Pop Spotlight

Since forming almost three decades ago in pre-dotcom San Francisco, Deerhoof have been some of indie rock’s most effective ambassadors for the power of anarchic creativity. A sense of mischievous delight is never far from the […]

Larry June raps like he’s guiding a meditation, his voice rarely rising above a soothing monotone. In another timeline, the prolific San Francisco rapper might have been a self-help expert, using the power of mindfulness […]

Elton John has said that Honky Château did for him what Revolver did for the Beatles: It pried open the gilded gates, lifting him “onto a higher plane” as an artist. In 1972, when Honky Château went to No. 1, ending the Rolling […]

“Let’s get physical,” a phrase originally made famous by Olivia Newton-John and recently repurposed by Dua Lipa, could serve as the implicit throughline of Malaysian-born, Shanghai- and Taipei-based DJ Tzusing’s sophomore album, Green Hat. It’s not the physicality of […]

“Desperados Under the Eaves,” the tale of personal and ecological apocalypse that remains Warren Zevon’s single greatest song, takes place at the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel. It was a real establishment where Zevon stayed sometimes—the sort of […]

You can almost picture Skippers, the stripmall bar that serves as the setting for “Carlos Is Crying,” off the Hold Steady’s ninth album. The place is packed with cubicle drones sharing pitchers of beer and […]