Alternative Music
Every R.E.M. Album Ranked From Worst to Best
This definitive ranking of R.E.M.’s discography first appeared in 2017, several years after the band called it quits. It will remain not only to commemorate all the great music R.E.M. has given us over the years but also to burn like a candle — and keep vigil — just in case we one day get to add to it. Either way, we’ll keep going back to Rockville until it truly is the end of the world. It’s been over 40 years since R.E.M. played their first show, a friend’s birthday party in an abandoned church in Athens, Georgia, on April 5th, 1980. It’s hard to believe that a band with a catalog we kept holstered, cocked, and ready throughout our adolescences have turned such an advanced age. (We also must acknowledge that we’ve been drifting through a slightly emptier world for some time now without A...
Fantastic Negrito Announces New Album Grandfather Courage
Fantastic Negrito has announced his new album Grandfather Courage, an acoustic reimagining of his 2022 full-length White Jesus Black Problems. It’s out on February 3rd via his own Stormfront Records. Grandfather Courage contains 11 songs in total and brings a new perspective to White Jesus Black Problems, which was based on the true story of his seventh-generation white Scottish grandmother, an indentured servant who lived in 1750s colonial Virginia in a common law marriage with his seventh-generation Black enslaved grandfather. The album was created with the help of Negrito’s touring band and includes a previously released reworking of “Oh Betty,” which was nominated in the Best American Roots Performance category for the 2023 Grammys. As a new preview, Negrito has shared the reimagi...
Tony Iommi Is Prepping a New Solo LP and Reissues of the Tony Martin-Era Black Sabbath Albums
The new year is shaping up to be a busy one for Black Sabbath legend Tony Iommi. In a year-end video message to fans, the guitarist revealed that he’s been building a recording studio and plans to write a new solo album. There are also plans for numerous reissues, including a box set of the long-out-of-print Tony Martin-era Black Sabbath LPs. “It’s been a good year for me, 2022, in parts anyway,” Iommi said [as transcribed by Blabbermouth]. “I’ve been writing and recording. I’m having a new studio built, which I’m really pleased about. Well, actually, the studio is built, and it’s almost ready to go … I think I’ll be ready to go in and start work in there, which I’m really looking forward to — writing another album.” Related Video Iommi then discussed the reissue projects lined up for 2023...
The Lemon Twigs Watch You from the “Corner of My Eye” with New Single: Stream
The Lemon Twigs are ringing in 2023 with their first new music in over two years. The psych-rock brother duo have today shared the single “Corner of My Eye” — their first release via their new label home Captured Tracks — along with its accompanying music video. Lemon Twigs’ Brian and Michael D’Addario have teased “Corner of My Eye” in live performances, but it’s deserving of a proper studio version. In true Twigs fashion, the soft rock ballad feels reminiscent of folk greats of the ’60s and ’70s. “But when I’ve got you in the corner of my eye/ All my moments are the same when day or night,” the brothers sing in harmony over gentle guitars. “We recorded this track winter of 2021 in our old rehearsal studio in Midtown, NYC,” the D’Addarios said in a press release. “Apart from the vibraphone...
Cardi B Channels Her Inner Emo, Sings Fall Out Boy’s “Sugar We’re Goin Down”: Watch
Cardi B will sing anything you want to hear, even Fall Out Boy, ’cause that’s just who she is this week. The rapper belted a few lines of the pop punk band’s 2005 classic “Sugar We’re Goin Down” at a New Year’s party in Miami, and you can watch the brief cover go down below. Cardi was at the E11even nightclub on New Year’s Eve (per UPROXX) when her inner emo came out toward the end of the night. Legions of drunken fans joined the artist in screaming the beginning of “Sugar We’re Goin Down” — no one really got the lyrics right, but that hardly matters when the clock strikes midnight on January 1st. It’s not a huge surprise that Cardi B likes Fall Out Boy. Last year, she tweeted her appreciation for fellow 2000s rockers My Chemical Romance, linking to their song “I’m Not Okay (I Promise...
10 Rock Albums IDLES Thinks Every Fan Should Own
Crate Digging is a recurring feature in which we take a deep dive into a genre and turn up several albums all music fans should know about. In this edition, IDLES guitarist Mark Bowen shares his exclusive picks. 2022 was as good of a year for IDLES as it could have been. After their stunning 2021 album Crawler found them touring the world with a loaded schedule, they played Coachella, Glastonbury, toured the US twice, and, most recently, nabbed a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Album. Since their breakthrough in 2018 with Joy as an Act of Resistance, IDLES have been a leader among their post-punk contemporaries, and their dominance both in their native England and beyond is a testament to their position as one of the biggest rock bands of the last decade. Guitarist Mark Bowen is ...
Christoph Waltz Menaces Employees in Trailer for The Consultant: Watch
Thanks to his dry delivery, Christoph Waltz has a knack for portraying characters with evil undertones. In the new teaser trailer for the upcoming Prime Video thriller series The Consultant, he puts that talent to good use by menacing employees at the gaming company he’s hired to improve. “My purpose is to improve the business,” Waltz’s Regus Patoff says in the clip. “If it helps you to see me as a monster, so be it.” Sure enough, his methods lead CompWare employees to describe him as a “sociopath.” Watch the full teaser trailer below. Based on Bentley Little’s 2015 novel of the same name, the logline for The Consultant reads as follows: “When a new consultant, Regus Patoff (Christoph Waltz), is hired to improve the business at the App-based gaming company CompWare, employees experience ne...
Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle Announce New Co-Headlining Tour Dates
Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle have announced a new run of co-headlining 2023 tour dates. The five-date trek kicks off on January 20th in Oklahoma City and includes stops in St. Louis, Memphis, and Birmingham, Alabama before wrapping on January 27th in North Charleston, South Carolina. See the full details below. Tickets go on sale to the general public on Friday, January 6th at 10:00 a.m. local time via Ticketmaster. Related Video The newly announced run comes one month after the comedians teamed up for a co-headlining nine-date jaunt toward the end of 2022. Advertisement Rock is set to perform Netflix’s first-ever live special, Selective Outrage, from Baltimore, Maryland on March 4th. His 2022 included his lengthy “Ego Death World Tour,” an infamous incident in which he was slap...
California Congressman to Be Sworn In on Classic Superman Comic Book
Nothing is more American than Superman, which is why Congressman Robert Garcia chose the very first Clark Kent comic book to be with him when he is sworn into office. Garcia — a Peruvian immigrant, former Mayor of Long Beach, California, and self-proclaimed “comic book nerd” — was elected US Representative for California’s 42nd congressional district during the 2022 midterms. Ahead of his official induction into the role, he tweeted a photo of three items he’d selected to sit under the Constitution while he was sworn in: “A photo of my parents who I lost to covid, my citizenship certificate & an original Superman #1 from the @librarycongress.” (It’s worth noting that the issue archived at the Library of Congress is a reprint, but it’s still worth several hundred thousands dollars. An o...
Devin Townsend: Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger “Is a Phenomenally Intelligent Human Being”
Prog rocker Devin Townsend has high praise for Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger in a new interview, calling his fellow Canadian “a phenomenally intelligent human being.” Kroeger previously made a surprising guest spot on Townsend’s Empath album in 2019. When asked by Ultimate Guitar about the collaboration, Townsend was quick to speak highly of Kroeger, who has faced an exaggerated amount of criticism over the years for his work in Nickelback (Townsend had previously called Kroeger a “functioning genius” back in 2019). That said, Townsend admitted in the new interview that the two lead a different lifestyle. “Chad’s brilliant,” Townsend said. “Chad is a phenomenally intelligent human being. But he’s a rockstar, too, on levels that you and I will never participate in. And so there’s go...
Hunters Try to “Bring Hitler to Justice” in Trailer for Final Season: Watch
You might think Hitler is dead, but the Hunters think differently in the new trailer for Prime Video’s alternate history revenge thriller. The second and final season comes debuts on January 13th. “You bring Hitler to justice and it’s done, Jon,” Meyers Offerman (Al Pacino) tells Jonah Heidelbaum (Logan Lerman) to kick off the trailer. “You can finally be free.” His presence might be somewhat unexpected given the events of Season 1, which he hints at by saying, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” These flashbacks give way to Heidelbaum putting together a team of old friends and new faces and heading off to South America. Guns and explosives are definitely involved, and there might even be a “skull up the ass,” as a cover of Kelis’ “Milkshake” bops in the background. Advert...
John Dolmayan: System of a Down “Should Have Moved On” Without Serj Tankian in 2006
It’s now been 17 years since System of a Down released a new studio album, and drummer John Dolmayan thinks they may have been better off moving on without singer Serj Tankian at the time the band went on hiatus in 2006. While System of a Down continue to be an active band, playing sporadic shows and releasing a pair of surprise singles in 2020, the multi-platinum act’s internal conflicts have been well documented. A few years back, Tankian and guitarist-vocalist Daron Malakian each opened up about the creative differences that led to a dearth of new music from the acclaimed metal band. In the summer of 2018, Malakian told Kerrang! magazine, “If everyone got together and was ready to play ball, I have an album ready. If it was up to me, System would have never gone on hiatus. … To be hones...
