Music

The year is 2004. America is halfway through the long slog of the Bush era. The nation has been in Iraq for only a year, but it’s becoming increasingly apparent that WMDs will never be found. Still, America saves its shock and righteous indignation for an accidentally exposed nipple on the Super Bowl stage. Rock bands are still on TV and radio, and “American Idiot” is ranking pretty high on the TRL countdown. The iPhone is still years away from its launch.

It’s 4/20 week, so if the music seems a little hazier than usual, that’s to be expected. Bud-happy parties aside, L.A. rock group Froth will take the stage at Churchill’s Pub Wednesday, while Detroit rapper Big Sean will stop by the Fillmore Miami Beach Thursday. Looking for noise that’s more…

Since 2000, Damon Albarn of Blur fame and illustrator Jamie Hewlett, best known for co-creating the comic book Tank Girl, have been shaping their own alternative rock/hip-hop/what-have-you act with Gorillaz. And in 17 years, the virtual band has never set foot in Florida. That will change this fall when Albarn and…

The purple lights inside the American Airlines Arena dimmed around 9 p.m. to showcase a handful of Ariana Grande’s coveted male backup dancers and her staple drawstring ponytail, which was longer than usual. The ponytail swung left to right to the beat of “Be Alright,” the opening song of her…

When my editor told me I’d be reviewing the launch of the Chainsmokers’ Memories Do Not Open Tour at the American Airlines Arena last night, a number of thoughts ran through my head. First and foremost, Why me?

Much like Super Bowl Sunday (and the Hangover Monday that follows), April 20 — or 4/20 — has become an unofficial holiday. Employees will call in sick and students will skip classes. It’s a national day of stoned joy resulting from the now-mainstream embrace of those three simple numbers: 4, 2, and 0.

Chris Brown often says Michael Jackson is his biggest inspiration. And it’s easy to see the foundation laid by the King of Pop in Brown’s work. Take his video for “Party,” for example; as the 27-year-old Brown dances, you can imagine Jackson’s moves, so much a part of Brown that…

Outside of country music, no musical genre is as white — or at least believed to be as white — as metal. Blame it on Beavis, Butthead, Bill, or Ted, but if asked to describe a typical metalhead, most Americans would draw a long-haired Caucasian bro making the Devil’s sign…

The transition from child starlet to mainstream pop diva can be rife with awkward and uncomfortable moments, as young stars become adults right in front of the world’s eyes. Every pop star who’s made the leap has put her own stamp on the big change. Christina Aguilera graduated from The…

It finally happened, and it took only five years. Tortuga Music Festival, selling out once again, set a record for attendance this past weekend. More than 100,000 people filed through the gates of the country-music beach party. Held annually on Fort Lauderdale Beach since its inception in 2013, the fest this year featured headliners Luke Bryan, Chris Stapleton, and Kenny Chesney. In short, Tortuga is big.

In the early 2000s, I was dosed with 300 hits of LSD while attending a free Zakir Hussain concert in New York City’s Central Park. A young woman in her late teens with green hair and crooked teeth, wearing an Econochrist shirt, offered me a stick of mint gum. Rubbing the chewing gum’s foil wrapper against my neck, she informed me that the gum had been dipped in liquid acid.