pop

Some bands have a fully-formed sound right from the start, but the truth about a lot of very popular artists is that they didn't really find their unique style until they had a few albums under their belts. In time, I think people will see Belle and Sebastian as one of those bands. Like R.E.M., Depeche Mode and The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Belle and Sebastian didn't find its best music, the music for which they'll be remembered, until they grew out of an early period of experimentation. By 2001 the band was ready to make the best music of their careers, though it would happen to be without Stuart David or Isobel Campbell. Read more

Everything about Japan is a condensed version of what happens in other cultures. Tokyo is a city of cities, equal parts Manhattan, Las Vegas, Paris and Hong Kong. The country villages are like a bullion of provincial charm. And as for Japanese pop culture, it too operates on a much more intense, insular level than its counterparts in the West. Take the music scene in Japan in the 1990's, for instance. It was a sort of artistic renaissance in every sense of the word. Not only was there a boom in the number of unique artists in the recording studios of Tokyo, Hiroshima and Sapporo, there was also a refreshingly international flavor to the clear influences of the artists. For the first time in the history of pop music, Japanese artists made a splash beyond their own borders.

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If you turned on the radio in 1997 (back when radio was still relevant to the music industry) you undoubtedly heard "Tubthumping", the unusual, infectious pop hit by a band with the goofiest name since Mott the Hoople. That band was Chumbawamba and after the millionth time "Tubthumping" played in the background of American lives we'd pretty much written them off as a one hit wonder just like most of what was on the pop charts. The truth is that Chumbawamba was never supposed to be a Top 10 dance act and for the past thirty years they've had a career that reflects that sentiment. Really, all one hit wonders fall into one of two categories. Most are artists who only had one good song in them, others are talents whose better music got overshadowed by their hit. Chumbawamba falls into the latter variety, though most folks who heard "Tubthumping" don't know that.

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There's always something suspect about high-concept, long-projection pop music projects. When Sufjan Stevens announced that he would record an album for each of the fifty US states, starting with Michigan and followed by Illinois, it was pretty much just fodder for critical naysaying. In that case, the naysayers were right. Stevens eventually admitted that the 50 states project was little more than a promotional scheme. So, it's more than a little unusual when Stephin Merritt and The Magnetic Fields regularly deliver on their high-concept promises. 69 Love Songs was indeed a massive, three-disc collection of 69 entirely new songs about love and this week the band released the second album in their planned "no synth trilogy". Like Distortion before it, Realism eschews the lovably cheesy synthesizers that helped make the band famous. The result is 13 fun, beautiful and incredibly catchy songs.

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