Tough Love

I’ve been enamored with the gently haunting sounds of Tindersticks ever since I discovered them a couple of years ago. I totally blindsided to find out that this band has existed since the 90’s. How could something that fits so seamlessly into the scheme of …

Touch

When a band is named Cigarettes After Sex, and their album is called Cry, and the song is called Touch… you can guess what you’re in for: erotic dreampop of the wooziest variety. Cigarettes After Sex are indeed a dreampop band – or shoegaze, if …

Toro Mata

Angelique Kidjo has spent her career exploring the deep connections between the musical styles of Africa and those of the new world, starting with her native Benin and pulling in a diverse range Afro-Caribbean and pan-Latin American traditions. One of her recent projects was Celia, …

Too Proud

It’s obligatory for every boy/girl pop duo to occasionally let the guy get up and do a song, and those moments are usually eminently skippable, but I’m so enamored with Broods’ Don’t Feed the Pop Monster that I even dig it when Georgia Nott’s not …

Too Easy

This one time, somewhere in 2015 or 16 or possibly even 17, a man I thought had really good taste (and good hair and good style and nice legs, as well) said “OMG, I love Angel Olsen so much!” I might have felt a little bit validated, not that I liked him that much, but you know, it’s nice when someone cool enthusiastically agrees with you. And, honestly, thinking back on it, it might have been an entirely different man who said “OMG, I love Angel Olsen so much, and so does [name redacted]!” And I might have thought to myself, wow, [name redacted] is even cooler than I thought, I must break up with {name redacted} so that I can seduce him posthaste. Which I did not do, at that time, but I did eventually. Anyway. It’s just something I think about sometimes when I listen to Angel Olsen. In case anyone was wondering if there was some secret personal reason why I’m such a big fan.

To Noise Making (Sing)

I made a top 100 list of my favorite records of the 2010s, and – spoiler alert – there are two Hozier albums on it. That is, that’s both of the records he made during that decade. I guess you could safely say that this …

Tonight

What Angel Olsen brings to the (very crowded) table of introspective female songwriters is a tendency towards the dramatic that elevates her interiority. Too much introspection and sincerity is dead boring when all you can do is strum your guitar. Sometimes you need to add …

Tongue Tied

And now by (implied) popular demand… a real hometown hero, in the most literal way possible. Gyasi, the kid who used to borrow my lipstick. Nobody could have guessed that some kids in West Virginia would be busy trying to necromance the spirit of Marc …

Tomorrow

The name of the album is My Name is Michael Holbrook. The artist’s name is Michael Holbrook Penniman Jr. He goes by the stage name Mika. I never really listened to him based on a vague impression that he’s an annoying hipster, which I’m still …

Tokyo Smoke

Being a great rock and roll band doesn’t count for as much as it used to. Being an dynamic frontman, or writing unusual songs with interesting ideas counts for even less. Cage the Elephant, armed with all of those things, missed the train to greatness …