Iman Lababedi

Founding Editor of Rock NYC. Iman Lababedi was a freelance rock critic in the 1980s, took a break of 20 years, and has been writing and editing the music blog rocknyc.live since 2009. He considers this to be in many ways a golden age for pop music and hopes you are enjoying it too.

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Sneak Peaks Week Of February 6th, 2012

After you’ve listened to the first two, what is left? McCartney will be a bore and Van Halen will be a cobbled together piece of crap if “Tattoo” is “Tattoo” is anything to go by. No, the keeper here is gonna be Aior. I’ve been a fan since “The Virgin Suicides” and am looking forward to hearing the techno Kings again.

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MFT 2-7-12

An energetic call to worldwide lethargy, which seems to define 20 somethings shrugging their way through a downsized life in industrial Allentown. The sort of place that sucks so bad, Billy Joel used it as a metaphor for blue collar workers.

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Madonna's Half Time Super Bowl Show Reviewed

So with the world watching, Madonna enters the field to Vogue, as though she is three types of Cleopatra’s and proceeds to, well, vogue. The sound is loud and tinny, and, never a particularly melodic song, it is all dance moves and bass bottom. Who is playing? Sounds like DJs and backing tapes to me.

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UK Top Ten Albums, February 11th, 2012

The problem with Lana’s album is the great thing about Cohen’s: the production. It is so de rigeur. The beats are so received, so often heard, so similar and so kinda out of place. Whatever you wanna say about Cohen, it sounds exactly like itself

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Lana Del Rey On Letterman

I Born To Die is an excellent album, I thought she was fine on SNL and though I am a touch tired of “Video Games” by now, she is first rate here, singing the aforementioned on the Letterman Show.

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MFT 2-6-12

Grooveallegiance -Funadelica – I am so excited to be seeing the great man on Wednesday and it gives me the perfect excuse to blast Funkadelica and Parliament for days on end. To be reasonable about it, what else could I want?

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Metallica To Play Black Album

Metallica were beyond cliches like “cool”. There were times when they were the only metal band that mattered. It was as simple as that. But before the Sandman enters, he wrecks destruction on your body and brains so somewhere in the folllowing 30 years they stopped being cool characters from an update of “On The Road” and became terrifying refugees from a Victorian Goth novel

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Singles Going Steady, Week Of January 30th, 2012

Around the mid-way point, the Teens get a little serious and the dark notes overtake the ebullience. But they recover and mostly this is the purist of pop pop gems., harmonies, guitars, indie pop flavors and a sensibility many, many alt pop bands can’t quote get tTheir problem is they make it look too easy. Grade: A-

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MFT 2-5-12

The Imposter -Steve Nieve’s organ pumps right through this bedeviled soul sound put under another brilliant Costello lyric. The song ends with the two best lines on the album: “He’ll only bring you you souvenirs, it’s only going to end in tears”.

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MFT 2-4-12

The problem here isn’t the (over) singing which is great, especially Neap. Or the production which is pretty perfect especially the drums with an extra echo on the back flip. Or the sentiments, which are kinda funny, “act like a woman, think like a man”. It’s the song. Which sucks

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Red Hot Chili Peppers Setlist For 2012

So, I took a look at the setlists they’ve been playing and the first thing I notice is, along with “Under The bridge” and “Scar Tissue” is… NO “This Is The Place”!!! Hey, no “Brendan’s Death Song” either. Actually, not that much from the newbie.

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MFT 2-3-12

These guys can get too far out their even for my tastes, a rambunctious, beat heavy slam. And this is more of the same, but at least the drum triplicates are a nice hook and the words are chanted but not so harsh you want to run away and hide.

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Best Concerts Of 2012 Thru January 31st

How Campbell managed to maintain his cheer, his demeanor, his happiness, in a situation that, simple age not being the only problem, but with his life drawing to a close, is a testament to music and to a certain power of faith and good will.

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MFT 2-2-12

Never before has a band been so aptly named. In business since the 1990s, they have a spritely power pop sound that exudes youthfulness and high spirits and fervor and this, from their first album in five years, has lost nothing. Eager and able to please, it is just terrific.

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Jay-Z At Carnegie Hall? No Thanks…

At $750? I don’t think so. .By the way I could have gone to see Mumford And Sons, Coldplay and, er, Jon Stewart, at Amnesty International’s “The Policeman’s Ball”. Thankfully, the $550 cost stopped me. I chose not to go.

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McCartney Takes Too Much Credit For "Yesterday"

It is strange, but very human, for McCartney to have bent the truth with his co-writer not around to question him. “Yesterday” is a signature acheivement (incidentally, I can’t stand it), and even with all the accolades Macca has received, he still wants one he doesn’t deserve

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MFT 2-1-12

Around the time Usher released this huge hit, he was well on his way to becoming what he claimed he most wanted to: the next Michael jackson. But the problem with being the next MJ is not black, it’s white. Usher couldn’t crossover all the way, he wasn’t quite poppy enough and there was an edge of sexual intimidation with him.

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Megadeth At The Theater At MSG, Saturday, January 28th, 2012 Reviewed

His guitar playing is excellent, on “Whose Life (Is It Anyway)”, he is fast, he is fluid, and he plays the bottleneck like a champ, trilling out notes like a prog rock Jesus. On the aptly name “Guns Booze And Drugs” he makes you wonder why he doesn’t use back up singers more often and throughout, the sleep, too short and not loud enough set he makes sense of a “Dave Mustaine Is God” tee-shirt I noticed.

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Lana Del Rey Would Die To Jeff Buckley

I’d probably die to Jeff Buckley, I guess there probably wouldn’t be any other way. Good music. Good music to die to, send me on my way to heaven, heavenly voice, heavenly tunes. But I have a couple of records that are sort of near and dear to me

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MFT 1-31-12

Rendezvous – the dB’s – In which Pete Holsapple goes to Graceland and has an epiphany of sorts, though not the Pilgrimage Paul Simon did. Instead he wanders around Graceland and calls out the King: “Taking Care Of Business” doesn’t mean a thing”.

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