News
Listen to the Eerie Tune of a Toy Pig That Last Played as the Titanic Sank
Just over a hundred years since it serenaded Titanic survivors huddled in a lifeboat on the icy seas, a little toy pig's music has been resurrected.
Music
Music
Margins of Error: Chelsea Light Moving
From the mid-’80s to the late ’00s, every few years Sonic Youth would come out with an excellent album. Their consistency and reliability are very nearly unmatched by anybody else in music: they have fifteen in total, well over half of which are worth owning. For their many fans, it became normal to
Music
Fagen’s Critical Catalogue (July 2013, Part 2)
It's Alternarock Week at Critical Catalogue Headquarters with reviews of the Yo La Tengo, My Bloody Valentine, Adult, and Laura Marling.
Music
Fagen’s Critical Catalogue (July 2013, Part 1)
In part 1 of this month, reviews of the So So Glos, Portugal the Man, Deafheaven, and Kanye West.
Music
For Ai Weiwei, Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word
We've been through this before. I'm a HUGE Ai Weiwei fan. He somehow continues to send out beautiful and challenging transmissions from behind the bonefart razor wall of oppression and torture that is the Chinese government. He was a 100 percenter as far as I was concerned, from intention to viewpoi
Music
Fagen’s Critical Catalogue (June 2013, Part 2)
In part 2 of this month, After Dark 2, The National, Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba, and the Rough Guide to African Disco
Art
This Museum Kills Fascists
OKLAHOMA CITY — Is this land really made for you and me? That was the original tone of doubt at the end of Woody Guthrie's classic folk anthem "This Land Is Your Land," and now anyone can see its original lyrics exhibited below a halo of illuminated guitars in the new Woody Guthrie Center.
Music
Fagen’s Critical Catalogue (June 2013, Part 1)
In part 1 of this month, Chelsea Light Moving, Balquees, Brad Paisley, and Tyler the Creator.
Music
Skrillex: The 100th Greatest Guitarist of All Time
Everyone who said Skrillex was a novelty, a fluke, a parody, a caricature, a passing fad, the last straw, a new low, the most ridiculous music to ever hit the charts, the most ridiculous music to ever hit your eardrums, a one-hit wonder, oops-make-that-a-two-hit-wonder, or a man with bad hair was pr
Music
Fagen’s Critical Catalogue (May 2013, Part 2)
In part 2 of this month, reviews of Draft Punk, the Knife, Matuto, and Paramore.
Art
The Return of Organ Music in the World's Oldest Photography Museum
Each morning and evening, as he ate, George Eastman would be serenaded by live pipe organ music played by a musician who came daily to the the photography innovator's home in Rochester, New York. Sometime after his death when the house became a museum, this system of thousands of pipes was irreparab
Opinion
No Supper for You! Ai Weiwei Goes Heavy Metal
Look, Ai Weiwei's been through hell. But that doesn't mean he needs to put the rest of us through it. And yet, here we are — "Dumbass" has arrived. In terms of metal, Ai Weiwei, in one song, has become the Billy Ray Cyrus of the genre. Billy Ray is about as country as Pat Boone was heavy metal. And