Actually, the new Kristofferson album was released last week. I didn’t have the slightest idea because in this high speed wired up world there is no way to know anything at all. I knew the new Adam Ant was being released last week but with zero advertising it got completely lost in the shuffle. Otherwise, 2013 seems to be taking its time, doesn’t it?
Robocop – Kanye West – Perhaps West is at his very best when he is at his most sensitive. That would be the case here where the strings herald the end of the track and West just a mess as he pretends to believe the girl who is leaving him his making a joke – Grade: A
For a run of ten years through the heart of his youth from the ages of 15 to 25 (1995 – 2005), the kid was the poet laurate of indie and held in awe by just about everybody including me… and then…
Hilly Eye won’t get the props they deserve in the mainstream but over here on the edges Reason To Live is a big album, as is Modern Hut’s eagerly awaited Generic Treasure. No release date on the latter but, man, oh man, wait till you hear it. Kingsbury Manx is dropping March 5th and another goodie.
In 2013, albums sales are not like singles sales, singles take weeks simmering on the charts and when they finally hit they stay a long while but albums shoot up the UK charts and then disappear. So this entire list is a weird one, most of it is from 2012 as we enter February nothing seems to have done well.
the Bingo Players dance track has been around for a coupla years now and Far East Movement, a terrible band, add a whole new dimension with lyrics. Otherwise, here is a question: where is Bowie and Justin… here’s a half answer: Justin is at #11,
Bat – The Joy Formidable – Welsh rock band start off smooth but bash out insanely by the end on this Yeah Yeah Yeahs soundalike without the blues affectations in a rave up about the creative process. “I had a reason but the reason went away” is an all purpurpose catechism – Grade: A
If I was a fan I would have been very impressed with this fine set, culling songs off their adored self-named debut and last years Coexist with precision, passion, intelligence and intensity. But they’re a drag. They need the “Y” chromosome in there somewhere. They are like the Kills with their balls chopped off.
I am blowing off the Vaccines to see blues singer Trixie Whitley at Le Poisson Rouge on Thursday. I caught Trixie at Rockwood last June and was suitably awed and await her first album Fourth Corner out on Tuesday. LPR is down to SRO tix and I still recommend you go and see this extremely ta;lented, ready to break 25 year old.
Here is young Sheeran on his big chance to hug Katy Perry: ” a lot on stage and did a show in Canada. I played the set. Stormed it, sweated a lot, got off stage and bumped into Katy Perry. I was like, ‘All right Katy Perry, how are you?'”She said, ‘I came to your show and I love your album. I was gonna give you a hug but, eeurgh!’ and went. That was my chance ruined because I sweated so much.” Ed is moving in more and more rarified air since we saw him a year ago at Mercury Lounge but while everybody around him are crazed ehomaniacs, always the bridesmaid Ed remains his sweet old self.
Beta Love – Ra Ra Riot – A girl I knew was very friendly wih Ra Ra Riot and though we are not friends any more, she fed me a steady enough diet of the indie plus strings quintet that I feel a lot of affection for them. But not enough enough for me to recommend this electronic mish mosh about living forever and becoming machines or something – Grade: C-
One Way Trigger – The Strokes – New wavey pop stroke with a jittery epileptic rhythm , a cool little synth and Julian going for the high note and not just at the end of the line but right through the verse – Grade: B+
Written about her Daddy and about moving away from her home, Laura is remembering being a seven year old girl walking with her father in the English countryside, Many years later her terminally ill parent asked Laura to take her back to the hill before he died so he could see one final time how beautiful the world is.
The result is even a pro like me has difficulty in knowing what new releases are available. Spotify are a riddle of insolence and indolence and if they aren’t damn careful, obsolescence..
Jason’s fans will go because, well, that’s what fans do, but what about normal folks? I will go because I care about country when it is healthy and I care about country when it is ill and if this guy is a poster child for what country music means in 2013 the way Reba McIntire was for country in 1985
Upholstery – Beach Bums – “Carburetors man, that’s what life is all about…” Paul williams brilliant Beach Boys parody makes fine use of his “Faust” theme while extolling the virtues of love in a car: “Upholstery, when my baby sits up close to be…” is as perfect an explanation for the meaning of life as any I’ve heard – Grade:A
With a cracker little band and two back up singers behind him, Olly sold a skin tight tee (“take it off take it off” shouted the fans, he gave em a flash) and a pork pie hat with all the faith in yourself necessary to make it in the US pop world
The latest in our ongoing, ground breaking, dirt raking and all too true series of “Are The Gay?” exposes finds us face to face with one of the wild men of rock. A man not quite willing to go up against Bambi or Thumper with a rifle and blow the animals head off
“The daughter of Pretenders star Chrissie Hynde takes a leaf out of her activist mum’s book by camping up a tree to halt a new road.Natalie Hynde, 29, even dug a toilet in the frozen ground at a protest in Combe Haven Valley, East Sussex.”
From Cockiness to cockiness, A$AP is a talented lad, meanwhile Kidz Bop does what it always does chartwise though I found it a weaker than usual effort, Pitch Perfect and Red are both Pitch Perfect and hey, you got to hand it to young Lumineers. I bet they don’t know what’s hit em!
Perhaps I am just monitoring it more closely but I am consistently surprised at just how bands suddenly become popular M&L and The Lumineers suddenly break after years of hard work leaving us all scratching our heads. The difference is before a band would go top 20 a couple of times before hitting it big. Taylor took years till “Love Story” pushed her over the top. Now, it just happens.
(There’s) Always Something There To Remind Me – Sandie Shaw – Unlike the original, this one sounds very youthful. There isn’t the harsh of experience to Shaw’s vocal, instead it has a swinging England vibe not at edge but in distinction to Davids intense feelings. I coulda sworn Dionne did the original but she sang the demo. Sandie brings a generational schism to the 60s masterwork – Grade:A
Tooth & Nail” draws on personal rather than political themes, and was recorded over a whirlwind five-day session with Grammy Award winning producer Joe Henry. Joe took Billy out of his comfort zone (all vocals were recorded live without retakes or overdubs)
“There are 12 more. Most of the rockers are not yet mixed, as we added new guitars this past week.”. So it feels like a couple of months and if you have yet to listen to his band the Bowerytones get ready to remember just how great blue eyed soul can be in the hands of a great rock band,
Dr. Feelgood,they bled beer and sawdust and an aesthetic so far away from the boogie black delta blues they performed: as though just the shared humanity and financial tyranic burden was enough to forge the two societies into one.
Black Hippy are headlining this years Paid Dues gig in March and the list of names is confusing : Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Dom Kennedy, Tech N9ne, De La Soul, Immortal Technique, Hopsin, Joey Badass, Grouch & Eligh. Tech N9ne and De La SOUL? Surely not.
There are no limits to what Morrissey could do, he could build the cost of the album into the cost of a ticket. Can you imagine if Morrissery started a kickstart account? He could handle the US deficit singlehandedly. But Moz is an old fashioned fellow and he balks at changing his ways. More is the pity.
Ready – Fabolous And Chris Brown – A slow burner getting the job done with a little help from the most hated man on the planet not named Lance. But it is four year’s since “Imma Do It” and Fabolous just isn’t living up to it and this sex boiler song ain’t changing much – Grade: B-
Amy said about the band: “Sleater Kinney meets Lightning Bolt meets a watery bridge at the end of town”, which is pretty cool, right? The Ep is an epic New Jersey tall tail of sound and experiment and corrupts your ears with pleasure, back in the day I said they sounded like the Roches being covered Bikini Kill. Unmissable, right? I mean, they are a really good band
Those of us who love Taylor Swift have watched the serial monogamist with a mix of prurient interest, bemusement, surprise that a star of such magnitude wouldn’t control the story a little more before involving the world and a straight out surprise that she has become a slut Maria Von Trapp.
Ok, sorry the fonts are all over the place but if you can get over it, what do you think? I saw Thievery Corporation open for Massive Attack a coupla years ago and was very impressed… what else?
This is not the picture of innocence here, not any more,. More, indeed much more, than sexual innocence is the world where life is eternal, where a child is innocent of its end, of any end.
Money Honey – Aaron Neville – Off the blue Bayouish Mr. Neville’s new album of great oldies, this cover is so great it stands up in a world ruled by Presley’s Sun session version. Less swagger but just as much blues and maybe more rockabilly – Grade: A-
The first song is a pure country “Making My Way Back Home” could be covered by Loretta Lynn or maybe more to the point Patsy Cline, it has a deep country stir and a joyfulness which, as so happens, seems singed by a deep well of sadness. It is very lovely and it takes Iris a couple of minutes to get her bearings, “I wanna play it again” she laughed
I can’t imagine any one else, Jay-Z folks?, coming close to this political statement and artistic mayhem. It doesn’t matter how good or bad it was, and a half hour Lupe rap sounds like hell on earth to me, just the sheer thrill of open political dissent in the closet area of an Inaugural is thrilling.
“I now own Greta Garbo’s Beatles records, her twist records (she was a big fan of the dance craze and even ventured out to the Peppermint Lounge to see it for herself on the dancefloor), her Linda Ronstadt records, and mind blowingly — her own copy of Gene Clark’s “No Other”.
Winner – Beyonce – Not only is she playing the Superbowl of Superbowl Half Time Shows in a couple of week, she is looking quite remarkable in the GQ pictorial, her upcoming album # 5 features The-Dream, her great foil, all over it, and while the world wasn’t thrilled by her Destiny Child reunion single, they will be on stage. And if it isn’t enough having hubby Jay-Z Carter crazy about her, so ios the President who has placed her front and center at his Inaugural Ball…. again!
Alyson Camus has been going on about Fidlar for a couple of years now (she did the same with Fucked Up a couple of years ago and look where that gone them) and I streamed the album on Pitchfork and liked it fine. So I guess it’s time for them to become an overnight sensation). Otherwise I am looking forward to Adam Ant and Bad Religion.
Faller – Pieta Brown Iris Dement’s step-daughter and that sure wasn’t why Iris covered this terrific country folk song. I love it when writers make up words and calling yourself a “faller too” suggests a fall from grace and a fall into illicit loves arms, two sentiments Brown brings to life on this magnificent song – Grade: A-
The best thing to come out of X Factor UK, yeah, better than 1D, hasn’t cracked the US yet so on Thursday you get to check him out at Webster Hall instead of Hammerstein Ballroom or beyond. Sharp electro pop by a guy with more than enough personality to stand out always
The buzz on Manchester indie band Everything Everything is pretty positive, put em alongside Elbow and other arty indie rock bands who owe a debt, but not too great a debt, to Radiohead and seem to have their nose up in the Public School riff raffer where Coldplay and Mumford And Sons extrapolated into a world of privilege.
Fitty is back at the top and he can thank his hot making buddies for it because it sure ain’t this ordinary sounding slice. I’m surprised Timberlake isn’t at # 1 and Bowie isn’t even in the top #10.
Robins Will Sing – Stevie Wonder – Late period Stevie, 1995, is a inebriate bubble of a reggae groove and hope for the world with a naff rhyme (“It’s really no big thing”?) and still better than what passes for soul all too often – Grade: B+
Yeah, you’re thinking the Replacements and so am I, except the Replacements had at least the cultishness of cult. Spider Bags feels like a cult band whose cult hasn’t found em yet. How could Shake My Head not break pop, or at least nationwide rock?
Love Sign – Free Energy – I love the way Free Enrgy sound all the time, a modernnew wave with dance beats to kill, big guitars, sweet solos, the whole lot, bringing it home. But for allt hat, the songs aren’t there, and really, surely new wave hybrid is more than anything about songs. So I will given them “Backscratcher” and “Electric Fever” and pass onto much of the rest – Grade: B-
The Gun In The Closet -Mike Cooley – Drive-By-Truckers other songwriter spins a sad story about a woman who lives her own quiet life with a parachute out of her life for whenever she needs it. A live track and the guitar is quite beautiful – Grade: B+
After ten years, Bowie’s nerves are unsettled and you can understand why though anyone who has released Heathen in his life, can’t be that worried about quality control.
In celebration of its 50th Anniversary, Mick “Simply Red” Hucknell and Stereophoniics are being filmed for the BBC recreating the 12 hour recording session at Abbey Road. I am not sure how.
Emmylou Harris may bore, but Rodney Crowell and Richard Thompson never have and everybody should be at the very top of their game.
Except for Timberlake, every song here will show up on my best of 2013. But for me ASAP Rocky, a guy I’ve found way overrated, proves it on this track and has sent me straight back to the new album. Pissed Jeans are gonna kill it later this year.
