LHB’s Shorties (The Xx, Big Star, and More)

Eye Weekly profiles The XX.

Though most critics describe the band’s icy guitar parts and bleeding-heart synths as decidedly Young Marble Giants-esque, The xx’s sexified boy-girl harmonies and fondness for bass also vamp on ’90s R&B. Called xx for a reason, instead of embracing Auto-Tune, they channel (and on “Stars,” they even sample) Missy ‘Misdemeanor’ Elliott’s Supa Dupa Flyness, creating an erotic tension in the silence between what’s said.

Rolling Stone also profiles the band.

PopMatters makes a case for Big Star being the most underappreciated band in pop music.

Utilizing the templates laid before them by their foreign British forefathers while adding a healthy dose of American soul and R&B, Big Star melded a formula that seemed at once instantly familiar and utterly indefinable. With the ringing, jangly guitars and jarring chord changes of A Hard Day’s Night, the enthusiasm propelled by ‘50s rock and roll, and vocal performances culled from the undiluted passion of soul music, there was always a clear line of reference running through the undeniably reverential Memphis band, yet what made them so special spans a deeper and frankly much more interesting quality than spotting-the-influence. What made Big Star so special was their ability to blanket what at first seems ubiquitous with a defiant layer of self-effacement—by inverting conventionalism with twisting song structures masked by clean, bright production, an aura of elusive unpredictability forever permeates their discography.

The Gainesville Sun interviews Cursive frontman Tim Kasher.

The Baylor Lariot offers music book suggestions for holiday giving.

Drowned in Sound interviews the members of Broadcast.

Swear I'm not Paul interviews Patterson Hood of the Drive-By Truckers.

- David Gutowski