“Tangled Up in Blue” is not Bob Dylan's most convoluted song; “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” with its references to eleven-dollar bills and hanging around in ink wells, probably wins that title. It is not even the most confusing ballad on Blood on the Tracks; Wendy Lesser is right on in her analysis of “Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts”: “There are these huge gaps…what [Dylan] leaves out is more interesting in some ways than what he puts in.”

Top 5 Pop Songs I Love No Matter What They Say
1) “Beautiful,” Christina Aguilera
2) “Always be My Baby,” Mariah Carey
3) “Kissed by a Rose,” Seal
4) “Crazy in Love,” Beyonce Knowles
5) “I Try,” Macy Gray

“Joanna Newsom and the New Weird America.” That is the title of the BBC web site’s feature on Miss Newsom, a singer and songwriter who’s our age and, like many of us, sounds much younger.

Princeton’s drug culture is like a moon. Once a month it is full, lustrous and can be seen from all over campus. For some, this metaphorical moon is perpetually full and bright while for others the sky above is eternally dark.

I finally get a hold of Howie Payne as his band, The Stands, is en route to a gig in Cleveland. This is only the second time the Liverpool natives have played in America, but Payne is cautiously optimistic.

I write this review with a simple purpose: to tell you that M.I.A.'s Arular is perhaps the best damned pop/rap/hip-hop/dancehall/electronic album in existence, and if you do not want to pick it up then you are intentionally depriving your ears of a buttered ...

There is good reason to be excited about Dean’s Date. On May 10th, after all the computer cluster bickering ceases and the papers are handed in, you would be well-advised to take a walk to the Record Exchange and pick up Weezer’s fifth album, Make Believe, the band ...

I love idealism. I have marched in anti-war demonstrations. When Howard Dean roared his infamous “Yeearrrrgh!” I roared right along with him.

Ah, the Hook-up: the quintessential college social experience. More
which survives the weekend to circulate 'til the next Thursday. Delightfully suggestive of scandal, the very term "hook-up" is perfectly suited to describing to one's friends a wide array of encounters: specific enough to provide gossip fodder, vague enough to spare the listener unnecessary detail.

With a mere 2.7 miles of track, the Dinky is the shortest regularly scheduled passenger route in the USA. The two-car train has 117 seats and carries some 1860 riders a day.

To some degree, these albums are all contemporary, not only in the sense that they have been released within the last ten years, but also because of their connectivity to and influence on the musical world today. I claim no expertise here, only the knowledge that these ten albums offer ten different avenues (not the only ones, by any means) to listen to music in a new and more satisfying way.