Iman Lababedi

Yaselame Lalo – Mahmoud Ahmed -here’s an oversimplification South African music is folky, West African soulful and East African Mahmoud being a master of, and who brought Summerstage to its knees in awe Tuesday night, is soulful. This is off Live In Paris, and worth it just to hear him go “brrrrr-eh”. Grade: B+

Both songs are simple and elegant melodic games, snapshot story songs, slice of life: “You Are Your Moms” has a tugging nostalgia, denied in the next song, “Kicks”. In the former Conor is watching a friend grow up, and on the latter a friend go down. Stuck in in a void, “Kicks” is simply a beautiful downer with a way out pointed to in “You Are Your Moms”.

The rest of the album are plastic souvenirs from the show of the show. The world went to the Olympic Games and all I got was this lousy soundtrack and none of it is off the McCartney set.

Keys To The City – Spider Bags – At first it sounds like the garage band of your dreams but once you’ve listened to it a couple of times, you will realize it is the punk rock band of your dreams. An amphetamine rush of power chords and infidlity – Grade: A+

The result is Life In The Middle -a flawed masterpiece. The album is wounded and missing parts, but it has a deep musical balance and a mystical quality. It is the definition of a cult album. Grade: B+

Rick Ross has a great voice, and he is a great rapper, but having said that the man has no soul: in the center there is a black hole where the soul should fit. I might get the Neil Diamond.

Take Me To Manhattan – Jack Phillips – The lead off song from one of his two new albums, finds the great piano man, with a new great American songbook on his hand. The instrumental break is an old fashioned wonder and the ode to our Isle of joy a worthy addition to the pantheon of nyc songs – Grade: A

It lingers on like a sad conversation with an old friend. It isn’t melancholia, not the disruption of manic depression but the bone ache of sorrow. A beautiful thing but hard to search out, a misery loves company sound.

I have never gotten the kick against Jackson Browne. I’ve loved him since “Saturate Before Use” and the last time I saw him perform a full set live, 2004, he blew me away. That was the night after he was inducted in the rock and roll hall of fame and Springsteen came out and sang “Take It Easy” with him

Better Plan B than the dreaded Gaslight Anthem. Plan B is a pretty good white English rapper and GA are a gawdawful litmus test for the death of rock and roll as we know it.

The Conor song and the Florence and Calvin Harris remix are towering dance pop. Smarter than the average 120bpms! Conor is proof that the boy band scene is developing closer to the Sheeran than Direction direction.

Angels – The xx – Based solely upon my adoration of this gorgeous song, if I had no day job, I would go to T5 on Thursday to check these guys out. It is odd how all it takes is one perfect moment, here a haunted brilliance which, if re-arranged for piano, would fit in the new Regina Spektor and, if the aural dynamic was changed, PJ Harvey’s Is This Desire – Grade: A

Uh oh: If you look at the upcoming releases for August and the mosy enthuisiasm you can manage is a “Maybe Mumford And Sons possibly might not be the worst music on earth, it means it is the dog days of summer

Never – Micachu And The Shapes – Aptly named experimental pop band who play liked jagged lemondrops. Sugary sweeties with a spike in them, they go down smooth but they kick a little on your insides. The limey band is a little sophomore jinxed, and it takes too long to kick in, but it makes it on points – Grade: B+

Got A Lot O’ Living To Do! – Elvis Presley – The relentless, dispassionate passing of time finds this piece of magical rock party and youthful hedonia, celebrating its 56th birthday. If that isn’t depressing enough, Presley is still dead – Grade: A+

Selassie is a fascinating man, and not simply God incarnate. An ancestor of (get this) the Queen Of Sheba! and the last of a great Dynasty that ruled over Euthopia for 3000 years

I Miss You – Beyonce – This song, written by Frank Ocean didn’t introduce him to the world entire, just the world entire that mattered. me? I don’t consider it nearly as good as “!+” for instance, but I understand why you do. Thursday night a woman was running out of T5 when Ocean began performing this for the encore. It is that kind of song (and that kind of songwriter). You either get it or you don’t – Grade: B+

I wanted to know if there was a musician at the bottom of it. If juxtaposing, say, “Paperback Writer” wih, say, “Savoy Truffle” will teach me anything about anything. It doesn’t

And so, in the heart of the summer, there is a fluke, a perennial and a man who broke right through to stardom fronting a pop band. The charts aren’t bad, but they are certainly predictable (well except for Carly)

Life might be good but Nas’ new album is a straight drag. And how impressive are these numbers. We got it. 150K units will getcha to bumber one most weeks. Next.

Try To Remember – Jerry Orbach – from the longest running off-Broadway musical of all times, The Fantasticks, here is the original from (remember?) 1960, a tender place setter and humoungous hit rhyming from follow some nine time. Interesting idea: the past as a place fitted by imagination. Grade: A

trolling for stories, I came across this one in Pitchditch…fork, and happily aggragate it for your viewing pleasure, secure in the knowledge that I have done my piece for the wild and the innocent

Boyfriend – Kidz Bop – The trick with Kidz Bop isn’t that the expurge the naughty stuff, but that they simpify the needlessly complex. never truer than on this pop song, where they go from the multi -tracking Bieber vocals, to a girl, boy, harmony. It works forward except the “swag, swag”? Not so much – Grade: B+

I’ve been listening to the Moms debut EP with mixed emotions. It splits through the middle, two cracker songs that should end up on anybody’s Alt List of the year, a pretty good third, and an honorable whatever

“Storms” is a four and a half minute long goodbye, apparently aimed at Nathan Williams, which finds the singer tackling loneliness and the end of the relationship with as much grace as she can manage.

This is, in effect, the follow up to “Runaway”, and it is terrible. From sentiment to sound, this is one of the hip hop songs West has ever put his name to. Generic beats, iffy sample. you’ve heard it before you’ve listened to it spund. Good Music doing smart ass business as usual. And as for refrain? “Come and have a good time with G.O.D.” . Plus a shout out to Whitney Houston, which, maybe, they should have thought better of. Good music? Yeah, right. Grade: C-