Metric are lightening up. A little. While the Toronto-based band's music has always leaned toward the upbeat-- shock-treatment new wave, dance, and rock-- its worldview is usually anything but. Whether singer and main lyricist Emily Haines is railing against war ("Succexy"), stagnant art ("Dead Disco"), or an increasingly overbearing world ("The...

Tuomas Holopainen has been chosen as the recipient of the 2009 Soundi Award. The leader, songwriter, and keyboardist of NIGHTWISH is an inspiring example of a musician possessing clear vision, proper musical education, and stamina.After founding NIGH...

As noted after Lily's stop at Bowery Ballroom last week, a good chunk of It's Not Me, It's You is given over to directly textual, emotional confessionals wrapped in melancholic (and occasionally drab) electro-pop garb. If she wasn't so charming, those stretches in the show would have drowned in a sorry sea of boring/sad. But she is charming, and...

Usually, when rappers work with rock bands, they out their own bad---- or at least totally pedestrian-- tastes. Witness, for example, Q-Tip enlisting Korn for a collab, or Coldplay's Chris Martin and his bizarre evolution into some sort of Nate Dogg 2.0. So it's heartening to see a young rapper pairing up with a great rock band, especially when ...

Last June, British police rounded up and arrested Alan Ellis, the founder of the once-popular torrent tracker OiNK, along with five of the site's British users, as part of the Cleveland Police's goofily named Operation Ark Royal operation. (British and Dutch police had already shut the site down in the fall of 2007.) Four of those users pleaded ...