There’s a lot of music out there. To help you cut through all the noise, every week The A.V. Club is rounding up A-Sides, five recent releases we think are worth your time. You can listen to these and more on our Spotify playlist, and if you like what you hear, we encourage you to purchase featured artists’ music…

It may feel like just yesterday when we woke up to the news that Taylor Swift had recorded an entire album—folklore—in quarantine, but it wasn’t. That was actually almost five months ago. That’s plenty of time to conceptualize and release another whole-ass album, right? Right.

Right now it seems like there’s at least one definite upshot to our collective upcoming socially distanced holidays: You won’t have to dread that inevitable moment during the family get-together when someone decides it’d just be an absolute hoot to put on “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” for the seven millionth…

The Holidays are going to be awesome at the Dylan household this year, with lil’ Jakob and his siblings hopefully getting enough PlayStation 5 systems that they don’t even need to share, since their dad just came into a pretty massive windfall: As reported by Deadline, Bob Dylan just sold off his entire music catalog…

It’s been 26 years since Mariah Carey proved you could still create a Christmas staple—kicking off decades of copycats and wannabes trying to recreate her holiday hit, “All I Want For Christmas Is You.” But while no one has toppled that track in terms of chart performance, these 18 original songs from the past decade…

Live shows—like most social events—went virtual in 2020, so we’re tweaking our typical “favorite live show” end-of-year AVQ&A to ask:

There’s a lot of music out there. To help you cut through all the noise, every week The A.V. Club is rounding up A-Sides, five recent releases we think are worth your time. You can listen to these and more on our Spotify playlist, and if you like what you hear, we encourage you to purchase featured artists’ music…