Iman Lababedi

Comment: The two heavy hitters of the year came up with the goods so good for them, and good live shows made me reconsider both albums and songs in October.

8. Red – Taylor Swift – Perhaps I over rate, but anyway, I rate it highly. The best songs are the best of the year and the worst aren’t the worst. Isn’t that enough?

Guap – Big Sean – The best thing about GOOD Music, and one pretty good album under his belt, Big Sean has a lot of good will accrued, some of which he loses on this ode to money. This is plenty generic with a catchy chorus and a very good beat from Key Wane. Wane comes out looking like a star – Grade: B

I have seldom heard such a well formatted album: it is all of a piece and it moves with a resolve to its, not denouement but it moves to an opening, a begriming. It begins as a tragedy but becomes a comedy of life

I’d be much more interested in what Aimee Mann, stranded on the East Coast, makes of it all. She probably feels justified in that overwhelming sense of impending disaster she sings about so well. “One thing leads to another and none of it’s good” she recently sang

Whoopi, Rosie, Sarah and Cyndi: maybe more like I guess I will see because it is a Saturday and I wanna see Cyndi and a couple of the other names lots and lots.

have a friend who has problems eating peanut butter and jelly because he doesn’t like salt and sugar hanging out together. I feel the same way about opera singers singing pop music.. Though, of course, Sarah isn’t much of either so it should be OK.

Disco Boogie Song (Live) – Fuzzbox – This song is so good it is sick, a perfect introduction to the great band with a fuzzy lick stolen off a surf guitar track and a call to dance and the best lyric ever written ever ever ever; “and it goes arrrh… and it goes grrrrrh…” I worship it – Grade: A+

Titus and Taylor represent their new albums, if K’Naan has only two good songs at least they are REAL gone, three representatives from CMJ, and Cat Power salvages what she can from Hammerstein Ballroom.

t is apt that Hurricane Sandy is bearing down upon us ready to wash out two, maybe three nights of concerts in nyc -apt because Wednesday is Halloween and it blows away the unlucky prome Smashing Pumpkins from the Pick of the week. for their Halloween gig on Wednesday at Barclay center. With visuals by the guy behind the Wall. And two parts. One the newbie, which isn’t bad, and the other hits which s better.

I’ve been merrily streaming the new Calvin Harris all day and I quite like it, new Neil Young seems like a winner, I loved the Lulu Gainsbourg track earlier this year and always cool to hear from Tracey Thorne.

Sherry Darling – Bruce Springsteen – With Hurricane Sandy bearing down upon us, and we stranded like John Travolta at the drive in, perhaps it’s as good a time as ever to hark the words of the Boss: “Let there be sunlight, let there be rain…” and keep on writing till the break of day – Grade: A

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of Hurricane Sandy, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, this post must show… or if you prefer, I am writing this Monday morning and don’t know whether it will be a natural disaster or a fizzle. My bet is on the former.

Unlike when I was stopping strangers on the street and begging them to listen to “Tears On My Guitar”, I am winning no awards for prescience in celebrating Red. Number 1 in 31 countries with three of the first four songs going Top 10 in the UK and the fourth going top 20.

Labrinth is a Cowell find and this song, a modern ballad UK style, big, prefabricated, powerful, will break HUGE if it gets the right push. But really, this is a smart smart list, Especially Calvin Harris who just got a “C+” album review in EW! GASP!!!!

Paradise By The Dashboard Light – Meat Loaf – When Eddie said he didn’t like his teddy… if Smashing Pumpkins is rained out, I am going to Bowery Electric to catch X play three songs off his upcoming album Thursday, then rushing uptown to see Mr. Loaf – Grade: A

Lost In A Lover’s Dream – Georgie Fame – Half standards, half new stuff, the great English singer and piano player is in full jazz momentum with just bass and guitar to accompany him, this is actually a singers album and Fame has always been a fine one. The songs are calmly love sophisticates, “Wide Eyed And Legless” so more than “Blossom” – Grade: A-

Let’s Hang On – The Four Seasons – He skipped this masterpiece on Friday night, it’s a simple lyric but when it is sung write it sounds like poetry: “there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do, I’d pay any price to get in good with you, the repeat on “any” is a blast, it plays on the roof of your mouth – Grade: A+

With the release of his major label debut, Blak And Blu, last week 28 year old guitar slinger makes it abundantly clear that he is sharp enough to not want to be Hendrix, a) because he can’t but also b) it isn’t enough to be the best in 2012, you have to be a wild, eclectic whirlwind thing. And Clark is just that, a good looking 28 year old heir to the Prez future passed black man who can really play, all deadly blues riffs and calm insouciance

Wide Eyed And Legless – Georgie Fame – When we last ran into Fame he was playing keyboards in Van Morrison’s band. Not that Fame is a rock journeyman, rather he is a pop eccentric with a taste for jazz, who played with Alan Price and his own Blue Flames back in the day and never bothered to top. Off his terrific new album, a terrific version of the Andy Fairweather-Low ode to alcoholism – Grade: A

“Everything is turned to love with her. New love, absent love, lost love – I never knew a heroine that makes such noodles of our sex”

Now this is a much better top ten: except for Clare and Ke$ha, I’ll go along for a ride with the lot of them, even Pink which, while admittedly, I’m not that cray for. The top four are awesome.

I don’t know when I’ve been less thrilled by a top ten in the history of rock nyc. Aldean, Brandy, Miguel and Adele, all various degrees of sucks and if Mumford is the best you’ve got count me out. Metacolypse: Dethklok are hysterical.

Die Young – Ke$ha – Two years ago I really liked the girl, but there is something too intellectually scattered about the song: it seems to be dance but not purebred, as if it is trying to get somewhere else. Perhaps the way Pink used indie but in reverse. I keep on expecting it to tighten up the beaten while flying a little closer to the moon. Plus songs about dying are always a drag -Grade: B

It is hardly Maroon 5’s fault that the plan worked. that they are rich and famous (and married, right?) and will absolutely sell out their February gig at MSG. I mean they are huge.

Greyhound – Swedish House Mafia – Untill Now is a better album than Untill One, even if it doesn’t have “Miami To Ibiza” on it, and this is better than most dance because it is a very consistent sound explosion, justified by its own being – Grade: A

Pareles is currently the most astute rock critic still working the beat and the most important institute available to any music writer. Plus he has been there since 1982, which means he has been through everything from “No New York” to “K-Pop”. He is the Vincent Camby of pop music.

Ecce Homo – Titus Andronicus – Behold the man, indeed. Lead off for the third great album and this is one of the best tracks. Another self-portrait, though Patrick seems to have graduated from TV Personality to Personal Savior. Best line: “I heard them say the white man gets existential angst when he ran out of other problems”. This will give ya angst in your pants so get ready to dance -Grade: A

Dave and pals commanded the stage with a half hour of instantly memorable tunes played with the ease that transforms to passion when they get into the heavily addicted choruses on “”Hurry Hurry” and “Pick Me up”.

The band have a great idea, one I haven’t seen used since Oasis heyday, they play all sound, including vocals, at the same volume. And it is like being hit by a freight train

Here you go, your crib sheet to Taylor’s “red” and raw and broken heart!!! Enjoy…