Audities Online - The on-line version of the magazine. It hasn't been updated in a while, but otherwise has a lot of neat stuff for power pop fans. Check out their Encyclopedia of Modern Pop!
Addicted To Noise - The premier rock magazine on the net, it boasts top writers like Greil Marcus and Dave Marsh, plus a lot of big-name interviews and lots of reviews. It's really professional. The daily news feature is particularly timely and informative.
The Big Takeover - Jack Rabid puts out the best rock'n'roll magazine in the universe, hands down. Too bad it only comes out twice a year, but with 200+ pages of small print, it contains more info than 12 months of most mags. If you can't wait, this is the online version.
Cosmik Debris - Committed to eclecticism, this online zine offers something for everyone, as long as your tastes run outside the mainstream. A good site with a lot of reviews and a few columnists.
Greatest & Worst Songs Radio Playlist - There are plenty of lists like these on the net, and Mike O'Hara's lengthy lists aren't really the most interesting sections of his site. What's really worth paying attention to is his Background Notes section, in which he delivers an incredibly lengthy, detailed, and highly intelligent discussion of why, among other things, '90s music sucks so badly, and so-called "classic rock" stations mindlessly play the worst refuse of the '70s. As always with opinionated music websites, there's plenty to disagree with, and my disagreements probably aren't exactly the same as yours, but be assured that you'll want to punch the computer screen a few times. When I happen to agree with O'Hara, which is about half the time, I find myself nodding vigorously with approval; when I disagree, which again is half the time, I find myself shaking my head, "No! No! You're so totally wrong!" with equal vigor. To say O'Hara is enormously biased towards British music, particularly British post-punk, is an understatement; in his discussion of the vital music of the '80s and '90s, he basically writes off nearly all American indie-rock. Worshipping mediocre dreck like Echo & the Bunnymen, Sioxsie & the Banshees (who he claims are ten times more important than the Velvet Underground?!?), and the dreaded Depeche Mode, while ignoring Black Flag, the Replacements, the Minutemen, Husker Du, Pavement, Sonic Youth (who he refers to as Sonic "But Boring" Youth. Actually, I tend to agree - SY can be the most boring band on the planet when they're in the mood) et al should indicate the looniness of his pro-Brit stance... but that's just my opinion. I'm not personally offended by his (or anyone's) musical preferences, but I do take offense at his brand of elitist snobbery - he's from New York, and insults the rest of the country on almost every page, with particular venom for the Midwest. He classifies all classic rock fans as fork-lift drivers with IQs below 100. He also sneers at "Isolationist-Confederate-Slacker" rock, which indicates some deep-seated regionalist bigotries on his part, among other things. Oh well... what am I getting so worked up about? It's only one guy's webpage! Well worth checking out; in the end, his bias seems to be more anti-corporate manipulation than anything else, a bias I do happen to share. But claiming that Depeche Mode are more responsible for ending the Cold War than Reagan is one of the stupidest comments I've ever read on the web. That's right, and Frank Sinatra did more to end Nazism than Eisenhower!
Indie World - Title taken from the Mary Lou Lord song? Whatever, a good site for interviews with indie artists.
Julian's RockList Site - I'm rather fond of lists, but this nutter Julian's even fonder of lists. A must stop for any music fan, it collects seemingly every best-of list by every major rock mag in the U.S. and U.K. If you've ever wondered just what Rolling Stone picked as the 22nd best LP of 1976, then you'll drive yourself batty for hours at this site.
Perfect Sound Forever - A small site that has some very incisive articles. Don't miss the "Worst Songs of the '70s List".
Lee Co's Power Pop Page - An informative essay on the history of power pop and most of the major bands. It's mainly good for the excellent list of links to various power-pop bands and web sites.
Salon Table Talk - Currently my favorite chat room to lurk around in. I'm adding a link due to their lively Music discussions, several of which feature my little commentary. Yeah, I couldn't resist, and now I'm a regular poster -- I get a kick out of the immediate feedback. It's a different kind of thrill than the one I get at this site, where I think out my opinions beforehand and soberly, professionally post my reviews -- on this forum, I just post whatever comes into my head whenever I feel like it, and within the next few minutes I've got a response. Anyway, it's all good fun, if essentially meaningless, as is (to paraphrase Oscar Wilde) life.
Seconds - The online version of the magazine has some good interviews with a wide variety of artists.
Shake It Up - The one site to go to first if you're a power-pop fan. It has some decent articles and reviews, but is mainly good for the ton of links it provides.
The Trouser Press - The Trouser Press Guide is the one rock book to own if you only buy one. Exhaustive and comprehensive, this encyclopedia of modern rock is essential in too many ways to count. Ira Robbins, my favorite rock critic, has put the entire contents of the original four editions in a searchable database. The original editions consisted of several hundred pages of small print, so it's a huge database, covering nearly every pre-1990s "alternative" artist in existence. It also contains Robbins' excellent online music column.
The Village Voice Pazz & Jop Poll - Every year the Village Voice polls several hundred rock critics from across the nation to pick the year's top albums, singles, etc. This site provides you with the list of the winners of the poll, along with an essay by Robert Christgau and a lot of short comments from a whole lot of critics. As a bonus, you can look at each critic's individual ballot, which will certainly be of interest to you if you're a fan of that particular critic or a statistician. For some reason they never asked me for my ballot, so I guess I'll just have to wait till next year....
What Goes On - A biweekly column written by Mark Jenkins for what appears to be one of DC's more popular daily rags. I just stumbled across this the other day, and so far I'm impressed: Jenkin's tirades on '90s pop music are right on 9 times out 10, unlike most of his collegues amongst the rock critical elite. It's refreshing to encounter a contemporary rock critic who doesn't pretend to like rap more than he actually does (see his current column lambasting Micheal Moore for his statement that hip-hop is "the music of the '90s"), but isn't a tired old fogie or clueless indie-rock poseur, either. Oh yeah, there's also another little column archived on the same page, Rock Stars Hate Me, but it's not as good, and some other stuff like an interactive message board that I haven't had the time to wade through yet.