The Labyrinth of Genre A browseable and searchable map of music genres, with short samples.
posted by Deathalicious on Dec 14, 2011 - 22 comments

Meet Doctor Doom "Forty years ago, with his band Pentagram, Bobby Liebling invented a style of fiendishly heavy metal that hardly anyone heard. He spent the ensuing decades in a haze of hard drugs and big trouble. (5 arrests, 35 detoxes, more than 200 hospital visits.) Now, with the genre he spawned on the rise and a young wife and baby boy in tow, Liebling is feeling the first rumblings of success. Here's where things start to get weird." [more inside]
posted by zarq on Apr 20, 2011 - 26 comments

There is no question that HIV is an ugly virus in terms of human health. Each year, it infects some 2.7 million additional people and leads to some two million deaths from AIDS. But a new album manages to locate some sonic beauty deep in its genome. Sounds of HIV (Azica Records) by composer Alexandra Pajak explores the patterns of the virus's nucleotides as well as the amino acids transcribed by HIV, playing through these biologic signatures in 17 tracks. [more inside]
posted by infinite intimation on Nov 12, 2010 - 20 comments

"What we’ve called it has never been stable—it’s been known alternately as “punk” for its early attitude, “underground” for where it happened, “alternative” when the mainstream held it up as an antidote to its own poison—each of these picked up then sloughed off when the semantic baggage grew too unwieldy. Most recently, “indie”—long thrown around as a signifier of how it got done (i.e. independently)—has become the nom du jour." Is indie dead?
posted by Slack-a-gogo on Jan 26, 2010 - 127 comments

John Anealio records songs inspired by science fiction and fantasy. Sing along about Cylons, Summer Glau (Firefly/Serenity), Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and about how "George R.R. Martin is not your bitch" (previously).
posted by gemmy on Aug 12, 2009 - 20 comments

You wouldn't expect Iggy Pop to be the poster boy for rock stars who age gracefully, but he seems to be doing a pretty good job of it. At the age of 62, he's released Preliminaires, an album steeped in French Literature and containing jazz standards, hardscrabble blues, and the Louis-Armstrong-meets-Tom-Waits hit, King of the Dogs. NPR's Fresh Air has this interview with a thoughtful, avuncular Iggy Pop
posted by Jon_Evil on Jun 2, 2009 - 53 comments

Revolution Radio is a concept that died in Minneapolis years ago. It never had a chance to take off before being assimilated by the RadioBorg -- the idea that you play good songs, regardless of whether or not they fit under some canned "format." The Suburbs. The Beatles. G-Love and Special Sauce. X. Tori Amos. Adam and the Ants. Loretta Lynn. Trip Shakespeare.Their playlist definitely leans more toward the "alternative" side of the dial than anything else, but now, thanks to Minnesota Public Radio's brand-new station, you'll be pleasantly surprised by the musical variety. Submit a request online. Not fortunate enough to live in Minnesota? You can still listen along to commercial-free radio a couple of different formats. Viva la revolution!
posted by RKB on Jan 28, 2005 - 39 comments