Joey DeGroot

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  • 6 Artists Whose Best Album Didn't Sell Well: The Beach Boys, Kanye West, and more

    If a musician is lucky enough to reach a wide audience, the best they can hope for is that their fans support them through any whims of experimentation and artistic growth. This worked great for the Beatles and Radiohead, but there are plenty of other musicians whose artistic peaks didn’t match their commercial peaks. Here are six artists whose best albums didn’t sell as well as their other albums.

  • 6 Albums Divided Into Two Distinct Halves: The Beatles, David Bowie, and more

    Before the invention of CDs, artists had to sequence their albums with consideration to the two sides of a record, meaning that each half of the album had to flow and feel complete on its own. This resulted in many albums where the two sides are quite different from one another. Here are six excellent albums that are divided into two distinct halves.

  • 6 Bands Who's Final Album Was Its Worst: The Clash, Led Zeppelin and more

    When R.E.M. released its critically panned 2004 album Around the Sun, the band considered breaking up, but realized that they couldn’t end their career on such a failure, which prompted them to release two acclaimed albums before calling it a day in 2012. That was R.E.M., though. Not every band is able to control its legacy so gracefully. Here are six bands that broke up after their weakest albums.

  • 7 Incredible Bands with Tiny Discographies: The Sex Pistols, The Nerves and more

    When you consider all of your favorite bands, they probably have at least a couple of albums to their credit. Each album might be a gem, or maybe there are a couple of duds, but most successful bands have a ton of music to choose from. The discographies of these seven bands, however, probably don't take up very much space in a record store. Here are seven great bands with very small bodies of work.

  • 6 Thoughts After Listening to 'Sheezus' Once

    Lily Allen’s new single “Sheezus” surfaced online yesterday, and these were all of the thoughts that came to mind after listening to the song once and looking over the lyrics.

  • 5 Artists Whose Lyrics Are Better Than Their Music

    When talking about his songwriting, Kurt Cobain was once said “music comes first and lyrics come second.” Most songwriters and music fans place the importance of a song’s music over its lyrical content, but there are some singers whose lyrics are actually the best parts of their songs. Here are five artists whose lyrics are better than their music.

  • 7 Classic Albums That Are Way Too Long: The Notorious B.I.G., Fleetwood Mac, and more

    An album should ideally be no longer than 50 minutes, but artists regularly push this boundary and give us albums that are well over an hour long. There are some instances where this works (somehow, all two hours of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness is worth hearing), but most of the time, these albums are simply too long. Here are seven classic albums that should have been much shorter.

  • 6 Artists Whose Sound Doesn't Match The Place They Came From: Thin Lizzy, CCR, and more

    With many artists, there’s absolutely no mystery as to where they hail from. The Beach Boys are quite obviously from Southern California, and Bruce Springsteen has made a career out of being a New Jersey native (at least, he might be). These six artists, however, sound as if they came from one place, but are actually from somewhere else entirely.

  • Six Lead Vocalists Who Don't Write Their Own Lyrics: Ozzy Osbourne, Roger Daltrey, and more

    It's totally reasonable to assume that each member of a band writes his or her own parts: the guitarist writes the guitar parts, the bassist writes bass lines, and the vocalist writes the lyrics. However, there are some rare cases where someone in the band other than the vocalist writes the lyrics. Here are six examples of bands whose vocalists don't write their own lyrics.

  • 8 Albums Missing from Rolling Stone's Best of '94: Morrissey, Pulp and more

    Rolling Stone recently wrote a list of the 40 best alternative albums of 1994, and while they included a ton of excellent albums (Parklife, Weezer’s Blue Album, Dookie), I also noticed that a ton of classics were missing as well (and replaced by Korn and Bush, for some reason). Here are eight great albums from 1994 that Rolling Stone must have simply forgotten to add to their list.

  • 6 Artists Whose Second Band Was Superior: Jimmy Page, Ian MacKaye, and more

    When a musician is kicked out of a high-profile band, or if that band breaks up, they can usually be expected to start another band soon afterwards. While these bands are rarely better than the old ones (see: Wings, Big Audio Dynamite), sometimes the new band is actually better. Here are six artists whose second band was better than their first.

  • 6 Bands That Began as Solo Projects: Grizzly Bear, Foo Fighters, and more

    Unless they're singing folk songs like Bob Dylan, solo artists are rarely "solo" in the most literal sense of the word, typically employing a backing band to play along with them on record and during concerts. However, just as some artists leave their bands in pursuit of a solo career, some solo artists feel more comfortable playing music within a band environment. Here are six great bands that began as solo projects for one of the members.

  • 5 Reasons Why "Illmatic" is the Greatest Rap Album Ever

    I hold the very uncontroversial opinion that Illmatic, the debut album by Queens rapper Nas, is the greatest rap album ever made. In celebration of Illmatic’s 20th birthday today, here a couple of reasons why it’s truly the greatest ever, just in case you’re unconvinced (or if you’ve never heard it before).

  • Eight Totally Bizarre Guitar Solos: Led Zeppelin, Neil Young, and more

    The most renowned guitar solos in rock history are soaring and highly melodic, like David Gilmour’s ethereal passages in “Comfortably Numb,” or the epic guitar duel between Don Felder and Joe Walsh at the end of “Hotel California”. These eight solos listed here are way too strange to ever get such recognition, but they’re definitely worth checking out anyway.

  • Seven Albums Hated by the People Who Made Them: R.E.M., the Beatles, and more

    Musicians have a very unusual relationship with the songs they write. Just like an actor doesn't sit around watching his or her own movies all day (hopefully), a musician doesn't listen to their own albums very often, for various reasons. They could simply be tired of hearing the songs, or maybe they're self-conscious, but sometimes an artist genuinely dislikes their own work. Here are seven albums aren't very well liked by the people who made them.

  • Junk Mail: E-mailing About Jason Derulo's New Album 'Talk Dirty'

    Music Times writers share an office area of roughly 45 sq. ft, which makes having face-to-face conversations totally impossible. Junk Mail is these millenials attempt to discuss and review the week's hottest album releases... without needing to look at each other.This week: Ryan Book, Caitlin Carter, Joey DeGroot and Carolyn Menyes email back and forth about Jason Derulo's "Talk Dirty".

  • 5 Musicians Who Pointlessly Went Solo

    There are plenty of good reasons for an artist to release a solo album. Maybe their band broke up, or maybe they want to write some songs in a different style. However, sometimes musicians go ahead and release solo music that could have been easily been released with their band. Here are five musicians who didn't need to go solo.

  • Six Classic Albums from the ‘80s That Don’t Sound ‘80s: Slayer, Nirvana, and more

    Though each musical era has its own peculiar trends, no decade can compete with the ‘80s when it comes to bizarre, distinctive record production. Anyone can identify a ‘80s song immediately: chorus on the guitars, reverb on the drums, cheesy synths, and a cold atmosphere. Virtually every album released during the decade succumbed to this style, with these notable exceptions…

  • 7 Musicians with Tax Problems: R. Kelly, Robin Thicke, and more

    Happy tax day! If you feel stressed out and miserable that you waited until the last minute to do your taxes (if that's the case, stop reading this and get back to your taxes), don't feel so bad; even the rich and famous are awful at paying the IRS. Here are seven musicians that have run into trouble with Uncle Sam.

  • Seven great movie scores by rock musicians: Neil Young, Peter Gabriel, and more

    Since Hollywood always seems desperate to get people to go to the movies, it’s strange that they wouldn’t hire popular musicians to score their films more often, as that could draw in a completely different group of people that otherwise wouldn’t care about a particular film. I’m sure there are plenty of Nine Inch Nails fans who are anticipating David Fincher’s Gone Girl simply because Trent Reznor co-wrote the score. Here are seven other rock (and alternative) musicians who wrote excellent film scores.

  • Concert Review: Cloud Nothings at Music Hall of Williamsburg, 4/13/14

    What sets Music Hall of Williamsburg apart from all of the other major venues I’ve been to is the absence of a barricade between the audience and the stage. For the first time in my life, I was able to stand right next to the stage and rest my arms and my beer on it. I chose to hang around stage left, and it turned out to be the best spot in the house for taking photos of the bands.

  • 8 Pairs of Songs with the Same Title: Which is Better?

    While musicians can be sued if they plagiarize lyrics or melodies, song titles are pretty much fair game, resulting in a ton of songs with the same name. I’ve decided to stack up some of the best songs that share titles and see which is better. These might seem like arbitrary comparisons based on a coincidence, but so are “Best of the Year” lists, and those are cool.

  • 6 Classic Albums That Deserve Documentaries: Weezer, the Strokes and more

    Some of my favorite types of films to watch are music documentaries, and with the premiere of Time is Illmatic, a film about the classic Nas LP Illmatic (in my opinion, the greatest rap album ever made), I started thinking about what other incredible albums deserve to have their stories told. Here are six classic album documentaries I’d like to see.
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