Blog Posts

Last week, I released a new collection of remixed, remastered and repackaged “greatest hits” (favorite songs, anyway) called “Essential (2001-2021).” It’s available everywhere you download and stream music. And this week on Friends & Neighbors, it’s the topic of the second part of my two part conversation with rock journalist, Brian Ives.  I’m writing a…

It took me until my third album, “Crash Site,” in 2001, to write a collection of songs that really sounded like songs, and record an album that sounded like an album. At least one major recording label executive was nonplussed. “You don’t shake your ass like Ricky Martin or Shakira,” the label chief told me. “I wouldn’t…

I tell this story often. By the fall of 2013, it had become apparent to me that regime change was imminent at MTV News. One morning, I told Abbi that I’d done three things to foment my exit:  I hired a resume coach to sharpen my cv, and An executive coach to hold me accountable…

I spent a lot of time on my fire escape back then; Hell’s Kitchen just made better sense from just a few flights up. My first apartment, there on 56th and Tenth Avenue, was across the street from a New York City public high school. We looked right in on the classrooms. In those early…

These days, I feel like I’m brand new to weather. For years, I have watched the sun, clouds, rain and snow track across glass, concrete and stone. I perceived weather in large blocks: cold today, rainy tomorrow, and stormy for my commute. I was, as my friend Justin likes to say, “institutionalized,” hermetically sealed from…

It is possibly one of the top ten most sacred texts in the last 50 years of contemporary music. Its author is an icon, a revolutionary, a martyr and a legend. I honestly can’t believe I released a cover version of this song in 2012 in the first place, let alone the remastered, repackaged and…