Max Abelson
Max Abelson
Recent Stories
Have you heard?
Immense pop songs, from the Cure's half-gritty "Boys Don't Cry" to Britney Spears' fully bawdy "Toxic," share a spiritedness that transcends lyricism and instrumentation and production. The closest anyone comes to even classifying that essential pop...
Warhol wunderkind talks
Half his life ago, the poet and photographer Gerard Malanga was a valiantly cool, impossibly handsome superstar produced by Andy Warhol's Factory. In snapshots of the 60s and early 70s, he lounges next to Dylan, Ginsberg, the Velvet Underground and the...
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With his sister Eleanor, Matthew Friedberger has released four albums (in four years) that bubble with eccentric exuberance. The Fiery Furnaces' narratives of grandmothers and lost dogs sound best on hulking headphones, but the duo has built a firm...
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The strings on the opening track of "The Greatest," Cat Power's seventh and most vivid album, will break your little heart in two. A molasses-soaked violin, cello and viola waltz us into an album that bears more resemblance to Van Morrison's blissful...
'First' supremely strokes
The Strokes' new album, their third, opens with a bang. After 16 drum smacks we get the glimmering electric guitars and loveably cavalier vocals that have made the band an icon of cool-kid rock. The track ("You Only Live Once") has too much poise and...
Fiery grandma croons, croaks
The Fiery Furnaces' "Rehearsing My Choir" is a downright extraordinary album. Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger, the handsome brother-and-sister duo behind the young band, have gone eons beyond the eccentricities of their previous three albums, plum...
What we listened to on our summer vacation
Summer is the most musical season. Birds chirp; children sin; celebrities organize multinational concerts for their favorite causes; R. Kelly releases a five-part, sex-fueled R&B epic; guitar gods play piano; and, among other things, indie heartthrob...
Interpol can not make the arrest
Music Review
It is a sad but unavoidable fact of the music business that follow-ups to sensational debuts are inevitably plagued by expectation. Interpol's first album, "Turn on the Bright Lights," is a masterpiece, a dense but delicate opus of atmospheric...
'Clean House' cleans up at the Rep
The Yale Rep kicks off season with world premiere winner
After what was by many accounts a long string of disappointing performances, the Yale Repertory Theater's new season opens with a comedy that is unfailingly funny and unexpectedly poignant. "The Clean House," which enjoyed its world premier this week...
All tomorrow's parties
Music
Contributions to liberal causes are rarely rewarded with more than a tote bag and a warm, tingly feeling of pride and accomplishment. "The Future Soundtrack for America," a compilation of surprisingly good tracks by surprisingly good bands, is a...