Husker Du box set captures trio in its ferocious infancy
The early years of Husker Du typically get short-shrift even among the band’s most committed fans, who inevitably point to mid-period classics such as “Zen Arcade,” “New Day Rising” and...
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A chastened Jay-Z shares time with his younger self at United Center
Jay-Z started his Chicago show Tuesday night at the United Center by setting video images of his face on fire. It was a spectacularly graphic display on big screens overhanging...
Chicago Afrobeat Project thrives alongside Fela collaborator
In some ways, the Chicago Afrobeat Project’s decade-plus career had been building to the moment in 2013 when band members found themselves in the same recording studio with one of...
U2 confronts the dinosaur within on new album ‘Songs of Experience’
“A dinosaur wonders why it still walks the earth," U2 sings on “The Blackout.” It’s not the best song on the band’s new album, “Songs of Experience” (Interscope), but it...
Chris and Heather add new twist to country calendar show for 20th anniversary
Chris Ligon and Heather McAdams’ annual country calendar shows are a holiday-season staple in Chicago, a multimedia event that in its all-encompassing quirkiness embodies what the city’s indie music and...
Jay-Z, Lamar, hip-hop dominate Grammy nominations, but can they win?
The instant reaction from some major media outlets to the Grammy nominations announced Tuesday was that somehow the stodgy old Recording Academy had awakened to the dominance of hip-hop and...
Bjork seeks ‘Utopia’ after heartbreak
Like most of her recent albums, Bjork’s “Utopia” (One Little Indian) suggests a multimedia project or movie as much as a musical event. With its matrix of animal noises (from...
Nico Segal’s JuJu Exchange has a new story to tell
Nico Segal has stories to tell, and he’s determined to share them without saying a word. Segal is perhaps best known as Chance the Rapper’s longtime friend, musical collaborator and...
Malcolm Young, the driving force of AC/DC, dead at 64
AC/DC’s Malcolm Young, whose death was announced Saturday at age 64, was not even the best known Young brother in the multimillion-record-selling rock band he founded. Angus Young, the lead...
Converge searches for reason amid scorched-earth riffs in ‘The Dusk in Us’
Converge’s consistency at the leading edge of metalcore — a blend of punk, metal and furrowed-brow introspection — has made it a revered presence in underground music for the last...