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Exhaust - Enregistreur
1 replies · 2026-03-20
Album Art Challenge #073: 2007 Releases
1 replies · 2026-03-16
Album Art Challenge #053: Layla
1 replies · 2026-03-16
Album Art Challenge #034: Piano Men
1 replies · 2026-03-16
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Mike Powell
Editor
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After Stylus
Went on to write for Pitchfork and later joined Apple Music, helping shape the service's editorial voice through album notes and features. [link]
Grade Distribution (86 reviews)
A
4
A-
10
B+
15
B
16
B-
12
C+
12
C
6
C-
3
D
1
Music Reviews
Vampire Weekend - EP
Destroyer - Notorious Lightning and Other Works
Destroyer - Destroyer’s Rubies
“Blue” Gene Tyranny - Out of the Blue
Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass
Lindstrom and Prins Thomas - Reinterpretations
Jandek - Glasgow Sunday
Jandek - Glasgow Monday
The Focus Group - We Are All Pan’s People
Jason Forrest - Shamelessly Exciting
Silver Jews - Tanglewood Numbers
Black Moth Super Rainbow - Dandelion Gum
Belbury Poly - The Owl’s Map
Quasi - When the Going Gets Dark
Our Brother the Native - Tooth and Claw
The Fiery Furnaces - Rehearsing My Choir
Shining - In the Kingdom of Kitsch You Will Be A Monster
Mordant Music - The Tower - Parts VIII - XVIII / Carrion Squared
Tinariwen - Aman Iman
Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti - Worn Copy
Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti - The Doldrums
Antibalas - Security
Kevin Blechdom - Eat My Heart Out
White Noise - An Electric Storm
Kiki and Herb - Kiki and Herb Will Die For You
Explosions in the Sky - All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone
Keren Ann - Nolita
Dandy Jack and the Junction SM - Los Siete Castigos
Adam Green - Jacket Full of Danger
Rusty Santos - The Heavens
Von Sudenfed - Tromatic Reflexxions
Animal Collective - Feels
Animal Collective - Hollinndagain
Boredoms - Super Roots 9
The Research - Breaking Up
Psychic Ills - Dins
The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers - The Mother of Love Emulates the Shapes of Cynthia
Panda Bear - Person Pitch
The Pipettes - We Are the Pipettes
The Cocteau Twins - Lullabies to Violaine
Avey Tare and Kria Brekkan - Pullhair Rubeye
Laurie Anderson - Big Science
Pearls Before Swine - The Complete ESP-Disk Recordings
Konono No. 1 - Congotronics
Fiery Furnaces - Bitter Tea
Amadou & Mariam - Dimanche a Bamako
Gang Gang Dance - God’s Money
Mu - Out of Breach (Manchester’s Revenge)
Tom Zé - Estudando o Pagode
Tom Zé - Danç-Êh-Sá (Dance of the Heirs of Sacrifice)
Map of Africa - Map of Africa
Deerhoof - The Runners Four
Deerhoof - Green Cosmos
Various Artists - I Belong to This Band: Eighty-Five Years of Sacred Harp Recordings / How Low Can You Go?
Various Artists - Radio Algeria/Radio Thailand/Ethnic Minority Music of Northeast Cambodia
Various Artists - The Rough Guide to Planet Rock
Various Artists - The Jack Nitzsche Story: Hearing Is Believing: 1962-1979
Various Artists - Golden Afrique
Various Artists - Tropicália: A Brazilian Revolution in Sound
Various Artists - Streets of Lhasa
Arthur Russell - World of Echo
Kelley Polar - Love Songs of the Hanging Gardens
Soft Circle - Full Bloom
Scott Walker - The Drift
Mannie Fresh - The Mind of Mannie Fresh
Extra Golden - Hera Ma Nono
Kano - Home Sweet Home
Excepter - Throne
Excepter - Alternation
The For Carnation - Promised Works
Antony and the Johnsons - I Am a Bird Now
Young People - All at Once
Angels of Light - The Angels of Light Sing 'Other People'
Hella - Church Gone Wild/Chirpin’ Hard
Hot Hot Heat - Elevator
Doveman - The Acrobat
The Double - Loose in the Air
Marnie Stern - In Advance of the Broken Arm
Jane / Animal Collective and Vashti Bunyan - Berserker / Prospect Hummer EP
Joanna Newsom - Ys
Joanna Newsom - Joanna Newsom and the Ys Street Band
Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Various Artists / Various Artists - The Sexual Life of the Savages: Underground Post-Punk from São Paulo
The Focus Group / Belbury Poly - hey let loose your love / The Willows
The Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree
The Mountain Goats - Get Lonely
The Stylus Decade: Essays
Digital Copy
Peanut Butter Words and Ha-Ha Breath
the pbw summer sex issue
the feist thing: illogical, complicated, probably unsatisfactory
THE FIRST-EVER PBW POLL!!
extremely specific answers to very pertinent questions
faceination
post-easter bloggerina bleats RESURRECTION
update
brian eno’s pubic grooming is everything missing from contemporary music
pt. 2: fall out boy has killed some unresurrectable part of me
(to clarify)
what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine pt. 1
snowed in
I like to play it sometimes, too
The Skeeter Davis Center for Regressive Misogyny
The Straight Story, pt. 3 of the Year in Review
HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM PBW!
Bebes Have Soft Skulls, pt. 2 of the Year in Review
The Snowglobe, pt. 1 of the Year in Review
Jangles the Junkie Returns: A Dictionary for Curing Hella Seasonal Depression, Year Two, Part One of Three
Futures and Filigree
Trap Muzik Criticism
Mailbag: Soft Rock Against Phantasy
Humanity: Fuck You, Seriously
The Drip
The Glamorest Life (Sidebars)
More Old White Men Than the Academy: The Country Music Hall of Fame
Ambien Saves Pittsburgh (PBW Travelogue 1)
Current Events
Holy Shit
I Found a Reason
Midyear Mix Meme Madness
The Two People I Actually Love Decided to Move to the Midwest
(Spoiler: PBW Survives This Post)
Wherein Washington Phillips Saves Eternity
The Best Thing I’ve Heard Anyone Say In A While
Hey I Feel Better Now
The Art of Drawing Restraint, Feeling Horrible
An Ode To RobMac
“I felt so good, I couldn’t feel a thing”: Striking Revelations From Somewhere Near the Bottom of the Human Shitpile
(Housecleaning)
Categorically Unavailable, Bejar
Alfred Soto, PBW Pundit
Wrinkles
Why I Try To Be Open-Minded
Aperitif for Thought
So To Share With You May 18th
On Isms and Onanism
Incidental rock bands found in Saturday night Scrabble
Last Dance for the Bleeding Hearts, Etc.
Hot or Not: Brains
First/Last Ever Wednesday Wrrrap-Up!
Let’s Talk
(This is Going to Drive Me Nuts)
Takin’ It To The Trough
Paradise: Impossible?
O is None and a Circle and a Hole and It’s Whole
Mas
Backseat Eternally: Time
Breaking News Smothered in Breaking News
O! Me, Flower Wilting in Crack’d City Street
Croak or Hoot Under the Influence of Pan
Notes on the State of Virginia
“Holdin’ On Like a Hubcap in the Fast Lane”: A Dictionary For Curing Hella Seasonal Depression (N thru Zed)
“Holdin’ On Like a Hubcap in the Fast Lane”: A Dictionary For Curing Hella Seasonal Depression (A thru M)
A Half-Baked Cake: Year Zero (a)
Slipp’d Back Under The Mattress
Unclassics 2
Willie Nelson: Gay Enough?
Apotheosis, Finale
Wherein The Question of “Who Let The Dogs Out?” is Once Again Tastelessly Referenced but Not Answered
Honey, That Frosting is Improbable
Lame, But
(Groan)
PBW Hit Current Channels
New York City: > Art?
Steel Cage
Faceless, Nameless
Unclassics 1/Stray Notes
A Brief Public Service Announcement
Never To Forget You, Cuddles
Nobody Gets Out of Here Until This Gets Settled
Fruitful Detours
Disclosure: Emotional, Messy
Big Think: Tracks and Traces, Absences and Ideals
Ducksinnarow
Like Tons of Feeling
Clipse en Español/Obligatory Destroyer Gush
“I Live in Sweat but I Dream Light Years”
We All Want To Love Big
Powerless to Resist
Friday Zenith, Three Flowers
Formality Regained
Bloodlet Your Blues Bleat Style
This Is Also Sort of About Lil Wayne
Peaks Lick Sky Like Flame Lick Sky
The State of Pop Music in 2005
Our Fragile Erections
Joy-Wake
(Revision/Return/Remix) Where We’re Going We Don’t Need Roads
I Know My Lovers By the Height of My Flame
Kings of Memphis
You Speak the Jive So I Don’t Have To
Starstroked
Role Playing/C&W Treatise 3
Oldham as Vital Repository/C&W Treatise 2
Secrets, oooh/C&W Treatise 1
The Marginally Huge Sugar Ray Diary Project
One Year Later, Clarity
Monday’s Pall
Dip Down + Beautiful Shit
Detour
Home of the Brave/Shots Called
Doubleouble
Knight Errant, In Sweatshorts
Lowercase Creatures So Hot Right Now
Faith Regained and Moisture Lost in Monday Midnight Shakedown
For Fear That Music Be the Only Thing To Cross Our Fragile Hearts
2 MUCH MUSIC
Things I Learned Today on Television
Where From You Come, Go?
You Are (And Pretty Much Always Have Been) My Sunshine
Titularly Oriented, I Promise
When Two Days Become One
Dear Adam Green, If You Have a Back, I’ve Got It
Avant Composition + Sizzurp, Pretense + Purpose
Live and Direct From a Motorcycle Guarded Stoop
And My God, Her “Trousers”
Nightmares Piling Up
Curled Stripes and A Scrabble Victory
Tonight, a Car Backfired; Later, Another Car Fired Back (I’m Serious)
Instructions for How to Think Like a Child Again
Behold, Life (and Books)
Questions I Whisper to the Wind
(Pun regarding Belief, Believing in, etc.)
No Really, Swaddled in Technicolor
Somewhat Eventful
Here We Have a Season Called Summer
Once We Were as Sweet and Warm as the Golden Morning Sun
Slowly and Cautiously, the Strains of Surrender
The Triumph Circuit
No God, Only Religion and probably the Boredoms
Two studies in city street rhetoric
Everybody loves a letdown
V.A., Best Dinner Non-Music, Vol. 2
They wore people’s skin, what have you ever done?
Inaguration with ring of chrysanthemum around my feet
Articles
There’s Gotta Be a Better Way: The Stylus Magazine Non-Definitive Guide to the Artist-Run Label (blurb)
Stylus Magazine’s Top 50 Singles of 2005 (blurb)
Stylus Magazine’s Top 50 Basslines Of All Time (blurb)
Stylus Magazine’s Top 100 Music Videos of All Time (blurb)
The Top 50 Singles: 2000-2005 (blurb)
The Top 50 Albums: 2000-2005 (blurb)
Stylus Magazine’s Top 50 Singles of 2006 (blurb)
The Non-Definitive Guide to the Session Musician (blurb)
Stylus Magazine’s 50 Greatest Rock Drummers (blurb)
Stylus Magazine’s Top 50 Albums of 2006 (blurb)
Stylus Magazine’s 50 Greatest Rock Drummers (blurb)
Stylus Magazine’s Top 50 Albums of 2005 (blurb)
Basic Research: Lovely Music, Ltd. and the Universe in General
Antony and the Johnsons: The Stylus Interview
The Boredoms: The Stylus Hall of Fame
Derailing the Teleology of Smooch
A Week in the Musical Life
Resurrecting Classic Rock: The Hold Steady
Under the Covers
The Smiths

 
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