This is the definition of a missed opportunity, it needed a vision of Sinatra and the time to allow it to unfold, it needed an insight into the man more complex than he was mercurial . Where’s Ken Barnes when you need him?
Whether benchpressing Kevin, or running from a white supremacist gang, or a crying jag from hell, Will has a sweetness that undercuts the stupidity and bad taste, and Kevin, as the least threatening black man in the hood, plays nicely off Will. “Get Hard” isn’t very good, but it is much better natured than it deserves to be
Nice beats and nasty attitude, the track is all freshness sex and hos and someone else with Rihanna, this was probably recorded during the Rihanna sessions that brought us “Fourfiveseconds”, the snarls and the haha s are pottering on self-parody, the “hahas” a growl and the beats almost his signature at the point.Apparently, he is referring his ability to make stars.
Radios In Heaven – Plain White T’s – Here’s a question, when does an album stop? Is it the last song on the official or the deluxe version. Depends on the song, I figure, this is the last song off the official, a death song, and not a very good one, but absolutely the conclusion of an album – C
If I Could Talk To Love – Carl Wilson – Some voice and though the material was iffy and some of these arrangements weren’t there, I am glad to have an album of Carl solo. This song is lovely – B+
After losing a 19 inning marathon to the Red Sox, the Yanks couldn’t regroup the next day. I’d be shocked if we get 90 wins, and we will probably be something in the nature of 80. This does not feel good, but hopefully, something somewhere… The Rangers seem heading for the Stanley Cup!!! Nets about to make the playoffs.
This ain’t much is it? And much less volatile than the singles chart which is weird, in the States if you get on the singles charts you stay a while but albums fly in and out of the albums chart very rapidly. Nothing against Kanye West, I couldn’t be a bigger fan, but if we expect his new album to change the year around, it’s gonna be a long wait.
I hated “Crossed Stars” when Kiera sang it, I hated it when Levine sang it both acoustic and electric, and I hate this terrible The Voice UK winner Stevie McCrorie’s version . The good news is there isn’t a chance in hell we will have to hear it Stateside, unless we’re dumb enough to follow the UK Charts.
Love And Affection – Joan Armatrading – A 70s masterpiece, the horn adds a flourish on a song that is all dynamic lust and forward motion. To my mind, it is a fit with Bill Withers around the same time. Adult love songs and soul – A
Though what Stevens realizes is, he is his mother’s son, some of what hurt her he has in him, the same lostness that moved her neglect moves his inability to break the distance. On stage at the Beacon Theatre, Stevens didn’t breakthrough, didn’t save her, himself or us. It was just a concert, after all.
Now FOX are threatening to do to it what NBC did to “Peter Pan”, ergo not much. It is a sign of the times that they don’t think the Frank homosexuality (“it’s not all bad, it’s not even half bad…”) and indeed hereosexuality might not be questionable for prime time television.
Morrissey’s last album was the iffy World Peace Is None Of Your Business, where he insulted his label Harvest, told them they don’t have a contract with him, and they pulled the album off all internet services, including ITunes. In what amounts to a first, Moz managed to make me feel sorry for a record label.
despite Wolf being a sophomore album in every meaning of the term,Tyler is with the possible exception of Kendrick, the most important rapper of the decade and this might deliver. Or it might not. So I was ready to annoint young Tyler, when I noticed Dwight Yaokum had a new album and rumors abounded that it was a return to old form… but I went with Tyler any way.
I saw Earl Sweatshirt back when he was just a name Tyler dropped, till he invited Earl on stage at Hammerstein Ballroom back in 2012, one of the best concerts of the decade and the legend became a goofy looking teen. Two albums later and Earl and Frank have emerged as the two OFs always worth the while, and the last time I saw Earl on stage, Tyler joined him on strage and they were seriously awesome. With the superb I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside under his belt, this Saturday night gig at Best Buy is a must see.
Only two things really catch my attention, Jenny Lewis on James Corden and Tyler The Creature on Tavis Smiley. Smiley is a serious culture guy and Tyler can be forced to concentrate so it should be an interesting interview
U Mad – Vic Densa – With Kanye West and a trombone hook and a sense of moment that song seems to be signify more than the self-realization and conflict of the lyric reads like a bizarre diary entry. It is yet another direction for hip hop and the gifted Mensa, consider the West verse another gift – B+
All of this helps and while having four attractive women in a band might not be a ticket to success, well, it didn’t hurt the Bangles, who, in at least the deep melodic tangledness, if not the power pop, is an antecedent to these guys. I don’t know if they’re any good live (I missed the Mercury Lounge gig) but, geez, aren’t they adorable?
You can’t hide from life, get rich, get money, power, popularity, and it still can’t hide you from the mesmerizing wrecking ball that is lives in motion. It doesn’t matter what you think is going to happen, it doesn’t matter how hard you to try to shield yourself from absolute disaster; life is like this huge monster that hunts you and rips out your heart and leaves you and returns and kills you
If anybody has a right to ignore his wishes it is his daughter, who didn’t know, who, through his own selfishness, missed having a father. That’s pretty drastic stuff and surely Francis has every right to claim: “hey, you don’t want to be a famous rock star? Fuck you, somersault in your grave over this, chump”
“My name is very sugary, but my personality is very spicy. My mom used to call me a little ball of fire. I love hard. I hate hard. I play hard, but if you calm me down, I can be gentle. That’s what this album is. It shows the true essence of who I really am as a person, as an artist.”
I’ve Got You Under My Skin – Frank Sinatra – It’s not that this is his greatest vocal performance (though it comes from his golden 50-s era) or his best song, but it is his most Sinatra performance, both filled with virility and insecurity, he whips itself into submission, whips himself into submission as well, plus a glorious mid-song orchestral fade in, slams it into the stratosphere. The first time the orchestra played Nelson Riddle’s arrangement they gave it a standing ovation – A+
I have never heard of a business enterprise whose main selling point was more money for the billionaire artists and not a thing for the consumers. What sort of business model is that? There are many things that might concern the average fan, but Beyonce not making enough money isn’t among them.
So how much you enjoyed it depends on how much you still get off on the Stones darkly through the past energetically songs. Me? I don’t get off on it the way I used to and the bigger the song the more tired I am. From “Jumping Jack Flash” to Satisfaction” , “Tumbling Dice”, “Brown Sugar” this was the Stones as written and a little less.
Two of these songs will end up on my very best of the year, Old Fathers “Old Rock N Roll” and Brian Wilson’s “The Last Song”. One of them is the best political song of the year and the other is a go gently into that night and a weathered and true song of aging and loss. The Death Cab track is one of the better numbers, and all the turks, Conor, Lord Huron, Metz, are on their game.
Wilson can make music that sounds like the slow yearn of conclusion. It is one of his many strengths that even as a teen surfer sensation there was something else there, there was an awareness of thought and solitude. “Somewhere Quiet” is the ghost of “Please Let Me Wonder”.
The Wolf – Mumford And Sons – I didn’t like “Believe” at all and was more than ready to hate on these guys, especially after failing to get a tix to the LPR gig. but it is hard to dislike a hard rocking passionate mover like this. Chris Martin should be so lucky – B
The final night of a three week tour, imagine Television covering Neil Young and you’ll have a sense of the intense beauty but not the immense self confidence at work here. It’s like a bequietuded loud psychedelia.It is the sound of a bloke in charge of his easel, or at least his paintbrushes, the songs are unrushed and uncluttered, it is the sinking sound of past imperfect.
I like torch songs. I guess I like most music in which pathetic desperation is a dominant theme. That’s my wheelhouse, emotionally.
The top of the list is now in its 14th week, a reign that equals “I Gotta Feeling” , and has only been bested by the execrable Mariah Carey and Boys II Men “One Fine Day” -a song so bad they could make it replace waterboarding as a torture. The death song is horrible on just about every single level and it makes “Uptown Funk” sound like a paragon of funk smartness and inspired plagiarism. Which it isn’t. Speaking of death songs -will somebody put a fork in Wiz Khallifa already?
Not a bad top 10… nice to see my fave new album here, nice to see two of my fave holdovers from 2014 still hear, Kendrick didn’t crash and burn, Death Cab deserved some success with this one… there isn’t much I actively dislike. Ah, sweet zeitgeist tis of thee…
It was 1970 and new wave ruled the world… or did it? This piece of pseudo-new wave was much loathed by the people who cared for the real thing and while pimply would be jackers blasted it, the sound of new wave was a transparent mix and match from the British Invasion. I hated it at the time, but today can’t muster the energy – B
I am not sure what is catching your eye here, but I know what I see: THE TEDESCHI TRUCKS BAND FREE CONCERT. What else: Jungle, the Carole King songs, always the Summer Recital Series is a must see, Whodini… and the 30th anniversary night looks fabulous.
I wrote a little while ago that MJ’s primary responsibility was to live through this for his three children. That was his moral imperative. But the music world, or popstars issues with fame and feeling good about themselves, are not our concerns, our only concerns are the musical manifestation of mortality.
Sparks – Hilary Duff – Whistling is the new 808 drum intro, it signifies both playfulness and serious pop chops. And Hilary needs them on this dreadful pop monstrosity. She should go back to acting – C-
Heavy Horses, Farm On The Freeway, Songs From The Wood sit alongside Aqualung, Living In The Past, Wind-Up, A New Day Yesterday, The Witch’s Promise, Locomotive Breath and other favourites – often with slightly re-written lyrics to better tell the tale.
Satellite – All Time Low – The best song on an ordinary album, has the thump of anthem and a “lalalalala” hook, but it isn’t good enough to seriously signify as song or anthem, though maybe it signifies as emo as it reworks a Billy Bragg metaphor for no good reason – B-
The first single off the second album was Huge, the second less so, but the second was the weakest link on this very beautiful folk rock -though not folk like Roger McGuinn, it is an indie folk with rural sweep and uplift and some of the strongest songs of the year – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A-
So it goes on, the wound never heals entirely, yet when life can be a reign of tragedies, you reach for happiness wherever you can find it.
So as illness takes me down yet I can’t, I don’t have the time, to be taken down, so somewhere I am in both places, three places , somewhere I am ill, somewhere I am working and somewhere I have drifted back to a late sunny afternoon. And all three are listening to “The Only Living Boy In New York”.
Sunday night rock nyc just about exclusively reported that Mumford And Sons were playing a secret concert today at le Poisson Rouge and twelve hours after we broke it everybody else realized and the result was somewhat predictable. Le Poisson Rouge’s website crashed.
That is a question that goes to the heart of our insecurities, it is the unanswerable, unequivicable question between adults and children. Do you love me? Really? Do you love me enough? How much? How often? Why? Why not? Carrie And Lowell has no answers for Sufjan or us, but it has the right questions, and the right concerns and that is so rare, so important. It illuminates who we are.
The Body – Wale – Jeremih makes Miguel look like Marvin Gaye and this song makes Wale look like Wale and my point is that after pretty good hour of music, this is too ordinary to close it out with – C
Can’t Say No – The Tomas Doncker Band – The first time I heard this song was way after midnight at the Blue Note, and Joe Jackson was sitting behind me. It was, instantaneously, the best Rolling Stones song where the writer didn’t know it was a Rolling Stones but it was any way, I’ve ever heard –
“They’ve been tweeting some pretty rude stuff at me, so I think there’s a sect of America out there that doesn’t like certain opinions and can really take their claws out when they don’t like what you’re saying.” though you voted
The problem with Saints is there aren’t too many of them around and god knows John Lennon was more human than most so his sainthood is a little, how you say, disillusioning. When people speak of Lennon, they miss something: he was a serial philanderer, a wife beater, he neglected his son Julian, and he had a violent streak. But here is the kicker: he changed. The wife being beaten was Cynthia Lennon (and it was their child Julian being ignored). Cynthia died last week from cancer at the age of 75.
What is bizarre and strange about the Prodigy is that they were so unique and cutting edge on The Fat Of The Land and nearly 20 years later they are exactly the same. We call this a Status Quo complex, psychiatrists are fascinated by it, the Prodigy grow older without ever changing in the slightest. In 2035 they will be sound exactly the same.
Wow, Sam Smith is out of the top ten! I didn’t think it would ever happen! As for Sia, after years of saying all she had in her was “Titanium”, her vocal on “Wolves” thrilled me and left my defenses down for this track off her last album.
Fourth Of July – Sufjan Stevens – From a contender for album of the year, Stevens mourns his recently dead Mom and all he can say to comfort himself is “we’re all gonna die”. Cold comfort, right? But I know where he is coming from – A
Over the past few weeks, Mumford & Sons have been playing intimate shows in various cities around the world in order to test out the new material live. We’re pleased to reveal that tomorrow night, Monday 6th April, they’ll play a show in the one and only New York City, at Le Poisson Rouge.
It doesn’t matter if you share their faith, that you believe a man walked on water and they believe there are aliens attacking you. You say baptize, they say go clear… no difference to an agnostic Out to attack Scientology, if I was Dave I’d use this as a recruiting tool -there is nothing close to the nightmares I had assumed in this religion
