Critic's Notebook

Emily Crenshaw, Mary Grace Legg, Sole

Despite being a judge on the American version of X Factor, Nicole Scherzinger has had a rough go in the music industry ever since leaving the Pussycat Dolls. This week, word came down that the release date for her debut album Killer Love, originally slated for November 15, has been…

If you don’t already have plans for New Year’s, you might want to consider starting your night off at the Skylark around 9 p.m. That’s when The Jekylls, a brand-new band featuring Tony Asnicar and Graham Haworth of the Railbenders, plus Keith and Eryn Hoerig from the Hollyfelds and Jody…

While U2 frontman Bono said “The Fly,” the first single from Achtung Baby, was “the sound of four men chopping down The Joshua Tree,” it could easily be applied to the entire album, which was released on November 19, 1991. Achtung Baby is a document of the band, almost on…

DJ Premier is one of the greatest producers of all time. Ask anyone. He’s a trailblazing pioneer that has influenced pretty much every hip-hop producer and beat maker doing it. Maintaining longevity unlike any producer or DJ in his lane, Premier has worked with every huge name imaginable. Most notably…

While the practice of taking Reagan-era hard rock anthems, turning them inside out and remodeling them into something that even their own parents couldn’t pick out in a lineup is not exactly a new concept (Richard Cheese, anyone, or even Mark Kozelek, to an extent?), it can sometimes be entertaining…

Update: Monday, November 21: Photos from PANTyRAiD at the Fillmore are up now. PANTyRAiD doesn’t tour. So when the act, which is made up Josh Mayer of Glitch Mob and Marty Folb of MartyParty, bring its sexy, dubbed out hip-hop beats to the Fillmore this Saturday, November 19, along with…

It was a big week for female pop music. Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and Madonna were all in the spotlight this week. Perry’s new video for “The One That Got Away” garnered six million YouTube views over the weekend. The song is her sixth single from Teenage Dream, and if…

Devan Blake Jones is originally from California, but he was raised here in Denver. Growing up in a family of musicians, Jones honed his skills in the church and started pursuing his passion for singing in earnest in high school. Now a protégé of Mercury Sauce’s Nathan Reid (Amanda Hawkins,…

In hindsight Licensed To Ill — released November 15, 1986 — came to the table with a virtually infallible recipe: Rick Rubin produced the seminal radio-friendly rap album and Russell Simmons had not only signed Beastie Boys to a then baby Def Jam, but was also managing the three white…

After the breakup of his influential underground pop band Archers of Loaf, frontman Eric Bachmann formed Crooked Fingers (due at the Larimer Lounge tonight with Strands of Oak and Ian Cooke) and had a kind of second chapter in his long musical career, one favored by some over the Archers…

The debut album from New Order, 1981’s Movement (which sees its 30th anniversary this Sunday, November 13, 2011), represents a turning point and a crossroads for the former members of the cult band Joy Division. Most bands do not survive the loss (or in this case, death) of a core…

When filmmaker Larry Wessel started working on ICONOCLAST, he didn’t know it was going to turn into a six-year filming project. But then again, his subject, Boyd Rice, has been a wild and curious abstraction of a performer, whose work in music with the NON was a forerunner in noise…

Got a fresh batch of steaming hot hip-hop for you this week coming straight outta the Mile High City. On deck, we’ve got a new video from Zome for a track called “So Legit,” featuring Tony Brown, Julox and A.V.I.U.S. from Prime Element, that is just that. We’ve also got…

DanceSafe’s mission is spelled out rather plainly in its name. With nine chapters now in place across the United States and Canada, including the latest one in Denver, the non-profit organization, as its name implies, was founded to educate, inform and engage in frank dialogue with members of the dance…

Since forming in 2005, Aloft in the Sundry has gone through nine members. And while nearly every position in the band has changed hands at least once, founder and frontman Jason Hernandez has been the one constant, keeping the band soldiering on with the addition of new members, including the…

This Friday, on the magical, mystical date of 11/11/11, Katy Perry is planning to premiere the video for her sixth single, “The One That Got Away,” from Teenage Dream, the album that keeps on producing hit singles. In an attempt to break Michael Jackson’s record of five number-one singles from…

The subject of great scrutiny, misinformation and mythologizing, My Bloody Valentine’s massively influential album Loveless (released on November 5, 1991) is an enigmatic masterpiece to those who have embraced its kaleidoscopic soundscapes, and a self-indulgent landmark of alternative rock to those who begrudgingly give its eleven tracks their proper due…

As guitarist for the Black Crowes, Rich Robinson has played his share of big venues, but on tour in support of his brand new solo album, Through a Crooked Sun, he’s playing more intimate venues, like the Soiled Dove Underground, where he’ll appear tonight after an in-store at Twist &…

Known almost as much for controversy as he is for his husky vocals, Game (due tonight at the Ogden Theatre with Menace, Juice, and BLKHRTS) came onto the scene with a lot to say and even more to prove. The L.A. native has an unflinching loyalty to the West Coast,…

Although these days Lizzie Huffman plays what she calls “country folk pop,” the 22-year-old singer-songwriter says she was more into hip-hop and R&B artists like Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill early on. But just as she was becoming a teenager, she discovered classic country singers like Patsy Cline, Kitty Wells…

What do you do if you release a music video and get slammed with plagiarism accusations? If you’re Beyoncé, you release another video. And then another. First Beyoncé released a video for “Countdown,” her third official single (after “Run The World (Girls)” and “Best I Never Had”), then she released…