Reviews

The Best CDs of 2012
It was another year with plenty of great music and, as happened in 2010, I couldn’t make up my mind. But hey, The Killers and Bob Mould? Can’t go wrong either way….

The Best CDs of 2011
Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit craft an empathetic, intimate look at a region crushed by a decade of hard times. Also, an outstanding collection of Platinum LPs from The Blueflowers, The Lost Patrol, Doco, The Raveonettes, Dum Dum Girls, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Baron Bane, Snake Rattle Rattle Snake, Adele, Foo Fighters, Mayer Hawthorne, John Hiatt, M83 and Fountains of Wayne.

The Best CDs of 2010
For the first time in the history of the Pit’s Best CDs year-end list, we have a tie. Dark days call for dark music…

The Best CDs of 2009: Gold LPs; Platinum LPs; Super-Platinum LPs; CD of the Year and Band of the Decade
American Idiot is the single, landmark moment that people will be turning to for decades to come when they think about the music that was to the ’00s what Dylan and The Beatles were to the ’60s, what Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd were to the ’70s, what U2 was to the ’80s or what Nirvana was to the ’90s.

The Best CDs of 2008: Gold LPs; Platinum LPs; CD of the Year.
Catherine Wheel was one of the greatest bands of our generation. In his first solo effort, Rob Dickinson has arguably surpassed the band’s finest work.

The Best CDs of 2007
The rich, reflective story of one Brit’s “discovery” of America – and lots of other really great tuneage.

The Best CDs of 2006
Jets Overhead leads the way in a year that contained some absolutely outstanding work from VAST, The Strays, Don Dixon, The Killers, and Arctic Monkeys. Also, the Gold LP tier is chock full of stuff that’s slightly less critically stunning, but just too much fun not to listen to.

The Best CDs of 2005
Maybe the best example ever of how badly the music biz sucks these days. One of the very best CDs I’ve ever heard – Jeffrey Dean Foster’s Million Star Hotel, struggles to get noticed. In another era it would have been uniformly regarded as an all-time classic. The good news – you can buy it and listen to it anyway.

The Best CDs of 2004
Green Day logs in with an instant 5-star classic; The Killers and Interpol lead the Nu Wave breakout; and new releases from old friends.

The Best CDs of 2003
Once Zevon released The Wind, BRMC, FoW, Jet, and Evanescence were fighting for second.

The Best CDs of 2002
Space Team Electra had the best record, again, but 2k2 was still the year of the Swedish Invasion…

The Best CDs of 2001
Whatever happened to my rock & roll, indeed? Black Rebel Motorcycle Club weighs in with one of the best debut releases in years…

The Best CDs of 2000
Truly, Don Dixon is God…

The Best CDs of the 1990s
Oh, nevermind….

The Best CDs of 1999
Godspeed You Black Emperor! snags annual honor…

The Best CDs of 1998
Space Team Electra does something completely new…

The Best CDs of 1997
World Party rules.

Oh How the Might Have Fallen
What artists soared the highest and fell the lowest?

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Interviews

22 Questions w/ Danielle Kimak Stauss
A frillier-softer-fluffier Trent Reznor raised on Soul Train. Sorta.

22 Questions w/ Jamie Hoover
One of the busiest men in rock & roll…

22 Questions w/ Paul Lewis
From fronting one of the greatest bands to never make it to a new life as a solo artist…

22 Questions w/ Mike Smith
Frontman for Fiction 8 talks about everything from music to Columbine.

22 Questions w/ Don Dixon
One of the best producers alive, but what most folks don’t know is that he’s an even better artist in his own right.

22 Questions w/ Jeffrey Dean Foster
A conversation with one of the greatest little-known artists alive. Seriously.

22 Questions w/ Wendie Colter
LA songbird talks about her CD and more.