Franklin Soults

New Hampshire native Matt Pond formed the band Matt Pond PA in the late '90s while living in Philadelphia. Not much romance to it, but that straightforward attitude is typical of the singer-songwriter's career. Since 2000, Pond and his changing lineup have released five albums of chamber-pop, culminating last fall...

In the opening cut of Kill the Moonlight, the latest celebrated release by the bracing minimalist rock group Spoon, singer Britt Daniel unreels the album's central theme by describing a life lived for "Small Stakes." It could be about any wage slave who "feels all right from Friday night to...

Talib Kweli has a welterweight's agility, and Jay-Z has a middleweight's saunter, but the rappers have claimed the heavyweight titles in their respective rings. After defining the parameters of underground hip-hop in 1998 as half of Black Star, Kweli has since dedicated himself to shredding those parameters, renouncing the asceticism...