He might look like something found in the dumpster at a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert. He might shamelessly plunder the sonics of decades of deep-fried and gravy-smothered hits. But despite everything about his presentation and performance, Kid Rock is not actually southern. 

If he were, he might have done the friendly thing and warned Eminem off of collaborating on “Heal My Faith,” a song on his recent Christian album “Halfway 2 Jesus.” He might have stopped his longtime friend and fellow Michigander from irreparable reputational damage. Instead, he let Slim Shady learn a hard lesson that true southerners know: You lay down with dogs, you wake up with fleas. 

“Heal My Faith” is genial to the point of being unmemorable, a bit of cringy Christian pablum that encourages loving someone even when you’re outside of the pit. It’s student-athlete core, a mish-mash of choirs, electric guitar noises over pounding drums that all sound like keyboard presets. Kid Rock’s contributions are entirely lifted from inspirational T-shirts, table scraps from rejected Jelly Roll songs. The result is that “Heal My Faith” offers very little to chew on — until Eminem shows up.

The boilerplate praise chug of the song has one upside: It forces the “Rap God” to slow down. Left to his own devices, middle-aged Eminem has been the hip-hop equivalent to masturbatory guitarists, his late-stage work full of technically impressive displays of chops that nonetheless lack the fun and melody of his radio hits. Hearing him enter the song with a flow that’s not indebted to a J.J. Fad outro offered a glimmer of hope. But it was short-lived.

On “Heal My Faith,” the rapper who first gained mainstream attention by lighting the pop chart’s sacred cows afire wonders why we can’t all just get along. It’s shocking stuff from the rapper who famously mused about dropping an “awfully hot coffee pot” on Donald Trump in a freestyle at the BET Hip Hop Awards in 2017. Now, Slim Shady seems to be saying, “We might believe in fundamentally opposed directions for this country. We might differ on the idea of extending dignity to all people, but can’t we put that aside for the sake of a new single you can buy?” 

You don’t need to hear it. You’ve already heard it. It’s the realm of purple state campaign ads and Earthbound Trading Co. bumper stickers. It’s junk, and Eminem seems to know it.

How else can you explain a verse that is 90% throat-clearing and preemptive dodges of the backlash he knows is coming? Eminem spends bar after bar defending his decision to even appear on the song, touting his decades-long friendship with Kid Rock and their intertwined history in the music industry.

He talks about their shared roots in Detroit’s music scene, and how their paths crossed again and again. He details an early CD release party at length, where the more established Kid Rock showed up to lend support to the emerging rapper. It isn’t until the closing lines of his verse that Eminem turns to God and the brotherhood of man.

“Liberal and evangelical can agree,” he raps. “It’s God first, home of the free.”

Reputation-wise, the collaboration does far more for Kid Rock than it does for Eminem. The former has long been fully consumed by Trump World, becoming more of a standby entertainer for MAGA events than a rock star. Eminem, on the other hand, once told fans who supported Trump to stop streaming his music. 

Rock told Billboard that he hadn’t planned to “drag [Eminem] into my political world,” but he had to have known  that was impossible. The nod from a supposed Trump critic removes a small bit of the stain on Kid Rock, but it also transfers directly to his collaborator.

Eminem might have been hoping to build a bridge with this collaboration, but at least according to his Instagram comments, his fans aren’t ready to get over it. One commenter assured him that it’s okay to cut off a friendship “over moral differences.” Another said Eminem’s line in the sand against Trump must have been “brushed back into the beach.” The rapper’s newfound neutrality, one wrote, still amounted to “choosing a side.”

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You can’t feel too bad for Eminem, who’s had plenty of opportunities to see that who you rap with is who you are. After all, more than a year after her breakout single “What I Want,” which she recorded with the controversial country music star Morgan Wallen, the pop singer Tate McRae is still being confronted by fans and interviewers with questions about the pair’s collaboration. 

Wallen, who’s been given about as many second chances as gold records, has never explicitly identified himself as a supporter of the MAGA movement. But his history of using slurs on camera, the general nastiness of his dejected young man music and a massive social media tiff with “Saturday Night Live” have solidified him as an anti-woke warrior in the popular conception. 

“It’s crazy to think that one song could define a whole person,” McRae told W Magazine earlier this month.“There are many aspects of my personality that three-quarters of my audience has no idea about. You hope one day you figure out a way to show all aspects of it.”

There’s little chance that Eminem will face such questions in the future, if only because his career as a hitmaker is basically over. He was something exciting and fresh when he pantsed the pop culture landscape in the late 1990s, but joking about how much everything sucks is a young man’s game. Coming from an older man, it just sounds bitter and out-of-touch. 

Different listeners draw the start of his decline and the end of his relevancy at different points. Most agree that the zeitgeist of rap started to shift away from the stubbornly anachronistic rapper sometime around the end of the aughts. In 2013, he released a well-received album seemingly purpose-built to cap on his career, and then he just kept going. The 23-year-old McRae, on the other hand, will have her past decisions dug up by what remains of the music press after each new chart smash. Eminem may well be staring down a future where his regrettable decision to record contemporary worship dreck with Kid Rock generated his last real headlines. 

It’s something the culturally savvy clown of Eminem’s early career would have been smart enough to avoid. 

The post Eminem’s Kid Rock collab shows the risk of cozying up to MAGA appeared first on Salon.com.

Before alternative music invaded the mainstream in the 1990s, it dominated college radio. Indie bands emerged in the 1980s, appearing on college rock radio shows. As alternative remained in the underground, these bands inspired some of the biggest names in 90s alternative rock, such as Nirvana, Weezer, Green Day, and more. Here are three college rock bands from the 1980s that basically invented the holy grail of 90s bands.

Hüsker Dü

Hailing from St. Paul, Minnesota, Husker Du formed in 1979. Aside from their mark on the Twin Cities underground scene, the band influenced 90s artists such as Nirvana, Green Day, Foo Fighters, Uncle Tupelo, and many others. Specifically, their sophomore album, Zen’s Arcade, blended elements of hardcore punk and indie rock. This became highly influential and crucial to the 90s alternative rock sound. Sadly, Hüsker Dü broke up in 1988, just before alternative rock broke into the mainstream. Still, their massive influence on the decade was duly noted throughout the 90s.

Violent Femmes

Violent Femmes are among the pioneers of folk punk, fusing together traditional folk with punk rock of the late 70s. The group formed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1981. Their self-titled debut album became a college rock radio hit in 1983, generating the band’s signature hit “Blister In The Sun.” Notably, the song was quite different compared to other emerging indie rock bands of the decade. It became the template for Nirvana’s acoustic side of Kurt Cobain’s songwriting. As Nirvana’s Nevermind was rising to the top of the Billboard 200 in January 1992, the band was opening for Violent Femmes on tour.

R.E.M.

Almost no other band dominated college rock radio quite like R.E.M. They were the epitome of college rock radio throughout the decade. The band famously targeted college rock radio stations, offering exclusive interviews and hand-delivering their albums. This led to their early breakout single “Radio Free Europe” becoming a staple on college radio. In the late 80s, the band started to break into the mainstream after their hit “The Only I Love” peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100.

When alternative music broke into the mainstream in late 1991, R.E.M. became closely associated with this movement. Due to this, their 1991 album Out Of Time became their best-selling release. Additionally, lead singer Michael Stipe’s close friendship with Kurt Cobain was publicly noted during this time as well. The two became so close that Stipe was named the godfather of Cobain’s daughter, Frances Bean Cobain.

Photo by Paul Natkin/Getty Images

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We’ve all been there; you discover a band for the first time and they become your entire personality for a few months. Telling everyone about them, listening to their albums on repeat, essentially becoming a walking, talking press release for your new favorite band. For many Millennials in the 2000s, the following indie bands were just some of the artists that became our entire personalities.

The Strokes

Depending on who you ask, The Strokes were either the indie rock band of the early 2000s or annoying nepo baby posers. For those who loved them, though, The Strokes became something of a personality trait. Their 2001 debut EP The Modern Age had several labels fighting over them, with RCA releasing their debut LP It This It that same summer. This record sparked a wildfire of Strokes mania, with “Last Nite” effectively becoming their most well-known song.

The Strokes are often considered a mainstream indie rock band, an oxymoron that most likely frustrates quite a few fans. Still, for many Millennials, they’ve come to symbolize a unique moment during the 2000s. The Strokes were one of the bands at the forefront of indie rock, which gave way to the indie sleaze aesthetic through the 2010s. Whatever your opinion of them, there’s no denying their relevance.

Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend debuted their self-titled album in 2008, combining academic style with indie pop sound to create a literate yet laid back album. Albums like Vampire Weekend and Contra from 2010 buzzed with nervy energy in the vocals and instrumentation, but seemed to possess an effortless cool as well. Especially the debut, which featured elements of African pop styles and various string textures. This creates an interesting mix of preppy east coast sentiment and worldly musical interests.

This attitude came from tracks like “A-Punk”, “Oxford Comma”, “The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance”, and “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa”. At the time, Vampire Weekend represented a specific aesthetic of urban college campuses and indie pop academia. And it’s possible that those who latched onto that energy probably ended up getting some sort of liberal arts degree.

Death Cab For Cutie

Death Cab For Cutie is technically a late-90s indie rock band, but they gained more widespread attention in the 2000s with albums like Transatlanticism, Plans, and Narrow Stairs. Additionally, frontman Ben Gibbard’s side project The Postal Service helped give Death Cab a boost. Their sensitive, introspective, often bittersweet and sad indie rock built them a fanbase of devoted Millennials at that time.

Many of those fans remain Death Cab devotees years later. They defined the early 2000s experience for many high schoolers just trying to survive and young adults finding their way in the world. Death Cab For Cutie made a great companion for all kinds of emotional experiences, and their discography still holds up to today’s standards.

Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc

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Rappers love to be rockstars. The aesthetic around being this untouchable, larger-than-life figure is extremely alluring. But rarely do you hear of rockstars wanting to be rappers. Unless you’re Kid Rock, it’s not often you get your average rocker busting out rhymes or taking inspiration from the grandiose rap personality.

But Fall Out Boy was never the average band either. Considering they featured 2 Chainz in a music video for “My Songs Know What You Did in The Dark“, they’re clearly not averse to hip-hop. It wasn’t just general aesthetic, though. Pete Wentz found massive inspiration in his songwriting by listening to the best rappers of the moment.

In 2006, that was all Lil Wayne. He was going around touting himself as the ‘best rapper alive.’ Frankly, he wasn’t wrong to think so either. He rapped in an absolutely dizzying amount of punchlines that even put Jay-Z to shame.

Naturally, at the time, Pete Wentz was trying to apply that apex form of lyricism to Fall Out Boy. In a 2006 interview with MTV, he talked about some interests that their fans might not have immediately expected from them. He declared Weezy the best lyricist working and highlighted a line that left him especially impressed.

How Pete Wentz and Fall Out Boy Learned From Lil Wayne in the Songwriting Department

“And as far as lyrics go, I’ve been taking a lot of influence from the best lyricist of the past year: Lil Wayne. He’s insane. There’s this one song [‘Hit ‘Em Up’] where he goes, ‘I eat up catastrophe/ Swallow the truth/ And belch reality,’ and I’m like ‘Wow,'” Pete Wentz recalled.

Additionally, the Fall Out Boy bassist marveled that Patrick Stump was just as into R&B and Motown vocally as he was in rock and roll.

“There’s a song we’re calling ‘Me and You,’ and in it, Patrick is doing things that are straight-up Motown,” Wentz added. “If there wasn’t a rock band playing, it’d be straight R&B, and he’d go on tour with just an upright bass and a drum and open up for R. Kelly.”

As far as Lil Wayne is concerned, he believed his own hype just as much as Fall Out Boy did. In 2007, he told XXL that anyone hating on him needs to treat him the way you would civil rights activists.

“Darling, I don’t care what nobody think. Talk to me like you talking to Martin Luther King or Malcolm X. You’re not about to ask him about what he think about what somebody said about him. You ’bout to ask him about his greatness, and his greatness only. I don’t care what nobody think,” Lil Wayne scoffed.

Photo by James Looker/Avalon/Getty Images

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Happy New Music Friday, friends! I am glad you made it through another week. You deserve some fresh tunes for all your trouble.

First off, I want to encourage you to check out our exclusive with Eva Elfie, featuring the premiere of her debut single along with a short interview conversation. If you dig dark, otherworldly electronic jams, this one is for you.

Next, I hope you’ll scroll through our weekly list and hear the new music from some really memorable and profound artists. Starting with some heavy metal legends.

“Splatter-Fu” by Gwar

The Scumdogs of the Universe are back, baby!

Gwar has announced a brand new project: GWAR and the Last Drive-In-Stein. It’s a split/collaborative album with horror master Joe Bob Briggs and his Shudder series The Last Drive-In. Side A of the album will be some new Gwar tunes, and Side B will feature John Brennan and the Bigfeet, the official Last Drive-In house band.

As part of the project, Brenne penned “Splatter-Fu” for the unholy leaders of the Bohabs, and the hard rockin’ tune is our first taste of the record. If you expected anything less than Gwar doing what they do best, well, I’m happy to disappoint you.

“KISS ME LIKE YOU MISS HER” by ADULT LEISURE

If you’re looking for some fresh new alt-rock in your life, look no further than Bristol, England’s Adult Leisure.

The band has announced that they signed with American label Big Loud Rock, a partnership they sealed with the new single “Kiss Me Like You Miss Her”. It’s a ditty that’s catchy as hell. There’s some early 90s shoegaze guitar tone and a dirty disco rhythm that just forces you to groove with it.

You’ll get addicted to this one.

“VAGABOND” by KING BUFFALO

I love the riff on this song so. f**king. much. It’s got this clear stoner metal energy, but there’s also a little post-grunge element to it that feels really good.

King Buffalo ARE those dudes. They jam so hard and leave nothing on the table. The new tune is called “Vagabond”. It’ll be featured on their new independent record, Doomsayer, which is out on Dec. 4.

“Trick Of The Night” by Reiyo The Giant

Reiyo The Giant is a beautiful anomaly who doesn’t fit into any box you try to build for her.

The genre-defying singer has announced her debut album, Trick Of The Night, heralded by a haunting, atmospheric title track. Her smooth, smoky voice glazes through a trip-hop-esque soundtrack. As it intensifies, her jazzy vocals take center stage with vulnerability and soul, leaving you haunted.

The ‘Temilotzin’ EP by TZOMPANTLI

Hailing from Southern California, Tzompantli is one of the most important bands in heavy music these days. The indigenous metal band writes and performs as a channeling of their ancestors, and their songs exude that spiritual maturity.

This week, the band steps outside their typical sound and brings forth an organic, acoustic offering. Dubbed the Temilotzin EP, these three naturalistic and tribal melodies find Tzompantli paying homage to their deep roots and rich heritage. Find the complete project wherever you stream music, but please consider supporting it through Bandcamp.

Feature image courtesy of Pit Records

The post New Music Friday: 5 Songs You Need to Hear This Week (10/16) appeared first on VICE.

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Josh Brolin is making a documentary about the punk band he started as a teenager with his “best friend” Jason Sears. While he admitted that the band name, Cito Vice Squad, was “super dumb,” Brolin expressed his love for the L.A. punk scene growing up.

Speaking with NME in October 2026, Brolin reminisced about his teenage punk band and the L.A. scene. He used to sneak out his bedroom window at night to drive to Godzilla’s, the L.A. equivalent to New York’s CBGB.

“We’d watch amazing bands like Beer Guts, Circle Jerks, and Black Flag,” he said. Dead Kennedys and Wasted Youth frequently played there as well. Godzilla’s was unique in that it was a venue for young punks, run by young punks; for example, the club’s manager was only 20 years old. L.A.’s 80s punk scene suffered from lack of venues, in contrast to New York City. Godzilla’s became one of the last strongholds for young punks in Los Angeles.

For Brolin’s punk band, Cito Vice Squad, the inspiration actually came from across the pond. “We were really motivated by Sex Pistols,” he said. “That was probably the band that initiated it all.”

As for the film, Brolin didn’t have many specific details, other than there’s going to be a film. “We’re doing a documentary on those guys [in Cito Vice Squad and Rich Kids on LSD] right now,” he said. “And talking to [filmmaker] Amy Berg about the L.A. punk scene.”

Josh Brolin Admits That Most of His Friends Who Stayed in the L.A. Punk Scene Are Dead Now

Josh Brolin played drums in the band, and they were fairly well known in the local scene. But he eventually left the band to focus on acting. However, a lot of his friends stayed in the punk scene, for better or worse. The better outcome had fellow Cito Vice Squad members Jason Sears and Richard “Bomer” Manzullo forming Rich Kids on LSD. The worse outcome, he said in 2008, was that “Eighty percent of the guys I grew up with are dead.” By then, that included Sears.

“I was drums, but I wasn’t a good drummer,” Brolin continued. “And then Bomer came in. He was an amazing, amazing musician. All self-taught, and he could play the bass, the guitar, the drums, and the piano. He composed later. It was amazing.”

He added, “The idea of being in a band is always great. You see a lot of actors that try to have that side gig. And I get it. It’s not great for everybody, but I get it.”

In 2008, Brolin said he was grateful he got out of the scene when he did. The issue, he said, was drugs, and he very easily could have met the same fate as many of his friends. “I got out of it early on,” he said at the time. “I was very lucky.”

Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images for Disney

The post Hollywood Actor Making Documentary About His Experiences in 80s LA Punk Scene, Including Teenage Band appeared first on VICE.

Radiohead is one of the most historically respected bands of all time. Their influence across rock, pop, and even hip-hop shows up through sampling and by emulating their songwriting. The last thing you might initially expect is to hear Kanye West, Pharrell, and Lupe Fiasco rap over one of their songs on “Us Placers“.

However, that influence wasn’t just one way. Though it might not be immediately evident, they’re on the record for admiring arguably the greatest underground rap star of all time, MF DOOM. Back in January 2021, Radiohead lead singer Thom Yorke paid tribute to the late icon. Above all else, he marveled at how incredible he was at stitching words together. In hip-hop and all of music, he hadn’t heard anything so transformative before. Then, he linked the 2009 track “Gazzillion Ear“. Both Yorke and bandmate Jonny Greenwood worked with him on the remix and for the 2011 record “Retarded Fren“.

“I am so sad to hear MF Doom’s passing. He was a massive inspiration to so many of us, changed things,” Yorke tweeted. “For me the way he put words was often shocking in it’s genius, using stream of consciousness in a way i’d never heard before.”

How MF Doom Inspired Radiohead and So Many Other Influential Artists of the 21st Century

Additionally, back in 2013, Thom Yorke told Dazed that DOOM was his favorite rapper. “Ultimately to me it’s not rapping at all, it’s poetry. The way he freeforms his verses and puts it all together, I don’t think anyone else quite does it like that,” the Radiohead frontman shared.

“I don’t necessarily like a lot of the beats, but he’s always amazing. ‘Guvnor’ was my single of 2012. It’s genius, that tune.

On the other side of the spectrum from Radiohead is Playboi Carti. Though he may not be the lyrical marvel that MF DOOM was, he raps with a lot of the same color and imagination stylistically. Still, when he made a reference to him on Whole Lotta Red in 2020, it threw a lot of people by surprise, his friends included.

That fact made Carti extremely giddy to share with his friends. As he told MARVIN Magazine in 2021, he was anxiously waiting to see if DOOM ever heard the lyric.

“I was more hype than anything. He’s alive to hear this s**t boy. I couldn’t wait for DOOM to pop out his shell and shout out Playboi Carti. I ain’t even do it for him to shout me out, I just did it to show older people who hear me. Yeah, I f**k with Doom, feel me. I love Doom,” he told journalist Yoh Phillips.

Photo by Scott Dudelson/Getty Images

The post The Underground Hip-Hop Legend That Quietly Inspired Radiohead for Years appeared first on VICE.

Beloved indie rock singer Jake Luppen has revealed that he will undergo major surgery. The Hippo Campus frontman has shared that doctors will be performing a six-hour surgery to remove a brain tumor that he was previously diagnosed with.

“Hey everyone – Jake here with a life update,” Luppen wrote in a social media post. He then offered some background info on his health situation. “About seven years ago, a migraine-prompted MRI revealed a 9 mm lesion on my brain, right near my [basal] ganglia,” Luppen shared.

“This past summer a routine scan showed some possible growth in this lesion, which prompted an EEG test,” he continued. “To my surprise, the panic symptoms I had been experiencing were actually focal seizures.”

Doctors will perform an open brain surgery on Hippo Campus frontman Jake Luppen

Next came a plan on how to treat the tumor. “My neurologist and neurosurgeon at Mayo determined that the best route to recovery would require a craniotomy to remove the lesion, as its critical location renders the option for a biopsy to be too dangerous,” he explained. “This kind of open brain surgery lasts for about six hours and requires that I’m awake so that they can safely access what they believe is a stage two glioma (slow-growing, low-grade brain tumor).”

“They’ll remove as much of the lesion as possible and then send it off for testing. Once we know what it is, we’ll know how to treat it,” Luppen shared. “While a medical procedure of this nature carries some scary risks, my family and I couldn’t ask for a better surgical team to perform this surgery, which is scheduled for November 6th.”

The singer added that this will certainly affect his ability to perform. “All that being said, it might be a second before I can play music for y’all again,” he said. “So, on October 19th we’re playing a show at Turf Club to rage for one last time before I’m on my a** for a few months. “

“Rest assured, I will work as hard as I can to get back on stage asap,” Luppen concluded. “I’ll keep y’all updated throughout this journey. Gonna be a wild ride. Much love.”

Photo by Jon Mattrisch/Billboard via Getty Images

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Fontaines D.C. have dropped the third single from Dopamine Chamber, the highly anticipated follow-up to their 2024 album Romance, but there’s something different about this one. “Where Is Gone?” not only differs from the previous singles stylistically, but it features a first for the band overall. Here, they’ve added a guest vocalist for the first time.

The band collaborated with Rosalía for the single, and frontman Grian Chatten had nothing but praise for the Spanish singer-songwriter. Speaking with NPR in October 2026, Chatten shared details of the process, from knowing Rosalía was the right choice to actually contacting her.

“I’ve always had a sneaking suspicion that there is one grand thing that I’m trying to impart on the world before I get old and die,” he began. “[It’s like] there’s one thing that I’ll always be chasing. I’ve got a suspicion that her heart is similar to mine.”

RosalíA’s ‘Classical’ and ‘Dystopian’ Vocals Were Exactly What Fontaines D.C. Needed on New Track

The Fontaines D.C. frontman spoke of a “kinship” between himself and Rosalía as they worked together. It seems that their creative priorities were exactly in alignment, reassuring Chatten that he and the band made the right choice for a guest vocalist.

“She’s such an incredible arranger and composer and lyricist,” Chatten said of Rosalía. “It’s just so humbling that she was into singing on something that we had arranged.” He added, “It’s a career high for me, for sure.”

Speaking with MOJO, also in October 2026, Chatten doubled down on his praise for Rosalía’s artistry. He made note of her genre-bending talent, comparing her to others who have made their music into an experimental art form. Rosalía may seem like a typical pop star on the surface, but her discography is artfully crafted with a wide net of influences, including literature and traditional Spanish folk music.

But when asked why Fontaines D.C. wanted to work with Rosalía, Chatten highlighted her vocals specifically. “Because I think her voice, there’s a classical nature to it,” he said. “But there’s also something kind of eerily sort of dystopian in it.”

That’s just what Fontaines D.C. were looking for on this new track, and on Dopamine Chamber as a whole. “I just think she’s a bit of an auteur,” Chatten added. “She reminds me of Bowie and Björk. She has a terrifying level of talent. So it’s an honor.”

Photo by Shirlaine Forrest/WireImage

The post Fontaines D.C.’s Latest Single Features Their First-Ever Guest Vocalist: ‘She Has a Terrifying Level of Talent’ appeared first on VICE.

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The stomp-clap style of indie folk is an interesting rabbit hole to get lost in. When you get right down to it, there really weren’t that many stomp-clap bands out there, because it wasn’t a genre that anyone made on purpose. It was just an amalgamation of folk elements—banjo, ukulele, stomping, clapping, heying—that became too popular to sustain itself. Oversaturation by bands like Mumford & Sons, The Lumineers, and Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros made the style almost universally hated. Not to mention its association with Millennial hipsters, microbreweries, and upscale-industrial burger joints.

These three bands may not be completely forgotten, and they were most successful throughout the 2010s. This list, however, is for the fellow Millennials who really liked these bands, then forgot about them when the whole indie folk hipster thing blew up. Here’s a nice reminder that these bands are still incredible.

The Oh Hellos

Sibling duo The Oh Hellos were fairly prominent in the indie folk pop scene of the 2010s. They first gained a following on Bandcamp with a 2010 EP. From there, they continued to grow as a staunchly independent band. The Oh Hellos released their self-produced debut, In the Deep, Dark Valley, in 2012, and consistently released several more albums and EPs through the years.

Their sound is mercurial, majestic, and expansive, drawing on Celtic musical styles and other folk traditions. Of the stomp-clap era, The Oh Hellos flew relatively under the radar. They had a devoted following, but as a strictly independent band, they didn’t get airplay like Mumford & Sons or other signed bands. So while their contemporaries grew to mainstream oversaturation, The Oh Hellos maintained their creative freedom.

First Aid Kit

Swedish sister act First Aid Kit emerged after their 2008 cover of Fleet Foxes’ “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” gained attention on YouTube. They released their debut album, The Big Black and the Blue, in 2010, going on to release five albums and four EPs. Their most recent release was Palomino in 2023. They mostly skirted the edges of stomp-clap folk, not fully joining but standing adjacent. Like The Oh Hellos, they didn’t get caught up in the commercial saturation of the style, retaining creative integrity.

First Aid Kit often produces ethereal harmonies and tribal percussive beats, tapping into an ancient spiritual feeling with their music. Their real skill was their sparse, stripped-bare production. They created indie folk songs that sounded simultaneously lush and barren. A dense forest in one moment, a dry desert in the next, but always atmospheric.

The Head and the Heart

The Head and the Heart formed in 2009 and released their debut self-titled album in 2011. Considering genres, they were more involved in the indie folk scene that the stomp-clap style evolved from. That is, the acoustic indie folk of Bon Iver, Iron & Wine, and Grizzly Bear, which in turn evolved from bands like Neutral Milk Hotel.

What the stomp-clap style of indie folk did in the 2000s was mostly overshadow the genuine folk bands who were emerging at the same time. Stomp-clap became synonymous with indie folk because it was everywhere, and because it was everywhere, people grew to hate it. However, bands like The Head and the Heart were still releasing quality indie folk records. It just so happened that the mainstream audience was preoccupied with stomp-clap at the time.

Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

The post 3 Stomp-Clap Bands From the 2000s I Can’t Believe Millennials Forgot About appeared first on VICE.

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Chat Pile definitely isn't easy listening. The Oklahoma City sludge and noise rock band tackles lyrical topics as heavy as they get: families falling apart, homelessness, and, on their latest album, the climate crisis. This year Chat Pile released their third full-length album, Who Loves the Sun, to wide acclaim from fans (myself included) and critics like Anthony Fantano, who gave it a rare 9/10. — Read the rest

The post Chat Pile's songs are bleak, but their live show is a blast appeared first on Boing Boing.