David Browne
David Browne is a contributing editor of Rolling Stone and the author of Goodbye 20th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth and Dream Brother: The Lives and Music of Jeff and Tim Buckley. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, Spin and other outlets.
He is currently at work on Fire and Rain, a book that will track the lives and careers of The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young during the pivotal year of 1970.
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Gonzalez's "Killing for Love" opens with the intimate sound of fingers caressing guitar strings. His voice never rises above a clear-eyed tone, but Gonzalez's buzzy finger-picking and Erik Bodin's thwacking conga drum combine to form a hypnotic, driven pulse.
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Full-sized voices — voices more than willing to flaunt lung power and sheer loudness — are everywhere these days. A voice that can merge force with genuine feeling is another matter altogether, which is where Brandi Carlile, a relatively new talent from Seattle, comes in. -
It's easy for a band to sound "rootsy" by simply unplugging the instruments and singing in a manner that's folksy and earnest. It's a little harder to tap into the dark, cryptic, desolate-cornfield aspect of American music, but Wooden Wand's "Delia" does just that. -
The muted beat that opens Rose Kemp's "Tiny Flower" is nothing but modern: It sounds like feet crunching in snow, but had it been mixed higher, it might have sounded like something unleashed by hip-hop producer Timbaland. Then, in swoops the voice. -
The wonder of "We Can Be Strong" is that it isn't nearly as depressing as its lyric. It helps that Willy Mason is far from a typical young alt-folkie, and his stripped-wood voice implies resilience more than defeat. The song's arrangement feels craggier and more rugged than that of the average ballad.
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There's something familiar about The Ponys' "Poser Psychotic." The two guitars create a dense blare, the rhythm section throbs with low-end gristle, and singer Jered Gummere intones in a slacker drone. There's no chorus, but it's compelling nonetheless, and in ways that feel eerily recognizable. -
The tradition of rock stars singing about the bottom rung of the working-class ladder has been around as long as rock itself. But few did it with such heartbreaking empathy and iridescent beauty as Pete Townshend and Ronnie Lane did on 1977's "Heart to Hang Onto." -
Some singles linger in the Top 40 for months — and sometimes, they do so for good reason. Case in point: "Too Little, Too Late" by the teenage pop queen JoJo. For all the song's familiar R&B signifiers, formulaic pop rarely sounds so non-formulaic, nor so fabulous. -
It's hard not to keep returning to Newsom's "Emily," perhaps because nothing else released last year sounds quite like it. The song comes complete with distinct movements and dramatic, soundtrack-worthy string accents courtesy of Brian Wilson collaborator Van Dyke Parks, who knows a thing or two about making oddballs palatable. -
On David Crosby's "Song with No Words (Tree with No Leaves)," a piano gently rumbles, while vocal harmonies, stacked atop each other for maximum choir effect, melt over the instruments. The result is part choral music, part stoner rock; it's easy to imagine the joint being passed from one musician to the next.
