The Old College Try – Garfunkel And Oates – This is a very good and very funny song about a girl in college experimenting in lesbianism and finding cunnilingus the point of thanks but yuck. “When I looked a vagina in the eye I beat an ungrateful but hasty retreat… funny stuff – B+
If there is nothing as great as “Honolulu Blues” it is much much better than the last Hold Steady album. Craig is like Snoop Dogg, his voice is so distinctive that when the song isn’t rock solid, the voice overwhelms it. This is better than his last solo album. a tremendous run of great songs from one end to the other and what it misses in the top rung, it makes up for in the middle – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A-
For one thing, if Miley Cyrus is pornographic, what on earth was Prince in 1979? And for another to claim the tragedy in Syria has ANYTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH, with discussing Chrissie’s statements regarding rape is pure asinine. If that is the case, why discussing anything? Why talk about music when a five year old child just died?
It used to be that at least in New York City, everything you wanted to see sold out instantaneously, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. U2, Taylor Swift, Madonna, even The Weeknd, is not entirely sold out (The Weeknd has tickets available at Prudential and loads more in the secondary market).
Remember Sha Na Na? Sure you do, the old school rock and roll cover band who gave a spark of continuity to the Woodstock generation back in 1968. Dennis Greene was the black guy and a real talent, who appeared with the band in both Grease and Happy Days, before turning his back on the biz and becoming a Professor of Law (Harvard Grad, no less). Sadly he died earlier this week at the age of 66.
You Make Me feel (Mighty Real) – Sylvester – The six minute twelve incher, not only does Sylvester’s voice simply soar, he also mutates a declaration of love till it is a declaration of dance, and presides over one of the greatest grooves ever recorded – A+
Empire Of The Clouds – Iron Maiden – Mammoth end of the album juggernaut in two movements with a piano motif to open and close and a full throttle juggernaut of riffs right down the middle. Ambitious to a fault – B
she is missing a great deal of her best songs off the new one, no “Ghost Town”? Surely some mistake here. NO “JOAN OF ARC”???? Still, she performs next Wednesday at MSG and it should be a killer evening (Amy Schumer opens!)
Before we crow at the big 64, just remember, if you are really ahead of the pack, the band probably hasn’t broken yet! Also, it is kinda what we do, save you from being ahead of the pack by beating the world to it. Though perhaps apologies are in order.
If you are sick of the Oldies But Goldies segment look at it this way: if I was to repost one article a day till I’ve reposted every story I’ve written since 2009, it would take 56 year years. By which time I would be 114 years old . So shut your face
Knockin’ On Mine – Paul Westerberg – In retrospect, 12 Songs could stand as the final Replacements album, if anything it is even more professional than we were used to. This song is Paul at his best, the dodgy depressionalism getting burnt in the summer and wet in the rain – A
Apocalypse Now: My cousin Hala called me from Damascus to tell me the end of the world is nearing, with a sandstorm that has Egypt, Syria, Israel, and Lebanon. “The sky is red”, she told me. It is hard to believe they could hit Damascus with anything more but there you go.
“Make Room” is a non-profit organization that helps poor people pay their rent and with the current homeless problem in New York, it is even more worthwhile if anything. If the City or State really wanted to help the homeless, they’d give money directly to landlords to supplement rent for poor families. Just because you don’t see children on the street doesn’t mean there aren’t children on the street, they are just hidden from view.
Yes, great songs, terrific voice, beautiful guitars, lyrics: a long term artist with more than enough integrity and skill to last a lifetime. But lemme tell ya something, kids: I want more solos (I wouldn’t mind an instrumental album) and I want many more people to listen.
I ain’t cool with none of you faggots who just sitting here looking like a bunch of queers,” Scott said: “You wearing a fucking La Flame shirt, mothafucka. You better act like it, bitch. [Or] I’mma rip it off your fucking back.”
Really, Justin Bieber’s first number one, with 375,000 downloads, also entered the charts at # 1. Though I can’t quite hear it, it is a soft focused romantic ballad -one Selena Gomez, he cried while singing it, though quite how many times you can whine about a break up, I don’t know. A huge success for Bieber, after three years of relentlessly bad publicity, two huge hits in a row. Who said there are no second acts?
With Madonna’s 2015 tour starting tomorrow, here is a step back to her 2012 concert, which had me swearing to never see her again. I have changed my mind and am going on September 16th, for my sins, but I am very excited for it. I just think she is too much the pro to screw us over again… Here is my pan
I’ve read good things about this tour, if she plays it straight, plays the hits plus choice cuts off rebel heart, if she gets on stage at 9pm and performs 120 minutes of great dance pop, word of mouth will instantaneously sell out the tour. But if she gives us more of MDMA, art pop self flagellation and audience hatred, forget it
People think it is the end of warm weather and while that is certainly a part of the summer season, more important is children being away from school for two months . Look at two months this way: it is something like 0.25% of my life and 2% of a ten year olds. Translation, summer last forever for children but is a blip on ours and since many of us (me) are working stiffs, we more observe than participate in summer. But we observe well.
This is a perfect day for this day of the year, not an ending day but an instant nostalgia, a day where everything comes to a close and while it doesn’t aspire to death, it does aspire to an aching nostalgia. Morrison captures it perfectly, “when summer’s gone, where will we be?” The freest, warmest, youngest and most fun season – A+
Tom Brady’s ability to cover his tracks in deniability his telling Patriot employees to deflate footballs during games so they are easier for him to throw and the head of the NFL Roger Goodell’s pathetic attempts to mete out punishments that aren’t in the rulebooks ended with two laughingstocks saved through power and chronic indifference.
Career Opportunities – The Clash – A masterpiece of agitprop dead endism that heralded a world where people in the UK would never have a job in their entire life. Meanwhile, bus driver? ambulance man? Opening Letterbox. And it never ever knock – A+
the three neo soul albums, one in the second month of the season, and two as the season bows out, made a case for this being the summer where neo soul got important
The world is, and I am, sick of these second rate albums, and if respect for his work in the 80s and to a lesser extend the 90s, keeps me listening, it doesn’t keep me obsessing by any stretch of the language.
Meanwhile, except for “New Americana”, Halsey is way too manufactured to be taken seriously, but there is a huge difference between a manufactured popstar who is ignored and one who is a huge hit. Half white, half black, hip hop production on Americana songs and attitude with a soupcon of Lorde and a little more than that of Lana Del Rey… hey, apparently it worked, with 115,000 units (of which 97,000 are pure album sales), any other week it would be # 1.
Crown – Jay Z – Years later, and I am beginning to think maybe I am underestimated Holy Grail. The problem with the album is it came out around the time of Yeezus and felt a little whatever in its shadow, but this song, with Travis Scott’s excellent hook, is actually pretty darn out there – B+
Is this the year New York returns to grace after only the Rangers did any dame last year? It could be both the Mets and the Yanks get past the first round of the playoffs, maybe, just maybe we will be shocked by the Jets and the Giants, and finally I predict the Knicks have to improve over last year, But forget all that, the New York Liberty are in the playoffs!!! Isiah Thomas, possibly the most hated man in MSG history not named Dolan, baffles New York yet again.
The Kanye West find you first met on Yeezus (it is Scott who originally coined the phrase “New Slave”) and then cemented his reputation when he added his voice to Hova’s “Crown”. Now, a mixtape or two later, here comes the limelight. Travi$ debut album, the excellent Rodeo, was released on Friday and the Monday through Wednesday stand will stand as a CD release party at the tiny Gramercy Theatreseconds as a CD release party at the tiny Gramercy Theatre. The next time you see him in the city, Scott will be opening for The Weeknd at MSG, so get close when you can.
This ended up being the summer of neo-soul, the triumph of three artists: The Weeknd, Miguel and Travi$ Scott, and despite the help of Max Martin with the Weeknd, all three artists sound entirely unique. I can’t wait to hear the new Darlene Love next Friday.
You get the point after five minutes but you’re stuck there touching walls for fifteen minutes and why? Because they are trying to justify $25 for a museum that a medium paced New Yorker could finish in twenty minutes.
Maggie I’ve Been Searching For Our Son – Craig Finn – Once every seven attempts, Finn nails it, this isn’t a masterpiece but it is a good song, nice riff he works well and a good lyric, better than most of the last Hold Steady and some of his first solo album – B+
Here For You – Kygo – Featuring UK X Factor finalist Ella Henderson, and while the beats meets soul in England genre might well be played out, and Kygo one of the most annoying young DJs around, this has a smart hook and a gorgeous lead vocal on a not bad track – B+
In sports, like rock and roll and unlike the blues, it gets late early, and so off goes Rafael Nadal who seemed like a man who could never lose at the US Open home early “3-6, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 by 32nd-seeded Fabio Fognini of Italy in the third round of the U.S. Open on Friday night”. It just happens and happens and it is one of the things about watching sports because unlike rock and roll, when you can’t do it any more you get fired.
Prince, who was great on GMA earlier this week, is a Tidal exclusive and while I certainly might pay ten bucks to own his new one, I won’t pay ten bucks to rent it for a month by subscribing (the real question is: will Hov and Bey make their next albums exclusives. I’d claim it is between Craig Finn and The Libertines, I was streaming some of the Finn album and it sounds like his last solo without the flat out masterpiece “Honolulu Blues”. So I guess I’ll go with the Popdose’s Ken Shane recommended The Libertines.
Wait a second, Stephen Colbert is introducing his highly anticipated replacement of David Letterman’s iconic Late Show with guests Jeb Bush and George Clooney? On his first night? Shouldn’t there be something a little more exciting than Jeb Bush? Remember Fallon’s premiere episode of The Tonight Show?
The plagiaristic born Richard,who stole off blues for decades with impunity, had the audacity to say: “Nobody steals from the Stones”. Yeah, I mean, the gall. Look, have you heard his new stuff: it is absolutely atrocious. The man can not sing a note. Shut up and sit down.
Summer Wind – Frank Sinatra – This is a perfect end of summer, it feels like the sun going down in the sky and the moonlight shining much earlier than you could possibly want it to and the end of another season, less death and more aging -life passing irrevocably by – A+
The relentless hype surrounding Halsey is beginning to work against her, how long can Apple Play ram her down our throats (two weeks among new releases, why?) , and how long before her lack of traction becomes a problem. Or will she break? A story of modern pop.
The definition of homogenized. Remember 1978 when the UK and the US charts couldn’t have been more different? That isn’t happening any more. This is as characterless as any chart on the planet, it is the aural equivalent of the the global economy, bereft of individuals of any sort, it just sits there.
Rodeo – Travi$ Scott – Yup, it’s too long and goes a little slack in the middle, and yes, the autotune vocals are too much, but show me an album with songs as great as “Piss On My Grave” and “Pray For Love” and I’ll show you the new the Weeknd –ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A-
If this eagerly anticipated collaboration with Steve Van Zandt sucked from one end to another, it would still have Darlene Love singing rock songs. And it doesn’t suck in the slightest- A-
They cancelled the Sunday performance, but if they move the great Marvin Sapp from Sunday to Saturday then your headliners will be Cece Winans and Marvin Sapp and while you are missing a handful of big names (CeCe’s brother for one), if you have any interest at all in Gospel this is a big gig.
That’s some line up this year, I only caught the last couple of songs of Future at Governors Ball earlier this year, but it was the one set I am sorry I couldn’t catch from the start, Meek Mill has a surprisingly strong album newly released, Jidenna is the guy with “Classic man” –the remix featuring Kendrick Lamar is killer as well.
I Walk The Line – Halsey – The hype surrounding this woman is just that as this hideous re-interpretations of a Johnny Cash classic proves, why bother covering the song if you have no interest in playing it? – D-
Sure, I hate Tom Brady. Maybe I wouldn’t if he wasn’t the best QB in the business, and a smug dick to boot, but he is and he is and all he does his win. Last year, for instance. But when you’re a winner there is no need to be a cheater and doesn’t anybody believe for an instant the Patriots didn’t spy on other teams and steal their signals? And does anydody in the world believe Tom “Nobody touches my balls” Brady? Well, actually Judge Richard M. Berman just ruled that the NFL and bumbling dullard Roger Goodell had zero proof Brady had anything to do with the Deflategate and rescinded his four game suspension.
Hollywood Divorce – Outkast – Weezy is superb on the rap and the song is a jazzy beauty like the Outkast’s were the white Steely Dan: God Save Apple Play which came up with an excellent playlist: “Lil Wayne In The ’00s”… I wish I could share it – A
The Vamps – “Somebody To You” broke em, but they are still at the selling out 3000 seaters level. Formed in 2012 and signed to Mercury, they look it , act it and sound it, and given the right push now for the next year, given the right songs, this Brit Band hit me as serious contenders for the next big thing.
D.L. F – Sean Price – With Foul Monday, Rim & Royal Flush – The late great Price a Dope Loop Finder if ever there ones, brings together some friends, Royal Flush are particularly hot at the moment, and freestyles for three minutes, somewhat awesome stuff – A-
“We Are Your Friends” knows about as much about EDM as “Trainwreck” knows about being a freelance write. Nothing. And while some of the protools manipulation scenes are fun, and from time to time it gets at the pleasures of the bass, particular the behind Zac’s shot from behind DJ set at them it isn’t enough to sustain
The Essential (2015) – The first CD is more or less very obvious, but the second CD unearths some real gems. keep your ear out for “Wonderful Remark” and “Precious Time” to name two- A-
