Cindy Wilson is resplendent in a jeweled caftan, cat’s-eye sunglasses, and a skyscraping platinum bouffant onstage at Boston’s Symphony Hall, belting B-52’s classics like “Roam” and “Love Shack” while the crowd dances along. She and her bandmatesthe acid-tongued Fred Schneider and the ebullient Kate Piersonare accompanied not only by the musicians who have backed them […]
Maura Johnston
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Dealing with Puberty 2: Mitski Learns in Real Time
Mitski The Pinhook, Durham Sunday, June 26, 9 p.m., $12–$14 You’ve probably lived through it, so you certainly know: Puberty is terrible. Bodies shift. Awkwardness abounds. Adulthood beckons. The prospect of surviving it again, of course, is terrifying. But the twenty-five-year-old singer-songwriter Mitski Miyawaki, who releases records under her first name, tackles the prospect directly […]
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How M83’s Junk Pulls Past Pop into the Present
M83 Red Hat Amphitheater, Raleigh Saturday, June 11, 7:30 p.m., $27.50–$35 Midway through M83’s new album, Junk, during “The Wizard,” the sheen that has topped so much of the French retroist’s gleaming homages to soft rock and old pop momentarily disappears. Guided by pillowed beats that land like exploding cotton balls, the song’s distorted synths […]
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The Chances Bloc Party Takes on Hymns
BLOC PARTY SUNDAY, MAY 15 CAT’S CRADLE, CARRBORO 8 p.m. $29.50–$32 Hymns, the fifth album by the Brits of Bloc Party, represents a musical shift for the one-time buzz band. Kele Okereke’s stirring yawp remains one of the few threads between then and now, but Bloc Party has traded the wiry textures and bouncing-ball drums […]
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Thank You, Beyoncé, for Delivering Us from Our Wait
BEYONCE´ TUESDAY, MAY 3 CARTER-FINLEY STADIUM, RALEIGH 7:30 p.m., $45-$280 During the last several months, the collective wait for Beyoncé’s next album hummed loudly in the background of the music-minded Internet. Remember, she dropped her last album by surprise in December 2013, an event so seismic that surprise releases are now called “pulling a Beyoncé.” […]
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On Paper Gods, Duran Duran is at its Best When it Brings the Past into the Present
DURAN DURAN MONDAY, MARCH 28 DURHAM PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, DURHAM 8 P.M., $70-$255 At its best, Duran Duran specialized in maximizing new wave’s already-present excessescalmly displayed extravagance, creeping technological paranoia, keepsake love songs. Simon Le Bon forced vowels into elaborate calisthenics, his “eeeuhhhs” and “owww-uhhs” becoming one of the MTV era’s most signature vocal tics. […]
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Garth Brooks Isn’t Happy With a Record Industry He Helped Create
Garth Brooks PNC Arena, Raleigh March 11–13, various times, $66 Imagining the modern country music landscape had Garth Brooks never existed is almost impossible. Would the hair be bigger, the gestures more grand? Would the rock tendencies be muted? Would bro-country be a thing, or would acoustics and pedal steels rule the roster? Brooks showed […]
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Sorry, R. Kelly, but I can’t stay for The Buffet
R. Kelly PNC Arena, Raleigh Thursday, Feb. 11 8 p.m., $72–$110 Last month, I went to a karaoke night ata crowded Philadelphia bar. The drinks were cheap, the songs flowed. Early in the night, a fellow patron delivered a reverent, note-perfect version of R. Kelly’s “Step in the Name Of Love,” a pillowy 2003 ode […]
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American Idol and its great colony of semi-stars, like David Cook
David Cook with Andrew Ripp Thursday, Nov. 12, 8 p.m. $15–$65 Lincoln Theatre 126 E. Cabarrus St., Raleigh 919-821-4111 www.lincolntheatre.com In late September, the singer-songwriter David Cook released a brooding rock album called Digital Vein, a web-savvy answer to his 2006 debut, Analog Heart. It’s a hooky collection of pop-rock, with tracks like “Laying Me […]
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The inspiring persistence of Janet Jackson and Kelly Clarkson, coming to Raleigh
Janet Jackson Thursday, Sept. 17, 8 p.m. $20–$115 Walnut Creek Amphitheatre 3801 Rock Quarry Road, Raleigh 919-719-5500 www.walnutcreekamphitheatre.com In 2009, I crossed several state lines to see Kelly Clarkson at the Great Allentown Fair, a multi-day festival of fried foodstuffs and agricultural wonders. Clarkson was promoting All I Ever Wanted, an album that had come […]