Taylor Swift

Folk: Meet the 2013 RFT Music Award Nominees

The 2013 Riverfront Times Music Showcase is this weekend! Think of it as St. Louis music's own official holiday and consider this the season. Throughout May we at RFT Music have been working hard to make our cases for all 130 bands and artists nominated for an RFT Music Award this year in 26 categor ... More >>

Here is the Difference Between "Good" Music and "Cool" Music

The comment that a band is "good at what it does" is a polite attempt to acknowledge the talents of a group outside of one's wheelhouse. But the phrase tends to come off as a dismissive, backhanded compliment, the type of statement a person makes to avoid actually forming an opinion. The underlying ... More >>

Kirkwood Native Nikki Glaser to Premiere Comedy Central Special This Friday

It's pretty cool to watch someone that you know grow into a well-deserved position within in the comedy and entertainment worlds. Kirkwood native, podcast superstar, MTV talk show host and generally nice person Nikki Glaser's half-hour comedy special airs this Friday on Comedy Central. See Also: - ... More >>

Justin Timberlake's 20/20 Experience: Don't Feel Guilty About "Guilty Pleasures"

Fuck me, I am going to overdose on this new Justin Timberlake album. I know that I'm supposed to be ashamed of certain selections in my album collection. I know this from all of the times that people have looked through my CDs or records or iTunes and been all "Hey, what's this doing here?" before ... More >>

The Best Homemade Signs at the Taylor Swift Concert

Taylor Swift played the Scottrade Center Monday and Tuesday night this week, bringing out droves of loyal fans -- complete with the ever-present homemade cardboard signs for their hero. Here are the best signs we saw. Make sure you also check out our review of Monday's show, as well as our complete ... More >>

Taylor Swift Red Tour at the Scottrade Center 3/18/13: Review, Photos and Setlist

Taylor Swift | Ed Sheeran Scottrade Center March 18, 2013 When music editor Daniel Hill assigned me to review Taylor Swift's Red tour at Scottrade Center, I assumed I'd have to pull his Bieber shenanigans to live through it. Thousands of screeching teenagers? No Serious-Musicians-In-Capital-Letters ... More >>

The 20 Most Overused Terms In SXSW Band Bios

By Craig Hlavaty Before I take any trip to Austin and SXSW, I always take more than a few days to peruse the schedule and check out a few of the hundreds of names on the roster and read their bios. Some years there are more bands with "wolf" and "space" in their monikers than usual, and some year ... More >>

The Best Part About The Mars Volta Was Their Hair

The Mars Volta was a rock band from California, which a place where rock bands are frequently formed. Other rock bands formed in California include Van Halen, Creedence Clearwater Revival and the band that spawned the Mars Volta, At The Drive-In. At The Drive-In is best known for once having a song ... More >>

Full Circle with The Flaming Lips: 2012 In Review

Editor's Note: The end of 2012 is upon us (also the end of the world, if you believe in that sort of thing), so we thought we'd put a cap on things by sharing some of our personal favorite shows, albums, events and general shenanigans. Join us as we indulge in some navel-gazing! When I write articl ... More >>

Taylor Swift Pizza = Synergy? Ordering Red From Our Local Papa John's

When I found out that Taylor Swift's new album, Red, would be available via Papa John's Pizza delivery, I pretty much had the same thoughts that I had upon hearing the first single off of Red: The fuck? Followed by: Mmmm. Tasty. Modern record labels are working hard to find new ways to get the prod ... More >>

Unimpressive Poll by 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair Names Arch "Least Impressive" Landmark

Last July, when the folks at CBS News and Vanity Fair called about 1000 adults to get their views on fluffy topics like underwear and Jesus, a plurality -- 46 percent! -- said the Gateway Arch was the "least impressive" landmark.  Let's put that another way: A miniscule proportion of our nation ... More >>

Why John Mayer's 'Daughters' is the Worst Song Ever

I have three daughters. I love and adore my three daughters. If it were possible, I would move heaven and Earth for my three daughters. I hate the song "Daughters" by John Mayer. Every year, I take my oldest two children to a father-daughter dance where there are three things I can count on with ab ... More >>

We Are Never, Ever Getting Back Together (Until You Write A Colloquially Titled Hit Song About It)

I am reaching the age at which one begins spontaneously to complain about pop music. It's not something I can apologize about, exactly, so much as a change my body is going through--at some point copies of Astro Lounge just started appearing in strange places. So I don't think I'll ever be able to ... More >>

Between the Rock of Snark and the Hard Place of Crap: Two Meditations On Negativity In Music

Art and life co-habitate, informing, imitating, and enriching each other constantly. Each week in Better Living Through Music, RFT Music writer Ryan Wasoba explores this symbiotic relationship. 1. I saw The Wall this weekend for the first time, at the Wildey Theater in Edwardsville. I've always bee ... More >>

Taylor Swift Just Took Her Pop Queen Throne. All Hail!

Well, I feel vindicated. For years I've been screaming that Taylor Swift is really "a pop powerhouse masquerading as a young country-music heroine" and now I finally have proof. I'm a long-time believer in the the many talents of T-Swizzle. And while her gaggingly adorable IWearMyCoffeeShopOutfitWh ... More >>

Buy One Big Mac or Quarter Pounder with Cheese at McDonald's, Get the Second for 15 Cents -- Today Only!

Usually Gut Check's morning commute is rife with road rage and angry silence, but today, perhaps because of weather that favors rolling down car windows to blasting the A/C, we switched on the radio. And good grief, thank goodness we did. No, it wasn't the new Taylor Swift song that stilled our bea ... More >>

Olympics 2012: Theme Songs for Michael Phelps, Hope Solo, Usain Bolt and More

Music is becoming an increasingly personalized art form. Smart phones are programmed to play a favorite song as a ring tone, or to play a song meant to be associated with specific callers in one's contact list. I can't say for certain, but I have to imagine many husbands have "Ball and Chain" by Soc ... More >>

Fun-Run Phenomenon Must Die!

Allow me to pull my pants up to my nipples before I get started.Ahh. That's better. Now where was I? Oh, yeah. These -- I don't know what you call them -- fun runs? Themed 5Ks? Costumed, sweat-fests? They are what's truly wrong with America. (Yes, worse even than Taylor Swift.) What is it about toda ... More >>

The Hunger Games Soundtrack: Hop Aboard the Gravy Train, Unlikely Bedfellows!

It's fitting that a film about a dystopian free-for-all would include music from the Arcade Fire. This is the group, after all, that composed several songs on Funeral about a world overrun by snow and power outages. But the song that appears in the movie is not from Funeral. It's an original song ... More >>

Davy Jones's Death and the Right Side of Music History

Davy Jones died Wednesday, leaving behind performances on some of the most memorable pop songs of the 1960s, a surprisingly excellent sitcom, and, for movie-goers and music fans of a certain age, this transcendent power-ballad send-up from The Brady Bunch Movie. He also left behind a warning: Be car ... More >>

The Civil Wars Is Coming To The Pageant [Update: Sold Out]

Update, 11/21/11: The Civil Wars has officially sold out the Pageant, less than a year after selling out the Old Rock House. Original post follows... Classicist folk band the Civil Wars is coming back to St. Louis. The time off has been good to the duo -- April's show at Old Rock House was a sold ... More >>

Hundreds Flock to Jay Nixon's Downtown Fundraiser

​Daily RFT didn't get an invite* to Governor Jay Nixon's fundraiser yesterday, but apparently hundreds of other people did.A source in attendance tells Daily RFT that an estimated 600 people arrived last night at the Renaissance Grand downtown to support Nixon in his bid for re-election. David Pea ... More >>

Fashion Week Music: The Highlights, The Appearances And The Odd Soundtracks

Richard GuatyAnna Wintour eyeballing Nicki's tights. Oh, to peek inside the mind of the Vogue editrix in chief in this moment.​Thank science Fashion Week is over. Isn't it just torture? If there's something worse than not being in New York City for the circus that is Mercedes Benz Fashion Week ... More >>

Taylor Swift at the Scottrade Center, 8/14/11: Review, Photos, Setlist

Photo by Jon Gitchoff​Taylor Swift | Hunter Hayes | NeedToBreathe Scottrade Center August 14, 2011 Taylor Swift has documented her detractors well: They make frequent appearances in her overtly personal lyrics, most recently in her revenge jam "Mean." The song's music video even finds her t ... More >>

Taylor Swift Is Destroying America

What was that about short skirts? ​Taylor Swift is that skinny girl who's always whining about how fat she is. She claims to be the nerd that you're likely to overlook. And she'll tell you she's the sweetheart who gets taken advantage of by Big, Bad Men ("Don't you think nineteen's too young/ To b ... More >>

Taylor Swift Is Saving America

Communing with fans: One of many ways Taylor Swift is a superior pop star.​Let's get one thing out of the way: I am not a teenybopper. Never was. As a kid I never liked Grease or New Kids on the Block or Dirty Dancing. Even now, I can't give a crap about your Biebers or your Mileys. And how in ... More >>

The Ten Best Things to do in St. Louis This Weekend: August 12-14

​Welcome to the weekend. The heat wave's broken and there is no shortage of excuses to leave the house. Including Rum Drum Ramblers' vinyl release at the Gramophone tomorrow night. Stick around for the late show at the same venue for London Calling's five year anniversary party. Taylor Swift ... More >>

Nashville's Amelia White: Considerably More Neil Young than Taylor Swift

courtesy of the artist​Amelia White, who will be playing at Off Broadway with Sam Knutson on Sunday, is an enveloping singer and a prolific songwriter (she runs her own small song publishing company and has co-written for artists like Tony Furtado, Anne McCue, Molly Thomas, Stephanie Schneider ... More >>

Is Bon Jovi Coming to St. Louis? [Updated]

​Interesting tweet from A to Z reader @gcflatt just a bit ago, asking if we had noticed a Bon Jovi show scheduled for May 22 at the Scottrade Center. Believe it or not, this was the first we had heard of it. However, a quick glance at Pollstar appears to confirm a date, and there's also a Tick ... More >>

Taylor Swift's 2011 Tour Now Contains Two St. Louis Shows

​Months ago, we said that Taylor Swift's 2011 world tour was stopping in St. Louis on August 14, venue to-be-announced. Well, we can now confirm that Swift will be at the Scottrade center on that date -- and on August 13 too. Needtobreathe will open both dates. Tickets are on sale on Friday, F ... More >>

2010: The Year In Music

Taylor Swift is Returning to St. Louis in 2011!

According to Billboard, Taylor Swift's 2011 Speak Now tour includes a date in St. Louis: August 14, at a venue TBA. More details as they're announced! "Mine":

Interview: Zac Brown Band's Clay Cook on How It's (Beginning To) Spread Its Wings Beyond Country

C.Taylor CrothersThe Zac Brown Band​BY PHIL FREEMAN Country's hard to define in 2010. The genre includes pop stars (Taylor Swift, Lady Antebellum), critic-friendly brooders (the morose, arty Jamey Johnson) and grinning, suburbanite showmen (Brad Paisley). And then there are all the indie-rock ... More >>

New Release Highlights for October 26: Bryan Ferry, Sean Lennon, Warpaint and More.

(New albums are typically released on Tuesdays, i.e., today. What can you spend your hard-earned pennies on this week? Find out below.) Juliette Commagere's Procession​*Juliette Commagere, The Procession Commagere, who's previously provided vocals for Hello Stranger and The Bird and the Bee, ... More >>

Diana Horner's Country Hip-Hop Dancing: The New Craze Sweeping the Nation(?)

So, Katy Perry tweeted the following video at Taylor Swift earlier today. It's a whole treatise on country hip-hop dancing, colloquially known as "cowboy hip-hop." I'm not sure what's better: the new-age flute on the video's soundtrack, the fashion -- spandex bike shorts under jean shorts, classiqu ... More >>

Butch Walker and the Black Widows

8 p.m. Monday, April 5. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Boulevard.

Valentine's Day looks for love in all the wrong places

Show Review Photos Setlist: Nick Jonas and the Administration, Diane Birch at the Pageant, Tuesday, January 19

Context is everything. Tell someone you're going to see Prince's band circa the New Power Generation, and the night's cred is through the roof. But tell someone you're going to see the same band - but fronted by teenpop heartthrob Nick Jonas -- and suddenly the show has a very different connotation. ... More >>

The RFT's Freelancers Choose Their Favorite 2009 Music

I'd be remiss if I didn't point people to our front-of-book feature this week: The RFT's freelancers choosing their favorite music of 2009. Whether waxing ecstatic about concerts and singles or album releases and recording artists (hint: Taylor Swift love!), the writers covered quite a bit of ground ... More >>

The Best of 2009 in Music

Boys Like Girls/Cobra Starship

6:30 p.m. Friday, November 13. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Boulevard.

Show Review Setlist: Gretchen Wilson at Farm Aid, Sunday, October 4

You know what you're going to get with a Gretchen Wilson set: no-frills, unpretentious, hard-twanging country-rock tunes - with emphasis on the rock. Her mid-afternoon set kicked off with the 2004 hit "Here For the Party." Sporting a black camisole, sparkly silver belt and jeans and big hoop earring ... More >>

Kanye West, Serena Williams and Rep. Joe Wilson: Who is the Bigger Ass Clown?

We here at Daily RFT apologize for this delayed version of Ass Clown of the Week this week, what with Kanye West's late arrival into the mix and regular news blogger Chad Garrison away from the computer screen for the next few days. So who was the rudest among these three Ass Clowns?Joe "YOU LIE!" W ... More >>

Lady Gaga and Kanye West in St. Louis?

According to Pollstar, Lady Gaga and Kanye West's "Fame Kills" tour is set to hit St. Louis on Friday, December 4, at the Scottrade Center. Neither Ticketmaster nor the Scottrade's website has this info yet, so consider it tentative until we do get word. In light of last night's events -- i.e., when ... More >>

Taylor Swift

7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 25. Scottrade Center, 1401 Clark Avenue.

Open Comment Thread: The 2009 Grammy Awards

Because I'm on vacation, I'm writing this FROM THE PAST (ooh, spooky), and there won't be any live-blogging about Sunday's Grammy Awards broadcast from me this year. However, consider this post an open commenting thread for the show. According to Grammy.com, the list of performers is crazytown:Curre ... More >>

Taylor Swift in St. Louis, April 25?

[Editor's note, February 18: This show is confirmed! Info here.]According to Taylor Swift's website, the country-pop sensation will be in St. Louis on Saturday, April 25. No venue or other information is available yet, so consider the show tentative. Admit it: Her single "Love Story" is a total gui ... More >>

St. Louis Weekend Concert Calendar: June 13 through 15

St. Louis Gigantic Concert Calendar, April 7 through August

Taylor Swift / Kellie Pickler / Brad Paisley

7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 10. Verizon Wireless Amphitheater (14141 Riverport Drive, Maryland Heights).