Friday December 23, 2011 like "Silver Bells," reveal a talent for reinterpretation that takes old tropes and shines them in a new glittery light. That usually somber song comes to life with the mood of a jaunty stroll on a winter evening -- happy and mo

Well, I always promise myself that I won’t do a best of this year, but I end up doing something that looks quite like a best of-list. I listen to A LOT of music in a lot of different genres, and I always find it difficult to range albums from 1-10 or eve

There was a time when indie bands wouldn’t touch Christmas with a ten-foot candy cane (not sure if this was meant as pullquote...) EVERY DECEMBER, I LOOK forward to digging out my Christmas CDs. Not your usual Crimbo hits, mind, but my special selection

The endless appeal of the singer-songwriter is the stripped-down simplicity of the set-up: these truthseekers divining the universal via voice over acoustic guitar. The supposed vérité of the set-up means that the more stripped-down things are, the more

From the Fence Collective to the Phantom Band, Scotland’s indie musicians are getting all festive this month... Move over Michael Buble and tell Justin Bieber the news: Christmas is being soundtracked by the kind of alternative musicians you might have p

The following are my favorite songs and albums of 2011, a great year in music. For songs, I kept it to one song per artist to feature the most talent, and overall, it makes for one hell of a mixed CD if anyone's looking for some great tunes. I do tend