Virgil Griffith is a 25-year-old grad student at Caltech, and in his spare time he makes elaborate charts comparing people's SAT scores to their tastes in music and books. And you know what that means: Caltech grad students have way too much spare time.That's the main thing I've learned from Music That Makes You Dumb, Griffith's latest viral in...

Dave Matthews! Why do you keep making it so hard to hate you? You signed My Morning Jacket, reissued Exile in Guyville, put out In Rainbows, and now this. My high school self just can't deal with this cognitive dissonance! Are you trying to make me abandon my adolescent principles or something? Trying to make me open my mind to the idea that the...

Are the Counting Crows cooler than any of us realized? First the Gaslight Anthem quote Adam Duritz's "wish I looked like Elvis" line on their ridiculously great  song "High Lonesome", and then the long-maligned dreaded-up dorm-rockers announced that they'd be bringing the Hold Steady on tour with them in the UK and Ireland.We reported t...

Art by Wes FreedThe Hold Steady and Drive-By Truckers are about to redeem their chosen genre's decades-old bad reputation with the kickoff of their joint "Rock and Roll Means Well" tour. The first stop on the mission of do-goodery is tonight (October 30) in Louisville, Kentucky. The two bands will alternate opening and closing duties on the whol...

Power-pop quartet Mêlée has just confirmed an arena tour of the U.K. as special guests of Counting Crows and Ben Folds. The December tour will follow a series of headlining dates across Europe this fall with Warner Bros. Records label-mates Meg & Dia. In addition, the band will headline The Roxy