Sunbathing Animal – Parquet Courts – I swear I couldn’t hear these guys for the longest time and then I was listening to the Fader’s to 112 songs of the year and boom , it sounded like a modern day Pissed Jeans – A
The Planet – Young Ejecta – electronic pop singer songwriter dream stuff and really pretty, “Into Your Heart” lives up to its name and the other songs are like dreamlike states of intense beauty. The duo responsible dubbed Ejecta an “embodiment of universal longing and loss”. Sure, if they want- ALBUM OF THE WEEK B+
When EDM connects to a song now, it doesn’t change it in any fundamental sense. It doesn’t change the way sound sounds in your ears the way rock and roll does. It is parasitic, not giving birth to different sounds but sucking dry every single thing it touches.
leaked from her studio, if it isn’t a new song it sounds like it could be. the wooah wooahs sound like Riri’s signature all right, and the sentiment is kinda underplayed, it doesn’t smack you, more like an observation. she doesn’t do high octane drama now does she?
It’s a tradition, seven years and counting, Pitchfork compile their upcoming album releases, we steal it and repost it taking time to insult a website as smug as smug can be, with all their taste in their mouth as they write scads of bewildering words about bands no one will ever hear
So what do I know about my buddy Mike Long? He is a funny guy from Colorado, trades in alt country and snapshots of the Cosa Nostra. His taste coincides with mine maybe one in three but he is much less pop and much more hipster
A sort of lowbrow hard rock plodding band who weathered everything from soft rock to punk to EDM with aplomb, and with their 31st album Aquostic (Stripped Bare) 11 weeks on the charts, they’ve reached 500 weeks in the UK charts.
Lifestyle – Rich Gang, Young Thug – This is the Young Money crew, including break out rapper Young Thug, with a really great rap, please an autotuned singer, plus an excellent two note piano sample, “I got sisters and brothers to feed” is the excuse, but the bottom line remains a very expensive way of living- A-
Original member Otis Williams respected the Temptations legacy more than the Four Tops did through playing smart, strong arrangement of their catalog, better, more important, with more pride, than tributing the Temptations late leaders is to make them viable even today
Mario Cuomo, the three term New York Governor who for some perplexing reason didn’t take on Ronald Reagan for the Presidency though many of us thought he could take Reagan, indeed, was the only guy with a chance, died hours after his son Andrew was sworn in for a second term.
she can record her follow up to Let england Shake in a box in an art gallery so fans can watch her work. I wonder how good an idea this is, but I guess, you know, if it effects the creation well that’s all part of the experience. You can look in but she can’t see out so…
Ezra is guy who gave us “Budapest” and “Cassy O” though a full album of the suckers is pushing it a bit but otherwise i remain with the same question: why the assumption people stop buying music the last two weeks and first two weeks of a new year. It seems to me that anybody with half a brain and a big enough fanbase would ONLY RELEASE MUSIC around this time. It isn’t 1987, people don’t have to leave their couch to buy an album.
something of a holding pattern though the more I hear the Ronson-Mars collab the more it sounds like a major rip off, I guess it might be considered something like the way “Let’s Dance” ripped off “Twist And Shout” but all of it is a 70s rip off with James Brown on top. It’s OK but really, are we at the place where we need James Brown interpreted for us?
Confessions Of A MILF – Viv Albertine – Off the how did I miss that The vermillion Booker, the former Slit current author of the brilliantly named “Clothes, Clothes, Clothes, Music, Music, Music, Boys, Boys, Boys” utobigraphy, this is a catchy smart little nursery rhyme with a kicker: “there’s no place like home” – B+
English to its very bone, the humor is drier than drier, it bends to the inevitable with a “pathetic” chorus: “I’ll be tickled to death to go”. Ouch? Compare it to George M. Cohan’s 1917 “Over There” and the difference is the US optimism versus the UK’s fatalism.
Perhaps by the time we reach January 6th some new music will be ready for release but right now? There is nothing out there except the NYE dropped West and McCartney “Only One” with West autotuned for some weird reason and McCartney singing back up and playing piano.
I read Michael Somerville’s name wrong and thought it was Jimmy Somerville on Letterman, the difference between a US comedian and the not out but gay, and back when it cost something to be gay, lead singer of the awesome Bronski Beat
While David Cassidy might be a 64 year old chips and scampi circuit nostalgia merchant with one too many DUIs on his record, at BB King’s on Saturday night he will be KEITH PARTRIDGE and a lot of middle aged women (and one middle aged man who should know better) will think we love him!
Play “God Only Knows” At My Funeral – Fireworks – Another song that can’t and doesn’t live up to its name but having said that, it is about the next big thing. I was planning on calling Fireworks a band to watch for in 2015. If I forgot to mention it before… Fireworks is a band to watch for in 2015 – A
Here is the songlist from London’s count down to New Year 2015, punctuated by fireworks and lota other good stuff… and here is a question, why is the lead song by an American? Sure, as European an American as you can possibly get but even so… Plus I Spotified and reviewed it…
The post-Saville Witch trial from the 1970s would find just about everybody ready for a stint in jail: What Saville did was allow two different parts to his story to become one and the result is much like putting Phillip II of Macedonia on trial for war crimes in 200 BC.
Country is hiding in the sidelines, four artists if you include the Eagles, nostalgia buffs rule, eight if you include the Eagles, younger poptarts with seven upstarts (no, don’t include the Eagles) are well attended. Plus two wobblers, Robbie Williams and Michael Buble, just to keep us wondering
Distance dims friendships, as does marriage of course, and so it was with us, but when I told Robert I wanted to write about music again, it was him who suggested rock nyc.
Like the Red Sox and the Yanks, great rock bands won’t die, they will go on forever. Sure, they’ll have their ups and downs, like the SNL players, it can’t all be John Belushi, sometimes it’ Bobby Monihan, but it will even out, the format can remain constant, the greatest rock bands will never ever leave us.
1Train – A$AP Rocky – We all need a sap in our lives and this terrific ode to newfound wealth is still so close to the poverty line it has the ring of truth gangsta yarns can miss out on. Plus if you’ve ever had a ride on the train in question you might wonder if you’d stepped back to 1975 – A
ALBUM OF THE YEAR: Big Apple Blues – Tomas Docker Band – Yusef Komunyakaa and Tomas Doncker concern themselves with what people do and don’t do for each other, with a sidetrip to Alabama and a layover in Fun City.
In retrospect, the Governors Ball was just tremendous. Three days, but home before 1am each night, of first grade, top of line modern popular music. From Skrillex to Outkasts, from the Strokes to Grimes, from Jenny Lewis to run The Jewels, this was the one.
If I have one wish for 2015 musically, it is that David Bronson’s excellent January release Questions finds the audience it deserves. This sublime art folk rock soul album should break him, must break him. It is what I want, it is what he deserves, I wanna say I knew him before he stopped taking my phone calls.
2014 was the year of pop, the entire world, hip hop, rap, country, r&b, rock and roll was a no show, were the hand servants of pop music meets everything under the sun. Artistry will get you so far and no furthe, money talks in a consumer society and money wanted beats and bops. And got it. Not a good year, a little unexciting.
“People would always ask, “Hey play that song about the wishing well or whatever it’s called!”… I vaguely recall my wonderful aunt mentioning that we finally had written a song she liked. So if you’re in the market for a family-friendly Screaming Females song, this is your chance”
Maybe five years ago, I was at a house party where Afrobeats were performing and standing to his side, I watched him manipulate tapes, beats, volumes, and the thing about EDM is when you watch a great DJ perform it is like watching a great guitarist take a solo and it is all in the hands and when you can’t see… No wait, much like EDM this review suffers from ADD
752 songs I like enough, say “B+” and better, to include on this list though only the top 40 is in order of preference. I know it looks like a lot but think of it this way, with an average of 12 songs on album that is the equivalent of 62 albums so not incredible.
If it wasn’t for the desperate sexism of it all, the singles charts might be dubbed the year of the woman. But really, why should we single em out? Would that then make 2015 the year of the man? So on and so forth? But let’s be honest, that’s the way society judges it. Being female has its perks, and one is they get kudos for doing stuff men take for granted
I feel about Taylor Swift in 2014 exactly how I felt about the Yanks in 1999, you knew they were unbeatable and you knew you weren’t rooting for the underdog or anything, but they are still your team and you love em!
Take U There – JackU, Kleisa – This is Skrillex and Diplo’s remix and it is strong stuff. A pretty good track becomes a towering dubstep act of delayed gratification – B+
An album about how the blues moved from the South to the North, from the plantations in Atlanta to the Church storefronts of Brooklyn, the story of how the blues came to New York City and what it did when it got here. Perfect subject matter for rock nyc’s album of the year.
He is a dynamic, charismatic presence, singing his recent songs, sometimes re-writing them already, with a passion that comes from knowing you aren’t finished, you aren’t a relic of the 60s, or 70s, or 80s, that in 2014 your work is better than it was in 1984
1989 is a full-fledged, biggest album of the year, huge artistic statement thing but it is also “The Empire Strikes Back” of rock. It is neither a beginning nor an ending, it is a breather from the romances that have been the essence of her life since “Tears On My Guitar”.
But there wasn’t anything close to a new Lamar, nothing really shook the world of rap at all, it was very lethargic, very underground rumblings of art and over head circling big records for 2014. A hugel disappointing year for rap.
Death comes to everyone and for awhile I was really paying attention and writing them down and then I got sick of it and stopped. it was too depressing. But some deaths need to be noted…
2015 Flow – YG – In the weakest year for rap in immediate memory, YG found his bearings on the final song of his current album, an oriental track under a kenrick complex rape, which speeds up suddenly and blows up dramatically – B+
Back to Living Again – Curtis Mayfield – This is it folks, the single greatest secular hymn ever, even if with Curtis, Go is always in the details. His last greatest moments off his last great album, which Eric Clapton, taking the award for best album, said “This belongs to Curtis”.
Everything Meghan is touching nowadays is awesome, she has a terrific voice and a her modern day doo wop sound on stage she is Bette Midler meets Ariana Grande, with that big lovely voice and a brassy energetic presence. every time I see Meghan on stage I have to smile
It seems to me that the future of war will have mercenary armies supplied by Amazon to fight on behalf of the interests of big business
So do popstars and at the end of their careers, maybe before, you can take a look and see them. You see something they can never reach again. It is possible 1989 is taylor’s… and it is possible I’ll expand on the concept… For now, the obvious.
A quiet week with Christmas right smack in the middle but let’s hand it to Darlene Love who completed a 28 year run on Letterman with three performances at Bb King. I caught the middle one and it isn’t enough to say well done good performances by a 73 year old woman, a 24 year old woman would have been equally impressive. The best? The Marvin Gaye medley
So, from the seeds of a truly devastating setback which ended his retirement at the age of 75, Cohen is now one of two (Dylan) maybe three (Bennett –though I didn’t like the Gaga album) , still capable of producing world class albums and he wouldn’t have known it if it wasn’t for his business manager.
Play It Again – Luke Bryan – Bob Lefsetz’ssong of the year and really it isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever heard, no harm no foul really, just a silly frat rock country song – B
What can you do with an album whose best song is all of them An album that ends with “Most Messed Up” and starts with “Longer Than You’ve Been Alive” and has “Nashville” bang in the middle and follows it with “Wasted”? It’s fucking great, that’s what you can say.
I really like Ella despite being an X Factor contestant, and a losing X Factor contestant to boot, she has an excellent voice, soulful, moving, mainstream but good enough for EDM any time. And “Ghost” and “Yours” were fine singles. and she has a whole lotta presence on stage. wonder why she stiffed on Factor.
