And It Don’t Stop

Reviews of Sky Smeed, Willie Nelson, Robyn, Allo Darlin', De La Soul, The Delines, Dorisburg, Gurf Morlix, Van Morrison, Bill Orcutt, Jefferson Ross, Twisted Teens, and Vaiano’s Paisanos.

On Joe Boyd's reading (with film clips) at the Film Forum

Notes from the premiere of the documentary "The Last Critic" at SXSW

Growing up pop, band dreams vs. critical practice, The Only Ones on record and in print, Yankee Hotel Mea Culpa, the Tallahatchie Bridge not taken, and sixteen live ones.

At the top: Aesop Rock, Buck 65, Masaka Kids Africana, and The Paranoid Style. Plus: The Cucumbers, Gogol Bordello, Madonna, Charli XCX, and Abdallah Oumbadougou's desert blues.

Some health notes, Bird: still lives, the live Dead, the A shelves explained, reissues not reevaluated, and some faves.

One of the great interpretive singers of our epoch takes on Lou Reed, abstract and impressive amapiano, the most explicitly leftist album in far too long, and a reliable Nashvillian with 11 winners

Favorite instruments, Xgau at the radar station, classical colleagues, Phish still fishy, heavy reading, and wanker's delight.

Detailed and complicated songs of marital strife, super rhyming over a panopoly of speedy beats, an A+ Thelonius Monk compilation, and an ancient Ugandan instrument provides brand new kicks.

What's in a name, live vs. recorded, tuneful vs. melodic, Pulnoc at P.S. 122, a lost Clash cassette, and a half-century-plus of delightful rhetoric.

"Preaching Agnosticism (With Laugh Lines)," from "The Barnes & Noble Review," April 30, 2012

Shameless beauty track after track, an inspirational Afropop surprise, mood pieces suitable for the despondent historical moment, and a country album that fights the blues with more blues.

From her first solo album in 1955 at 19 to her Last Farewell tour earlier this year at 90, Peggy Seeger has sung with effervescence, power, and a feminist edge.

'Famous Last Words: Dr.Jane Goodall' (2025)

Let us praise first-rate collections of first-rate songs but let us skip the twenty-four albums awarded some variation of the E grade. Also: albums vs. songs, Mary J. Blige, Geese, and chansons.

Nearly half an hour of covers that qualify as beautiful, a remarkably warm and rich love album, facing down this grim moment with perky bad-assness, and amorous vulnerability intensified by a croak.

An excerpt from Carola Dibbell's memoir "Young Me: Travels With an Old Self 1967-1970"

African American science fiction, Eno before and after rocking, where (or who) in the world is Stephen Malkmus, first musical loves, variants of the art-rock mindset, and listening without prejudice.

Soul jingles meet ad jingles, "Dumb Luck” rhymes with “IDGAF,” three L.A. sisters savor sex and tunes, and the Mahotella Queens shine on their own.

Sacha Jenkins, ‘Sunday Best’ (2025)