Song for song, if not album by album, 2012 has been a pretty good year. Lots of faves were back, Regina, Fiona, Titus, Public Enemy, and some new faves joined in. Killer Mike had a great year, fun., G-Dragon. When I do my monthly recap of the year I tend to not really write about the songs, so here is a preview of Decembers list. In descending order of course.
”A friend of mine plays with Julian and we kind of knew each other, and Julian really likes [producer] Dr. Luke so they were talking, and it kind of happened, oddly, organically, and in a strange way.”
Swimming Pools – Kendrick Lamar – I’ve been waiting for a song off the Dre protege to announce its presence and here it is. The single. It sounds are as strange as dark as you imagine and the rap is spit nasty and fast and the chorus as sad bastard a look at hard drinking as you could possible imagine – Grade: A-
The spirit was willing but Arlo, who remained seated throughout the set, wasn’t joking, hr felt heavy and his children felt heavy. As pros, they wanted to give us what we wanted, and they didn’t, but as Seeger noted there is a time to laugh and a time to weep
In concert is where Outernational thrives and right now you have the chance to win a pair of tickets to their show at Brooklyn’s Knitting Factory this Thursday, November 29th, 2012 at 8pm. All you have to do is leave a comment with your email address and the first person who does so will get a pair of tickets!
This is Jon’s smartest moments, it is the best thing he has ever said though it needs translating. What he is saying is this: being a rock star, if you don’t take it too seriously, is a good life. But even a good job can’t protect you from life itself.
Comments: It sure feels like the count down to the end of the year starts here, nothing all that big at all… well, maybe the hated Alicia Keys but otherwise a live album (first in 20 years!) appears to be the highlight
Yup. “Diamonds” assured a # 1 for Rihanna, but nothing assured a # 2 for Led Zeppelin and they rereleased the Buble Christmas album from last year and it is is in higher than Rod??
UK X Factor’s Olly Murs sure hit me as a likelier candidate than Ed Sheeran to break Stateside, but earlier this year “Heart Skips A Beat” with Chiddy Bang didn’t cause a stir, and “Troublemaker”, at # 1 in the UK, and with red hot Flo Rida won’t improve matters if and when it is released here. Still it keeps the dreaded Girls Aloud off the top spot.
One Of The Boys – John Lennon – From 1977, recorded at the Dakota, and just with acoustic guitar, Lennon takes a scalpel to the boys only rock group world. His personal life dripping into his music but what’s odd is, this song would make a very good rock group song if it had been finished – Grade: A
Not quite chronological and no big, big suprises except maybe “I Wanna Be Your Man: The Keith songs are goodies… I’ll take a closer look tomorrow…
It is missing a “We Found Love” but otherwise is the equal of any electro-pop that doesn’t have G-Dragons name on it. I mean, going to Rihanna for sincerity is like going to a hooker for true love. It isn’t what they are selling.
If Neil Young wanted to really surprise the world and rebuild himself, he would play a 20 song two hour set of concise, clean, sexy rock and roll and send people away with a smile on their face saying wow, I can’t believe he played “Harvest” and “Helpless”. Expect 8 songs in a 150 minutes so be sure to bring your pillow. If Neil goes on at ten I can give him an hour and be home asleep by midnight…
To Anyone – 2NE1 – This all girl group comes from the same stable that brought you PSY and BIGBANG, four part harmonies over synth and beats and sometimes ballad and more often dance tracks. At its best, “Can’t Nobody” and the rickety “Clap Your Hands” it is pretty good. More often, it is a little obvious – Grade: B
I am more than wary of this concert, I can imagine it being two hours plus of twenty minute jams that fail to catch fire by a self indulgent giant far, far, far past this prime. But I can also imagine rust never sleeping for two hours of thunderous hard rock. Either way, Neil Young And Crazy Horse at Madison Square Garden is a huge gig on Tuesday, even if it sucks.
Reflections Of My Life – Marmalade – The poor man’s Badfinger had a good cover of a Paul McCartney tune and this deeply felt piece of depression backed by an orchestra – Grade: A-
Look at it this way: 6 million years have gone by without your consciousness, and 6 million more will go by without your consciousness. For fuck’s sake tough it out for the 100 years you are conscious
Cheri’s band is playing at the Delancey on Friday November 30th, 2012, and I am gonna try very very hard to see her. Not only because I like her and I love her sound but also because this is the life blood of rock and roll in nyc. When the Cheris don’t bother playing for us, it is over folks.
Seeger isn’t a winner because he is 93 years old and I am going to see him tonight at Carnegie Hall, he is a winner because he has spent those 93 years as a peak folk singer and keeper of American justice.
The entire Iris Dement album is a masterpiece but this song for her father, piano based country folk, is even better than that. The G-Dragon is the best electro-pop track of the year.
What is it with Dance Hall stars? When they are not killing each other and smuggling drugs and beating their women before getting assassinated in Kingston for some internal feud, they are releasing handclapping, hard bouncing songs of praise, like this masterpiece by one of Jamaica’s finest – Grade: A
The 90 minute set might have been special to him, it was Carnegie Hall and the acoustics were tremendous, the sound the best I’ve ever heard and his rasping voice a thing of beauty, but he didn’t act that way at all. .
In 2012, K-Pop is the most exciting new big thing and while PSY might cause it to be misunderstood, the moor I listen the more in awe I am of this hobbled together scraps and parts of Western pop culture put through the grinder and arriving somewhere else.
Good for 1D, it is a superior piece of product and a wise attempt to create a Frankenstein monster of a pop album which still has some remnants of a soul. Surprised that the Weeknd is so big and that people are already sick of Green Day, which isn’t substantial different than Uno!
“Diamonds” is the one of only two songs I actively dislike on Ree Ree’s new album and I don’t know what that promises for the newbie at all! Meanwhile, the Lumineers must be wondering if they are the next fun!
Merry-Go-Round – Kacey Musgraves – Break through song for Texan country singer, punning on “merry” right through the chorus on a slab of suburban dystopia – Grade: A-
It is not Steve Tyler’s fault he grew old. and at MSG Wednesday night the boy was game as well as gamey, it is Steve Tyler’s’s fault he dresses like Stevie Nicks. And it isn’t Joe Perry’s fault he is the “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” of Keith Richards wannabes but that mustache? That’s Joe’s fault.
A huge disappointment, these are the guys Lennon chose to play with him on Double Fantasy, these cats are the real deal. I plan to see em next time they headline.
Special thanks to: Joseph and Donna McElroy, who I seldom get to see but who are family to me, and my co-editor Helen Bach who I admire greatly and tease mercilessly.
Bathroom Laughter – Pissed Jeans – What is it about PJ that makes you think they just plain can’t run away from themselves. They might want to be the “Holiday Inn” of hardcore, playing three times in a busy year and spending (three!) years between albums. But they are too damn good, and this will force them into becoming a working band. Their next album, Honey, is out next year and this first song is terrific. A tasty, blunt, piece of cynicism that, as my friend James Reynolds notes is reminiscent “of ivan x (ritual tension) when he was drumming for Swan” – Grade: A
This year the Weeknd, Frank Ocean and Miguel are three semi-experimental modern r&b guys mining a distractedly downbeat synth sound that would be Goth only there isn’t a guitar in sight and their entanglements is the horror of the banaility of lurve, I didn’t really like very much
So much of this album is why Costello sucks 101: “Sparkling Day”, and the first verse has such promise but then it all comes back to the samey crappy bridge. “Oh well”, “Life Shrinks”, “My Mood Swings” -none of it is any good. Indeed, a quick head count gives you 7 winners out of 15.
Wandered into the store during lunch. It looked like 1Ds career five years from now, more sales people than customers, and a kinda dusty day after Christmas vibe about the place. A 1D video is playing on monitors and some sale person is half heartedly singing along, the entire place is quiet and drastic.
Always on TV, always on the road, can’t go for a stroll in the park without a world of people demanding his time. You are one of many, the most important relationship of a young girls world is devastated thru absence and otherworldly fame. Forget about an Elektra complex, it is a haunting bizarre nightmare for a child.
The long wait is apparently over and if you go to Ticketweb you can pick a tix for Saturday, January 19th, 2013 at Cameo Gallery. This is a must see band in their element and I am overjoyed at the chance to finally see them live.
Pour It Up – Rihanna – The first keeper off the new one lays it out, “still got more money” is the rallying cry or is it “All I see is dollar signs”. There is a catchy downbeat and about as cheerful as Rihanna ever is, but everything she sings sounds like a hook, here the title sounds like a secret – Grade: A
There is something about the Twilight series that sucks the lifeblood out of actors. I just saw Anna Kendrick in “Pitch Perfect”. She was also in “Up In The Air”. Terrific in both, in Twilight? Terrible.
A little later on the two are drunkenly singing Beatles songs before they move on to Presley and in Jagger’s exaggerated funning sneer you can here part of what Jagger himself is. He reveals his influence even as he laughs at it. One of the greatest music documentaries I’ve ever seen.
I received this email from rock nyc friend Tomas Doncker. The composer of “The Power Of The Trinity” and recent rock nyc interview subject Tomas Doncker. Surely just another step in his exceedingly exciting later career. And please note, the CNN interview will also be available on CC.Com after it airs.
American Music Awards 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award receipient Justin Biber… wait, it isn’t. Well, 18 teears is a long long time. Justin remebers when the President wasn’t a black dude, that’s how faw back he goes… anyway, no he is merely Artist Of The Year. Here are the winners with, more importantly, my opinion:
Arlo pays tribute to his late wife Jackie Guthrie: “There was this great love that we shared from the moment we met – a recognition – It’s YOU! And we would always return to it year after year, decade after decade and I believe life after lifetime.”
The problem with American Civil War, as opposed to WW1, songs is that as well as think we know the songs, we don’t really since there were (obviously) no contemporary recordings. Which means, not unlike classical music, there is no template. Except classical music was scored and scored to be played as scored and except for Marches, American Civil War songs were not.
Not much this week (or next actually), and while I have jopes for Bad Brains and Rihanna, I am filled with this dread over Kid Rock, not helped by the lousy single “Let’s Ride”, it is the album I am most interested in hearing.
Cool Zombie – Adam Ant – AIn’t this a kick in the head? After his frankly terrifying concert at Best Buy last October, the last think I expected was this Bo Diddley meets Ant Music piece of walking r&b. A triumphant return and as close to a walking dead as you’re ever likely to see – Grade: A-
Children of The Night, DJ Taco, Trash Talk and Mellowhype: West Coasts best brings it all night lone
He is a smart fellow but at the heart of the matter he realizes a secret: he got very very lucky but he doesn’t want to say so. So we get boiler plate stuff, sometimes from the actual time, about the mythic qualities of the Stones and Jagger in particular.
I got this off brooklynvegan who got it off Buzzfeed & Laughing Squid, who got it from the 2002, Kurt Cobain “Journals”. Boatloads of hardcore, punk and elder statesmen hard rock. Including the # 1 album. Plus some softer stuff like Toung Marble Giants which suggests where Kurt learnt his quiet.
This video occured during a taping of the show when the cast and crew performed a “Flash Mob” “Call Me Maybe” to the surprise of audience and director. As Sheldon puts it: Bazinga
I don’t get the Bruno Mars song at all, I thought it was like Usher after he gave up trying to be the next Michael Jackson. Wait a second, McFly broke up last decade, what are they doing back together? No wait, let me guess…
No shockers here, or maybe there is. The Grrreatest hits got in the charts? So did Strauss? And why is Lana and E back in there. And who is Aldie Boe??? No, wait, let me guess. But One Direction isn’t a shocker.
