It appears to be a sort of political derring do self-help book and it is a pleasure to hear even if it sounds like, well, it sounds a lot like M.I.A. She wrote this when posting the song on Soundcloud: “DEMOCRACY CONVERSATIONS ! TAMILS ARE STILL WAITING! AND NO MY BEATS ARE NOT BETTER WITHOUT MY POLITICX”
“50 Shades Of Grey” isn’t much but it isn’t terrible. The opulence is opulent, the s&m scenes are sexy enough, neither of the actors are particularly good but they do the job and Jennifer Ehle is worth waiting for. Plus, nobody is taking it particularly seriously as a feminist scribe or a sexual manifesto so why should I?
It is not true Laura is overly melodramatic when it comes to being in love, she is overly dramatic whatever she sings and it is absolutely true, she can’t build a fence, she has to be an “electric fence”. This song sounds more like Once I Was An Eagle than the other three I’ve heard
For the week Of March 14th, 2015, Teenage Dreams will have spent 200 weeks amongst the top 200 albums and listening to it toay, it is still a blast, still huge amounts of fun (the concert was great as well).
Kinda lame, things have been on the quiet side sincea thrilling January. The Week of 3/2 was unbelievably quiet. Indeed, I only reviewed 10 albums. And Net week looks quieter. Undoubtedly, Rebel Heart is the story… but having said that my choice for most anticipated is Olly Murs, who is always up!! The two songs I’ve heard split the difference but the rest should be OK
It’s not every day I see a top top show, an “A+” show. Since rock nyc has been around, in 2009 there was Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks” gig (the second one, at the Beacon), in 2012 Aretha Franklin at Radio City Music Hall, Bobby Womack at City Winery in 2013 and this January D’Angelo at the Apollo and that’s about it. So I don’t expect D’Angelo to best it at all, I don’t expect him to match it. I still expect him to be great..
This guy is the Noel Gallagher of redneckdom and this is a pretty good Southern rocker but it uses Johnny’s name for no good reason (“I walk the line because you love me” is Kid’s excuse) and so it seems like a rip off. The Noel name drop? It is highly derivative as well but where from? – B+
The non-profit City Parks Foundation’s famed SummerStage performing arts festival is celebrating its 30th anniversary season in 2015. To get fans pumped for the summer and to shake off a case of the late winter blues, SummerStage will leak the names of 30 artists performing at the citywide festival starting on March 9t
It is a heartbreaker breaker with Bobby and Whitney’s daughter, Bobbi Kristina a ridiculously young 21 years of age, clinging to life and passing fast and Brown praying for a miracle for his daughter,this was filmed a couple of weeks before Bobbi drowned and it just will be upsetting. Otherwise people’s tragedies, our entertainment. Queen Latifah should have killed it.
the Van-Womack duet is here now and it is wonderful, everything the terrible Michael Buble couldn’t begin to bring to “Real Real Gone”, Womack brings to “Peace Of Mind” -a punchy, upbeat r&b workout with Van and Bobby trading off on lines before bringing it home together.
Direct Current is always a little frail on hip hop, which is why it isn’t the only reference we use, but otherwise it does show a singular sensibility an a good peek at the Spring of our warmth an happiness. Pick of the litter? Best Coast. I loved their new single. Otherwise, Hot chip, Paul weller, Mumford And Sons, Metz II (a band I’ve wanted to see for awhile now), Beth Hart, The Wombats…
For better or worse and even if you are going there for the primary purpose of reviewing the show, you are hoping for a pleasant experience. And last month the weather made sure you didn’t get one, nothing felt worth the effort of going to a show.
Rain Or Shine – Young fathers – Scotland’s finest sing an ode to absence set in place by an insistent organ and with the three leaders sounding both distracted and cool. The rap isn’t great but everything else sure is – A-
let me make it simpler. Buy all the UK official releases up to “Let It Be” except for “Magical Mystery Tour”where you need the US version, “Live At the BBC” “Anthology 2” and “Past Masters” I and II and you can pass on the rest
I hope you are getting well paid for your soundtrack to “the new Noah Baumbach film While We’re Young, which stars Ben Stiller, Naomi Watts, Amanda Seyfried, Adam Driver, and Beastie Boys’ Ad-Rock”, because, well I only heard the sample “Only the Stars Above Welcome Me Home” and then only once because it stopped working
I am as completely unbiased when it comes to music as I can be,, and if you want proof here is my review of Madonna at Yankee Stadium. But there is doubting her pop music genius and while Lady Gaga may one day find herself in the same league, it sure hasn’t happened yet.
Santana and Sha Na Na sure got shafted, and CSNY made as much as Arlo??? I’m guessing some managers got canned (heat) when these umbers leaked. Joe Cocker left a superstar, right? Was Sly really the only back act???
Not a great week for albums or singles, though Flo and Carly released songs that may well still be around three months from now. “All Day” feels like a big time album track, like “Wolves” and not like “Fourfiveseconds”. “Febreze”? “Yeah, I’m the shit, I should have Febreze on me”!
“Van Halen are an immaculate conception: the bastard child of Jimmy Page and Groucho Marx. And they were immaculate on stage, they did no more and no less than every single thing they had to do.” That’s what I wrote about the tour this song is culled from, nearly exactly three years ago – A
Kat has the instincts of a major pop star but the limitations of a minor pop player, she is good enough to always applaud, and her move has been steadily forward since 2002, but her songwriting isn’t all the way there, her singing is immaculate but her voice is an acquired taste. On stage she is smart and fun but rambling
My problem is: Friday is a great day anyway, we don’t need to make it a better day but Tuesdays suck, it is the heart of the matter, the weekend is miles away and all that surrounds Tuesday is barren, lifeless and blankness. Most people die on Tuesday because, like Beckett, they go on, they can’t go on.
I Really Like You – Carly Rae Jepsen – So this is the FOLLOW UP follow up to “Call me, maybe” and I will be surprised if it isn’t a hit but I’ll be shocked if it I a huge hit… Sure catchy songs should have an irritatant factor, but not the first time you hear em – B
Crazy about the new Pitbull. No, not at all, but it is a long long time since “Hotel Room Service’ and at the very least the thrill of Pitbull has gone… though, a fried of a friend is Pitbull’s manager and he swears the guy is the sweetest guy in the biz…
Ugh, if the year was based solely o the charts so far so iffy. The top three are all lousy, all of the albums are C or lower and except for Drake nothing from 2015 is all that thrilling at all. Big Sean was a real dig and Tyga ruins Brown’s best dance moves (Tyga? Cmon, guy). A real snooze of a list.
All Day – Kanye West – Here we go, better than “Wolves” and “Only One”, this is a piece of ego inflation but it is more than that, as his Brit Awards performance proved, it was also a call to arms for disencfranchised and ignore, plus that sample sounded like it was busting a guy and the whistling at the end? Paul McCartney – A
Five years after “Hot Tub Time Machine” took us back to the 1980s a lot has happened: Mostly, three The Hangover movies, where the big concept, a missing day, morphs into a missing ten years, as Nick and buddy Lou (long with Lou’s long suffering son go back to the future to stop Lou’s murder
The band we loved to hate till we saw em live (twice!) and changed our minds are back again with a new album, the poetically named Wilder Mind and a tour, lotsa festivals it says here, Gentlemen Of The Road. When will this be happening? May 4, apparently. And apparently they are putting down their banjos for an electric sound.
Maroon 5 are performing a skimpy though career spanning 17 song set. Three out of the four songs from V (their latest) are already hits, though the five songs from Overexposed feels like overkill and surely Songs About Jane is over represented
Where Are U Now – Skrillex, Diplo, Justin Bieber – people don’t mind that Justin is a bad boy, they mind that he is a monster , but don’t dislike this track because of Monster Justin, who does is a great job, he always sounds sweet, in fact don’t hate it at all; that’s a classic sample hooking you – B
Country singer songwriter dabbles in rock and roll and comes out the better for it even if not always, “The Eye” is such a great song it makes the riff of “The ainstream Kid” soound pedestrian. At its best it is as good as this ten year veteran can get, at its worse it is pretty good – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – B+
A really awesome, hard rocking classicist heads down piece of ultra catchy rock and rock glammy rocking whomp, and a benefit for a rock nyc friend and good guy, and the Pagans only do it for two and a half minutes?
My problem with The Big Picture is my problem with Kat: her voice is so damn distinctive even when she is covering blues, country, rock, it all sounds like Kat. Good over a coupla of songs but a little too much over an hour. But I may be wrong and this is a great setlist.
The band we loved to hate till we saw em live (twice!) and changed our minds are back again with a new album, the poetically named Wilder Mind and a tour, lotsa festivals it says here, Gentlemen Of The Road. When will this be happening? May 4, apparently. And apparently they are putting down their banjos for an electric sound.
So Close – Keath Mead – Check out the way he spells his first name and make a decision: is he too precious or too young? My guy is the latter because he can sure write a song, this is a beauty, power folk filtered through a folkie singer songwriterly aesthetic – B+
Sunday afternoon I was still considering going to see JH3 when it dawned on me, she kinda sucks.This Is another annoying sing songery piece of meh, why do I try so hard? She doesn’t like me… still if it had been a Saturday evening… – C
I am looking longingly at that September 16th, 2015 at Madison Square Garden. A Wednesday. I know it is probably gonna be an expensive piece of crap, with her waddling on stage at 11pm, and doing one lousy set piece after another before re-arranging “Like A Virgin” so it sounds like a dirge.
The outpouring of sorrow over the death of Leonard Nimoy is not, and I think I can claim this with absolute certainty, nothing whatsoever to do with his singing, no not even “If I Was A Carpenter” or, god knows, “Highly Illogical”. Even so, Spock is an instrument of rock and roll culture and his cultural significance, his Pan-Universal Humanism, will hopefully hopefully, live long and prosper.
Royal Blood are opening for Foo Fighters at Citifield this summer (and man does it seem far away as I write this, with the snow snowing, and the wind blowing) and despite our hopes and prayers for a wonderful summertime, that is one night that sounds like a nightmare. Royal Blood, is bombastic deep throat modern rock. Dreadful.
Emeli Sande sucked so bad when I saw her at Central Park a coupla years ago, but she has a terrific voice and before she turns into Adele or Amy Winehouse (I know, Amy has a good excuse…). Still, as house disco ballads, this is pretty hot stuff.
Wherever Is Your Heart – Brandi Carlile – A flagwaver for new women country stars with the chops and the skills that seem beyond their male brothers right now. If the album maintains this level of songwriting, it will be a biggie – A-
The cover (above) is a “a 13th Century monastic symbol for the Virgin Mary” according to Stereogum who got the info from a website called God And Religion reconciled (here). That dead Mommies stuff might explain the McCartney angle a little, right? Mother Mary and Only One are not a million miles away conceptually or in tone
Among the many many things I admire about the book is just how unsentimental it is, how to the point, how it doesn’t deal in life in abstraction but rather it deals in life as flesh and blood. There is a stubborn resilience to it. Over and above the fun of reading about people you know is the fun of reading about a world you have no clue about
The playing is consistently excellent and the sound, the arrangements, the guitars plus touches, make for an unceasingly pleasant ambient track: the songs and the singing aren’t there, but the music is a pleasure. Hey, they will buy it in the UK and he is always welcome to sell out the Beacon
I love the Brandi Carlile song off the newbie and it may prove to be the best album of next week. But most anticipated? Alyson has mentioned em a coupla times and I really like Gateway Drugs, I mean any band that calls one of its songs “Los Angeles Will Have Its Revenge On Francis Bean” and gets it to stick is sure worth anticipating.
Up Above My Head – Rhiannon Giddens – Her achievement on this is not to iprove on Sister Rosetta Tharpe, neigh on impossible, but to sing it beautiful and to make make some of its heaven Rhiannon’s very own
Gregory Porter is having some 2015, a top 10 album in the UK is great, and the loud and intense approval of your some of the biggest names in pop music, Sam Smith for one, should make this a big gig, but singing a duet with Van Morisson on Van’s next album? That’s BIG. You can catch Gregory yourself, alongside rock nyc friend, bluesman Tomas Doncker, on Sunday afternoon
Who’s Counting – Kat Edmonson – Her Paul Simon song, not a cover but it has the same DNA as some of his bests tuff, it is Simon not circa Graceland, as she claims, but Rhymin’ Simon. Not better, not worse, just other… a moving and intelligent song about how tie passes – A+
On Friday, February 12th, 2012, I witnessed Aretha Franklin honor her recently deceased Goddaughter Whitney Houston at Radio City Music Hall, part pop manifesto, part revival meeting, the queen of soul sublimated her pain in song and worship. It was the best show I’ve seen this century. And D’Angelo at the Apollo was the second best show I’ve seen this century.
If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late – Drake – Remix tape? I prefer it to his last album, though it has no “Hold On, We’re Going Home” or the single that won him a punk from Diddy and a Grammy. Any album with songs as good as “Legend” and “Jungle” needs no caveats at all.
February was a come down afre a terrific January, the difference between the two wasn’t quantity (even though the first two weeks of January were dead so really, January had a lot more good songs, but quality. I’m not certain where to put D’Angelo in the great scheme of things but even if “really Love” was released 2014, for me it is a February song. So not a great February…
