Never Been In Love – Elliphant – Missed her opening for Charli XCX and based on this modified reggae beat, my loss. the best song on a terrific EDM via, where else, Stockholm; it is a very hooked rimmed beat and sweetly dub special – A-
I’ve reviewed every Jingle Ball right here since 2009 and been to every one for, wow, for decades… names? Justin biebers first, Green Day, J Lo, Gaga and Perry and Ke$ha, Taylor twice, One Direction, Michael Buble… Celine Dion
March 21-27, 2015, Los Angeles to Seattle and return. BE ONE OF THE FIRST 12 PEOPLE TO SIGN UP AND TAKE $100 PER PERSON OFF THE PRICES LISTED. OR SIGN UP FOR BOTH THE GOLDEN STATE XPRESS AND DAVE ALVIN’S WEST OF THE WEST AND TAKE $250 OFF EACH TRIP
Left My Heart In Brooklyn – Meghann Wright – The ending of this song, a litany of places in Brooklyn where she left her heart, is just one reason to be really psyched to check her out at CMJ next week – B+
What do you expect from the deadest of dead genre’s, Contemporary Mainstream Rock And Roll? Or a radio station that went from where rock live to where rock died?
Shane dreams of meeting Brendan and Brendan, who once called himself “a drinker with a writing problem” and claiming “I only drink on two occasions—when I’m thirsty and when I’m not”, and asking his philosophie but finding philosophy lost in streams of whiskey. Shane, a notorious drunk himself, joins Brendan and together they extol the one thing that gets them through.
given the circumstances, what interests me is time and place rather than specific bands. You catch enough, you’ll stumble onto pay dirt and any way, I wanna cover cover as much as I can as fast as I can. So I’ve been analyzing the schedule of concerts and I now have a headache
We posted the track listing a couple of days ago and will do it again at the bottom here, but the first time round it was just a bizarre setlist, a mix of hits, obscurities and remixes plus three new songs. Now I see it as different periods in the ongoing story of…
“Let It Go” does something, even if it does it accidentally, that needs to be applauded: it makes am anthem for preteen girls. The self-expression of “Let It Go” speaks to a certain need for release from the strictures already jailing young girls, even at that age. It may well be the most important song of the year despite itself.
Bad Things – Meiko – This is the sound of modern torch and the only real problem is it isn’t soft enough, it whispers loudly, and the pulsebeat should be turned down a notch – B
At this point there is everybody in the Universe and there is kittens appearing every time Taylor Swift takes a sip of Diet Coke and there is NOTHING IN BETWEEN.
All pretense at being country, which barely survived the Red tour, is absolutely over, and all pretense of being a singer songwriter with a humongous cult are dropped and Taylor emerges as the modern pop star after finishing school. She is a Jane Austin heroine with a Yamaha DX7.
Should it be a hit? I hope it is, I love it, I love her. It just misses it by that much, it is not ordinary but it is ordinary for what she does, for what Meghan is capable of. Really, this is an album track and should have remained deep on her upcoming (soon, please please) album
Hooo, this is pretty brutal stuff, one crap album after another and whatever you might wanna say about Ariana Grande, Jesse J, all those pop girls, they grab you at first even if they don’t maintain beyond the one night of love. Bromances, bad r&b, worse American Standards and Stevie Bloody Nicks ain’t gonna make it with any one any how
On the other hand, this is a pretty good singles list, the worst you can say about it is Jerimih is a little, I mean A LITTLE, sucky, and everything eelse is real good. The thing, is the albums charts are as good as anything that is selling right this minute but the singles charts have legs, they have to be pretty good for the most part to make on board.
The final third of Pistol Annie, whose new country is the best from the genre since Lee Ann Womack which is the best since Miranda Lambert, starts like a typical country blues, but the song clicks in soon and this superwoman, whoever she is emerges from the lyric as a thing as wonderful as the song itself – A-
Malala Yousafzai, 17 – OK, now this kid is the real deal. She is the girl who got shot in the head for wanting to go to school in Pakistan. Are you kidding me? She won the Nobel Peace prize and more importantly, deserved it.
“In The Heat Of The Moment”, sounds pretty damn good to me lots of guitars and hooks on hooks, the way we like it right, though I do miss Liam’s singing and for another, last time round he did a ton of oasis songs so I’m hoping to get that as well. Grade: B+
The assumption is Spotify and ITunes are fighting for the same piece of the pie while it is blatantly clear that they aren’t at all. It is two different type of consumers. The average listener may buy “It’s All About The Bass” without considering for a second joining a streaming club
Turning It Inside Out – Phillip Selway – I planned to write more about this album but every time I tried to I nodded off, still this is a lovely little ender – B+
Quit Breaking Up With Me – Little Big Town – never a fan of these guys, I might well be wrong. This is a first rate modified country hootenanny waltz with lotsa energy and a great break – A-
Who Do You Love – Kindness – Featuring Robyn which figures since Robyn is the Rick Ross of Swedish pop, when in need of some form of legitimacy, you go with her. This is an excellent song and Kindness doesn’t really need the kindness of Robyns! – B+
This will do it, a fine modern pop album with one hit after another and a deep throated smart as hell lead singer. when “Bang Bang” isn’t even the best song on your new album, you know you’re on your way to the very top. A fine pop swirver – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A-
It is just a great great vibe, with producer Godfrey Diamond and lynchpin Robbie Seahag still here and Carlos Alomar and Robin Clark joining the team of music fans and friends and musicians in creating something really quite wonderful.
“Sue” is awesome if you like this sorta weirdly addictive passionate sax screetch on top of Bowie at his completely and most over the top. I absolutely love it myself. Grade: B+
So, yeah, Alt-J, March 30th, 2015, they play MSG and I will, in fact, be there. What do I expect. Actually, I’m not sure if these guys will have gotten their stadium performance on by then.
Midnight Mob introduced me to this excellent blues bruiser by a band I have never been able to get a handle on; they’ve always hit me as JV English metal circa 1972 –a compliment but not big enough a compliment. This, on the other hand, sounds like a classic blues song – A
Closing down Broadway from 47th Street to 53rd Street, the CBGB Fest put a stage at each side, and gave nyc free music, really really good music, from 11am to 2pm and then again from 430p to 8p.
The play takes place in India, a quest for the truth behind three paintings of Flora and the truth about her friendship with an Indian artist Nirad Das (Firdous Banji) in 1930, months before her death. In the present (well, in the 1980s), Eleanor is joined by biographer Eldon Pike (Neal Huff) and Nizad’s son Anish (Bhavesh Patel) in a search for the truth behind the paintings.
Lucinda has a whole lot banking on this double album and I am thinking the live show is gonna be terrific so I am gonna check it out at a still not sold out Beacon Theatre and maybe let that guide me to the temple of LW.
Very excited for the CBGB’s Festival this week, I was out of commission with a bad cold (a real disappointed, I went to the doctor essentially certain I was gonna die any second only to be dismissed without even strep throat) and missed just about everything. Especially painful: I missed the “Acoustic Anarchy” show rock nyc was a promotional partner on.
It isn’t a complete disaster. Sam’s still around, Hozier did well, Johnny Marr made it and Gorgon City? where is the hit single? Still, ugh to Caribou and Genesis and the Script. relatively mediocre for the UK charts.
Good for Meghan beating out Nicki not once but twice, but X Factor Ella finally hit my pleasure zone, which is sad for a song a year old but what is worse? Ryan Bloody Tedder co-wrote it. proof that listening to the charts on a consistent is bad for your mental health., no to mention your taste.
Wonder Where We Land – SBTKRT, Sampha – Pretty excellent EDM mood music by a DJ-Producer casually good who has just morphed into the big time soundscaping beauty – B+
Really, if that was all he had ever ever done, forget the Beatles, and forget Plastic Ono Band, or just being Lennon, if all there ever was was “Imagine” and “Give Peace A Chance” his position would be unassailable, unreachable
Jessie J has released four songs off the album and only one hasn’t cut it so that should be enough even before we listen to anything else. Otherwise, Foxygen, Bob Seger, Idina Menzel… no wait, that’s a holiday album. Looks like a smewhat lame week to me.
Fresh 102.7’s Fall Fest at the Beacon on Thursday Yes, sure, to Ingrid Michaelson and Neon Trees… why not right? But YES to Bleachers. I saw em at webster earlier this year and then I saw Jack with fun. at Global Citizen and clearly I am very impressed. So yeah. My pick of the week.
Hmmm, Letterman has Bill Murray and they are always fun together, that might well be the pick of the week. Or how about Minnie Driver who has a not terrible new album just released> Melissa Etheridge? Jessie J? Neon Trees? I’m gonna go with Rusell Brand because the guy is a spitfire who says whatever he likes always.
Now that Lennon is (mostly) on spotify we can look at all his albums and songs and stuff and thing: there should be so much more. what is worth noting for this song, and indeed all of the final period of his career, is that his songs improved with the right production. Stripped down they don’t hit so hard – A+
“It is hard to go a pitch in Hollywood and sit across from a guy who says ‘OK, explain Miles Davis to me,” that was Vince Wilburn Jr. , Miles’ nephew, expressing his unconcealed contempt for the movie business.,”So I stopped going to the pitches because it was personal, I took it personally.”
At its best, “The Fault In Our Stars” is “Love Story”times two. It’s only really sharp idea is Hazel calling herself a grenade that when it goes off will destroy everything in her life. Aren’t we all?
So I inspected further and instead of the disaster I thought I’d been listening to, I noticed that if you edited down for him, it would’ve have made a pretty good single album. Not a great one, not even Emancipation or Crystal Ball, but still, vastly better than Lotusflower or Planet Earth It would have made to a fair to middling effort
I never much cared for this song till now, this stomping searing Aretha vocal puts makes everybody else, including Adele, amateurs in the also ran department. Back with Clive, it is so great all I wish is the entire album was Adele covers, what a voice, how she sings the breaks, how she nails feelings we didn’t know were there. Davis overdoes the arrangement – A
If U2 released the album normally, well, maybe it would have sold 2M copies worldwide, maybe not. But it certainly and under no circumstances would have been downloaded 26M times. That is a huge number. Who cares how many people deleted it? An irrelevant number
Yes folks, now the line up is official let’s see how close we came to calling Z100’s Jingle Ball, 2014, a show we have covered every year since 2009 and which I’ve attended since its inception, give or take a hangover! Needless to say, we got quite a bit right here back in on August 21st, 2014.
“I wouldn’t work with Damon Albarn again. We were walking through Leeds and we were in this fucked up area and I looked around and I said, ’These kids got nothing’, and he said to me, ’They’ve got us’… “
Last time I saw Billy in concert was a superb acoustic set at the Bottom Line in 2001 and I am ready for another night the punk rock icon. An ear for the riff, a cute sneer ala Elvis, and a high energy band leader personality, Billy is also pushing his new autobiography and was the keynote speaker at the CBGB’s Fest
The Replacements greatest song because it is its most inclusive song,so much so that a 16 year old from New Zealand recorded it to great acclaim because it fit, because “if being afraid is a crime we hang side by side” is an aphorism, it is an aphorism that has the particular inside it
This is a pretty awesome ten brand new songs. well, “New Dorp, New York” dorped in July and Kat arrived last week but mostly this is from this week. Allo Darlin’ are so good I think I’m gonna get a tix to Belle And Sebastian at Radio City.
New Dorp, New York – SBTRKT, Ezra Koenig – Jessie Ware and ASAP Ferg join the boys on this strange contender for best nyc song ever, with thumbing single drums and Ezra sounding way way way too cool, much like the Yanks they’ve got a baseball bat that never hits runs, and you think I’m the negative – A
