SOUND BITES

Typically a chance to take a breather from the year that had just passed and resolve to get through the winter while looking forward to some great albums in the spring, 2015 bucked that trend in grand fashion. From established artists releasing highly anticipated albums that met or exceeded expectations to hungry new artists looking to make their mark, the first quarter of 2015 provided an abnormally high amount of quality songs and albums. The tone was also set early with female-fronted projects that hit with force and built momentum for women in rock that carried through the rest of the year (I wrote about that here in April). The first batch of Song of the Year nominees are:

When a traditionally underground band draws commercial appeal for the first time, it often acts as a crucial checkpoint for fans and critics alike, an invisible line in the sand that got crossed when stations in Mesa, Arizona started spinning their single. In most cases, willingly or not, the band's career becomes something to be judged not as a whole but in "pre-fame" and "post-fame" sections. Inevitably, as the band's output wanes in quality and passes its best-before date, people sit around pondering what might have become of them if they hadn't been saddled with the fame? The foremost band that comes to mind in this context, for me anyway, is Nirvana; it's hard to imagine a world where Smells Like Teen Spirit never happened, but we do it anyway. We like to tell ourselves that Kurt Cobain may have never ended his life, that Nirvana would have kept making edgy, interesting records to this day. We ponder whether The White Stripes might still be t...

It's been incredibly quiet over the last few weeks, and thankfully so; working my paying gig in retail is always a bitch at Christmas time, and this year was particularly taxing. Now, with things easing their way back toward something resembling normal again, I figured it's high time we take our annual look ahead. It starts with a handful of artists who have officially confirmed new stuff for early in the year and, as you'll see, there's some pretty intriguing albums on the horizon. Let's dive in, shall we?