Remember the album cut—the track deep on a disc that fans knew best, that only cool radio stations would play? Like so many cherished things from before the iTunes era, it’s essentially extinct. My evidence for this bold and seemingly… Read more

Famously, Nirvana’s major-label debut in 1991 was only expected by David Geffen Company to sell about 100,000 albums, tops. That’s about how much indie godfathers Sonic Youth sold for DGC with their major-label debut, and surely, for Kurt Cobain’s little… Read more

The national star-making machinery only begins to take you seriously when you command the field more than once. Just like, say, GOP presidential candidates, pop acts can’t chart one strong number and assume dominance is permanently theirs. They’ve got to… Read more