[Mon, 14.Dec.09]

Githead: Landing

Githead delivers solidly with its third full-length album, even if it’s a long drive with no destination.

The Mother Hips: Pacific Dust

The Mother Hips have a way of making sorrow turn to triumph in a manner that's not exhilarating so much as it's satisfying.

Claire Lynch: Whatcha Gonna Do

It's not always bluegrass, but it is a collection of high-quality songs performed by a band clearly versed in a range of musical styles.

Liam Finn & Eliza Jane: Champagne in Seashells

Where are the bold adventurousness, the whimsical verve, the breadth of imagination? Finn and Jane do their own version of a Corona commercial on the beach.

Julian Lennon: The Secret Value of Daydreaming/Mr. Jordan/Help Yourself

Noble Rot have re-released three of Julian Lennon's Atlantic albums. Of these works, 1991's Help Yourself is still the most relevant, and potent of the artist's efforts.

MORE MUSIC

[Fri, 11.Dec.09]
The Wrens: 20 November 2009 - Washington, DC
The Wrens - rock & roll's ultimate underdogs - affirm their place with an incendiary live show.

MOST RECENT

:. Matisyahu: 3 November 2009 - Chicago

:. Our Brother the Native + Zen Zen Egui: 26 October 2009 - London

:. Dethklok + Mastodon: 12 November 2009 - Houston, TX

:. Art Brut: 15 November 2009 - New York

:. moe.: 14 November 2009 - Austin, TX

MORE EVENTS

[14.Dec.09]

[11.Dec.09]

[10.Dec.09]

[Mon, 14.Dec.09]
:. Discount retailers and electronic readers worry some in the book world
:. Tarantino doesn’t cover himself in glory with his World War II fantasy
:. Charlie Gibson leaves the ABC anchor desk , taking a rare tone of civility with him
:. 2009’s 10 most annoying celebrities
:. INTERVIEW:Actress was immune to George Clooney’s charms

[Fri, 11.Dec.09]
:. The Movie Masochist: Bloody Christmas
:. Game Day: Who’s your dictator?
:. INTERVIEW:Damon didn’t hesitate when Eastwood called with ‘Invictus’
:. INTERVIEW:Jewish folk music links two artists of different generations
:. Disney’s first black princess has parents excited
:. R. Kelly’s timing , and his message , are off
:. INTERVIEW:Elvis Costello, unscripted

PopMatters Picks: The Best Music of 2009

By PopMatters Staff

[14.Dec.09] :. PopMatters continues our annual two-week-long best music of the year feature with the 60 best albums of 2009. Stay tuned for the rest of this week for our best album re-issues and top picks across musical genres. Today:
The Best 60 Albums of 2009

Staying on the Edge: An Interview with Damon Elliott
By Alistair Dickinson
[14.Dec.09] :. Having produced hits for Destiny's Child, Bone Thugz-n-Harmony, and P!nk, Damon Elliott talks to PopMatters about his career and his work on that Fame remake.

Wii - Nintendo North by Northwest: 50th Anniversary Edition all entries

MIXED MEDIA: Slipped Disc: Anti-Pop Consortium - Fluorescent Black

— recent features —

Vox Pop: Kathy ‘Oprah’ Griffin?
By Meta Wagner
[14.Dec.09] :. We don’t need Oprah Lite or Oprah 2.0, we need someone who’s a true Oprah-in-Training. And the only person who can claim that title is... Kathy Griffin.

IN THE BLOGS:
Short Ends and Leader: OscarMatters: The Awards Whisperer
Channel Surfing: Men of a Certain Age: Men Have Feelings Too
Marginal Utility: The social factory
Notes from the Road: Fanfarlo: 10.Dec.2009 - Philadelphia
Sound Affects: Gem Found: An Interview with Damon Castillo
Notes from the Road: The Phenomenal Handclap Band + Javelin: 11.Dec.2009 - New York

Precious and Lee Daniels: State of the Race
By Matt Mazur
[11.Dec.09] :. In adapting author Sapphire's difficult novel for the screen, director Lee Daniels is helping change the way spectators view African American women by deploying stereotypes and then exploding them.

All Is Said and Done: An Interview with Vertical Horizon
By Colin McGuire
[10.Dec.09] :. After accidentally reuniting Rush and befriending Neil Peart, Vertical Horizon's Matt Scannell returns with his band's first album of new material in nearly six years.

The Iconographies: The Sociology of Superheroes: Andi Ewington and 45
By shathley Q
[9.Dec.09] :. Andi Ewington's 45 appeals to an audience that transcends 1970s Batman, and even the phenomenal Watchmen.

Paranormal Passions: An Interview with the Ghost Hunters
By Aaron Sagers
[8.Dec.09] :. The Ghost Hunters Academy investigators talk about the amount of misinformation there is about paranormal investigation and what an awesome season finale would look like.

A Welcome Return Home: The Orenda Fink Interview
By Zach Hinkle
[7.Dec.09] :. Orenda Fink, one half of the acclaimed band Azure Ray, discusses her newest solo release, Ask the Night, a stripped-down piece that finds her reconnecting with her childhood in Alabama.

Reconsidering the Revival of Cassette Tape Culture
By Calum Marsh
[4.Dec.09] :. At best, the cassette revival is merely a vacuous fad of no genuine value; but at worst, it's a confused, regressive cultural misstep more dangerous than most would care to admit.

MCA’s Heavy News
By Kirby Fields
[4.Dec.09] :. This is more about the surprise I felt when an hour after my heart ached for my own mother it ached again in a similar way for someone whom I have never actually met. So I’ve spent probably months listening to the Beastie Boys. So what? This gives me the right? The short answer is “Yes. Yes, it does."

Making a Case for the Most Underappreciated Band in Pop Music
By Anthony Lombardi
[3.Dec.09] :. Big Star may have long dwindled on the threshold of musical ubiquity and dangling obscurity, but it strangely seems like the only befitting legacy for artists so caught between their innate standing as pop music outsiders and their reverential, ever-striving will for superstardom.

20 Questions: Bruce Greenwood
By PopMatters Staff
[3.Dec.09] :. The prolific actor Bruce Greenwood shows up as yet another character for 20 Questions -- this time as a rather erudite cake designer with a mean edge on a ’53 Telecaster.

Reinventing Don Imus: Anatomy of an Excuse
By Michael E. Ross
[2.Dec.09] :. Imus traffics in the tropes of hip-hop and black culture in general on an occasional, selective basis -- a cafeteria approach to cultural exploration as obvious as it is insincere.

Blood and Thunder: The Best Metal Albums of 2009
By Adrien Begrand
[11.Dec.09] :. It seems every year I say it, but this year it's truer than ever: this was one hell of a year for metal. If you think the Mastodon record is good (which it is) just wait 'til you hear this list’s top three.

The Rockist: Matt Pike Don’t Need No Stinking Shirt
By Michael Brett
[11.Dec.09] :. High on Fire encapsulate everything metal should be: aggressive, epic, and uncompromising; its lead man's very being cries out “Seek and Destroy”.

Worlds in Panels: Forget McCloud (or Maybe Not, Baudrillard)
By Shaun Huston
[10.Dec.09] :. Scott McCloud's text does not make any concessions to doubters. It gives people permission to start from the presumption that comics are 'real' art, as well as 'real' literature.

PopPundit: Santa Claus: Super Hero Icon and Religious Figure
By Aaron Sagers
[10.Dec.09] :. Kris Kringle has flesh-and-blood status and is a religious secular figure. He is Superman, Peter Parker, Bruce Wayne, Gandalf the White, James Bond, Dr. Who and James T. Kirk all rolled into one.

Torch & Twang: The Music That Matters: Ralph Rinzler and Bill Monroe, Part Two
By Juli Thanki
[9.Dec.09] :. During the height of his career, Bill Monroe fielded a baseball team that would organize pickup games in each town in order to drum up publicity for that evening's concert.

Mixtape Confessions: In the J-Zone Zone
By Ben Rubenstein
[9.Dec.09] :. Like college, or Play-Doh, a social media tool is what we make of it, and J-Zone's got the skills to make things interesting.

Pop Osmosis: Farmville: Fetch Me My Manure Boots
By Jennifer Byrne
[8.Dec.09] :. The surging popularity of the virtual farming game 'FarmVille' seems to imply dissatisfaction with almost every aspect of modern life -- except maybe virtual reality.

From the Cheap Seats: Seeing Stars (Suffer Brain Injuries)
By Tobias Peterson
[8.Dec.09] :. Imagine old Daffy Duck cartoons, with pastel songbirds circling as a cuckoo clock sounds in the background. The reality is a bit more serious.

Moving Pixels: Philip K. Dick’s Defense of Video Games
By L.B. Jeffries
[7.Dec.09] :. Philip K. Dick’s fiction is a defense of the validity of video games because despite the fact that they are not real, his stories argue that there is still something valid in the artificial.

Alternative Rock Cultures: On the Sixth Day God Created Man…chester, Part Four.
By Iain Ellis
[4.Dec.09] :. Doves and Elbow register in the 9-to-5 tradition of working class Manchester, where respect is earned through hard work, and character is assessed by true-to-self authenticity and true-to-others selflessness.