Iman Lababedi

Founding Editor of Rock NYC. Iman Lababedi was a freelance rock critic in the 1980s, took a break of 20 years, and has been writing and editing the music blog rocknyc.live since 2009. He considers this to be in many ways a golden age for pop music and hopes you are enjoying it too.

Slideshow

10 Songs: Sunday, October 19th, 2014

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-

Slideshow

The A+ List 10-14-14: The Pogues' "Streams Of Whiskey"

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.

Slideshow

Taylor Swift's "Out Of The Woods" Reviewed

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.

Slideshow, US Top 10 Albums

US Top 10 Albums 10-25-14

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

Slideshow, US Top 10 Singles

US Top 10 Singles 10-25-14

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.

Slideshow

10 Songs: Thursday, October 16th, 2014

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-

Business, Slideshow

Streaming Services Vs Mp3 Sales

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

Slideshow

10 Songs: Wednesday, October 15th, 2014

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+

Slideshow

10 Songs: Tuesday, October 12th, 2014

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

Live, Slideshow, Theatre

Tom Stoppard's "Indian Ink" At Laura Pels Theatre, Saturday, October 11th, 2014, Reviewed

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.

Slideshow, That Was The Week That Was

That Was The Week That Was: October 6th,2014

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.

Slideshow, UK Top 10 Singles

UK Top Ten Singles 10-18-14

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.

Slideshow

Lennon Reaches Spotify: 74 If

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

Slideshow

10 Songs: Sunday, October 12th, 2014

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+

Opinion, Slideshow

The Prince Album He Could Have Made Would Have Been "Wow"

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

Slideshow

10 Songs: Saturday, October 11th, 2014

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

Business, Slideshow

U2 Numbers Are in! Not Bad, We Claim

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

Slideshow

The A+ List:10-10-14

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

Slideshow

10 Songs: Friday, October 10th, 2014

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

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