Hey DJs and readers, Today the sexiest man in indie rock, aka George Lewis Jr., aka Twin Shadow, released the incredible and long-awaited video for “Five Seconds,” the very ’80s-sounding first single from Confess (the upcoming follow-up to Twin Shadow’s amazing 2010 debut LP Forget). The video, evocatively shot by Keith Musil, is seemingly just one… Read More

Fun Song That Everyone Knows is a prestigious title to hold, and with the right combination of tunesmithery, marketing, and a well-timed release date, a pop artist can land his/her/their song in the extremely fortunate position of holding that title in the summer, which is of course the time of year when being the Fun… Read More

I’ve been thinking a lot about Santigold’s new album, Master of My Make-Believe, recently. For a while, I was listening to it a lot, too, but that phase is over. And the fact that I lost interest in the album is more or less the reason why I’ve been thinking about it so much. Here’s… Read More

Dear WRMC DJs, listeners, and community members, Today is the day: Sepomana 2012 is upon us! The show begins at 8:00 p.m. in McCullough Social Space. Don’t be late, you don’t want to miss the first act! Make sure your feet are ready to dance and your cheeks are ready for face paint! After-party at… Read More

Okay so I’m sorry to bombard the blog, but not really, because this is the most important pop-related rumor (let’s not get carried away calling it news) I can remember ever hearing (I’ve decided including Ivy Blue in such contests is just unfair) and the possibility that you, dear reader, might have missed it is… Read More

There’s no actual mister in Mr. Little Jeans, the electropop solo project of Norwegian Monica Birkenes — she actually named her act after a character in the classic Wes Anderson film Rushmore (OMG). In 2011, Mr. Little Jeans covered Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs” in a truly remarkable fashion, transforming the straightforward, Springsteen-ish piano rock of… Read More

First came the rumors — she might be back. Then came the 22-word album title (The Idler Wheel is wiser than the Driver of the Screw, and Whipping Cords will serve you more than Ropes will ever do). Then came a relatively soon release date (June 19). Then Fiona Apple took Austin’s annual SXSW festival… Read More

It’s been a VERY long time (almost two years!) since the British electro-pop-‘n’B artist Jai Paul released his sensational debut, “BTSTU,” one of 2010’s best songs (or 2011’s, depending on whether you’re counting the original demo leak, which I was when I wrote “almost two years”). And until today, “BTSTU” was not only Jai Paul’s… Read More

Fenster, a band including New Yorker-turned-Berliner and Middlebury alumna (!) JJ Weihl, will be performing at 51 Main on Friday, April 6 at 10:00 pm. Fenster were recently featured in Diane Martin’s WRMC new-music column “Tunezday,” where she compared their unique, dreamy, self-described “deconstructed” pop sound to the likes of the Strokes, Arcade Fire, the… Read More

In the past two weeks, “brostep” figurehead and former Warped Tour small-fonter Sonny Moore, aka Skrillex, has played SXSW and received major coverage on the hipster tastemaking sites Pitchfork and Stereogum. So, some questions: What’s going on here? Is the indie music sphere warming up to Skrillex’s bowel-movement-esque bass drops and cheap caffeine high aesthetic?… Read More

One of Justin Vernon (aka Bon Iver)’s favorite live gimmicks is to cover a song by a lesser-known acoustic artist. Recently, he covered “Coming Down,” a track by Middlebury ’04 grad Anais Mitchell, at an in-studio live performance at an Australian radio station; listen and download over at Stereogum. In the past, Bon Iver has… Read More