“Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” This is the heart of Kat’s advise on a gorgeous song which makes me feel a little sad because really, everything is so here and gone
The surprise here isn’t that Jamie T is still alive, or that he can write a song, it is that he is better at everything he does. He sounds like a rock start, and he sounds like a mess but one who has the real gift, who might be able to be big time… not in the US, of course, but still this went Top 10 in the Uk.
Ellie? Weren’t they dating and then broke up and then she ended up with Eddie Sheeran and dumped him and he wrote a song about it? or am I thinking about two other people? Ed wrote “Don’t” about Ellie dumping him for a 1D guy… Ps she is currently dating the bassist for McFly.
Billboard are thrilled that this is the first time the top five singles have been held by five women for five consecutive weeks. But surely the statistic means nothing unless compared to the last time five men have held the top five singles places for five consecutive weeks? So why isn’t it being done? Any guesses? This is a form of sexism you know!
Look at it this way: the Voice has 13 million viewers, Blake sold 100,000 copies of his new album. That is pretty abysmal, right? Otherwise we gain less and less insight from the album charts. what does the script moving 25,000 units tell you? Nothing?
Tuesday morning is my favorite time of the week but believe me, there is a lot of music to listen to, and for this song to actually make a lasting impression is a testament to the indie pop wonder of youthful energy and pop moments – A-
This was a retelling of the prodigal son story, the killing of the fatted calf which left Stevie with less stage time (the way it wouldn’t do for musical director Buckingham) and it was just a little uneasy. A good concert yes, how much joy can you get out of Chrissie seeing “falling, falling, falling”? A lot of course. but it didn’t have the spark of a band reinventing itself.
50 St. Catherine’s Drive isn’t merely a downer, but it is a bummer as well. But extreme sorrow is a great pop music subject and the album has the powers of its conviction. The last song finds Robin back in “Sydney”, “I’m back in Sydney, my brothers are with me, do it or die”.
I’m Not The Only One – Sam Smith, A$AP Rocky – Nicely done mix and match, and compared to the other single he released this week, he rhymes along to the lick very well and with a lot of feeling. Though it could be a little sharper lyrically – B+
The martial beats that open the song are a fake out, this is actually emo rock as Rivers had a huge influence on via Pinkerton, and so I guess it makes perfect sense for this to sound very Pinkertonish in the best manner possible. A great song, his first great song in a long long time – A
It is a nod to Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov’s literary work, but has a story all its own. It’s about the pale fire that pierces darkness & ignites a revolution of the heart, the mind, or the people.
Sounds like early Belle And Sebastian, or maybe Los Campesinos, without the quirky lyrics or the over arrangements, so basically the melodies remain in tact and indelible and the hooks are grabby and the vocals, by Elizabeth Morris, are lovely on this very fine pop-rocker – Twee on dudes – ALBUM OF THE WEEK A-
My old buddy Billy Idol, who I interviewed at Aucoin management (an awesome place filled with Kiss pinball machines and in office fountains) back back back and who is a great guy is the key note speaker on Thursday, October 9th at 6pm. This will be at the CBGB’s HQ
Kat on a long distance journey through time, and space, and absolutely lovely and oddly moving, and what a great way to end an album… love the horns. Her point? why count when nothing is promised. Written on tour in Europe, influenced by Paul Simon’s Graceland, Kat said the song mean”we don’t know why we are here” – A
Saxophone Stomp – Rosko – Dubstep maestro, uses a beat pattern and a dubstep bass to interrupt for some form of mainstream dubstep, the only function of which will have you blasted on the dancefloor like a dog picking up frequencies no one else can hear – B
You know how you can tell Thom isn’t fucking around? He didn’t price it at $5.99. The album, Yorke, found another way to make money and another way to play the game. He knew what he had and he did what he needed to do to make the money he was worth.
They beat em high, they beat em low, but everywhere the Orioles go they beat Detroit like banging a goddam drum in the first round of the ALCS. It only took 20 years, but Buck Showalter has his revenge not just on the Yanks, who didn’t even make the playoffs, but everybody else as well. Not sure if it should be in the Sports column any more, but Jeter was pretty excellent on Fallon last Thursday.
It took George Ezra 14 weeks to get to # 1 but don’t sneer too hard guys, he is only 21 years old! As opposed to Jamie T, who is 28 years old and who took five years between albums… otherwise known as career hari-kari except the new album is excellent and in the UK should put him back on top… but not of Ezra
The thing to keep in mind about Trainor is that not only is she not a one hit wonder, she already has three more potential hits on her new EP and a handful of excellent tracks on her debut album from three years ago, Only 17. I mean, you haven’t even heard “Out The Window” have you?
I was never a fan, it sounded like the usual indie mish mash of Kurt Vile, Cold War Kids, the National, brought to a boil, and I am old enough for this to feel like weak gruel. Plus I didn’t like their name. But this is an excellent song and any way, two of these guys play with the Violators so the Kurt Vile connect makes sense – B+
The song and verse goes freedom requires endless vigilance but if that’s the case, why bother? What sort of freedom is that? Freedom is the freedom to dress weird and be sexy, take Mollie and dance all night to heavily processed beats. That’s it. That’s what makes life worth living when you’ve just hit 21 and that’s what Bassnectar offer.
Mcafee who came up with this list of the celebrities most likely to give you a virus, and no, John Mayer isn’t at the top of the list Jimmy Kimmel is, and Bruce is close by and if there is amoral to this post because, cmon, we are always looking for morals somewhere or the other, it is… ah screw it here’s the list.
it’s a quiet week and that’s one reason I would’ve made Johnny Marr my most anticipated but I can’t because it is already on Spotify. Still, it is a damn good album, beter than the new Weezer. What I’ve heard of the new Jackson Browne is aces if fairly typical. But no… not really. So what? How about Jason Aldean? Nope. Flying Lotus? EDM grabs me at first but wears off. I am going with Ali campbell, the UB40 leader.
I still wrote it was missing something, it was missing the incomparable Christine McVie (read my review here). Well, on Monday at Madison Square garden it won’t be missing Ms. McVie and it should be superb. For godssake, the second song of the evening will be “You Make Loving Fun”.
Say Anything, Dum Dum Girls, Bleached, Shannon And The Clams, and Best Coast… just another week on the carson Daley Show where the former MTV wunderkind continues to present the same thing as everyone else and then a little more. It was carson who aired that terrific Screaming Females segment a couple of months ago. The ringer here is the terrific 50s inspired doo woppy meets garage Shannon And The Clams.
The Days – Avicii – Robbie Williams takesover on lead vocals this time, the track is a colorful little folk pop number, nothing much but catchier as hell and it builds and it builds. Should be huge –at least in the UK – B+
If it is nostalgia, it is big shot big time nostalgia, it is nostalgia the way McCartney is nostalgia, but it is more life a masterclass: I think it must be like watching Maria Callas or Louis Armstrong. Who wants to give Armstrong a hard time for playing “Sleepy Time Down South”? To what end?
Though I am not really sure if any of these were great fits for the King. That mix of oedipal vulnerable and blue collar visceral is so specific it is hard to imagine him in anything not tailor made for his gifts.
He is the child of Sidney Poiter and shares an unbrokable dignity… when the role demands. Consider this the anti-Flight, his role as The equalizer demands it on this follow up to Denzel’s Oscar winning “Training Day”, both directed by Anton Fuqua.
Under The Tide – Chvrches – Electronic pop group follow up their big break through with more is less of the same, the rhythm shudders a lot, and where’s the chick singer? – C+
It Comes Back To You – Christopher Owens – A lilting guitar strum piece of good advice from Dr. Owens about how romance works, like he is the lowest of low key Bono’s – A-
“Face Drop” is just plain fabulous, rap meets Electronica, I may mean EDM. . “Face Drop” would be great by any reckoning but when Winter Rae nails the hook, the song goes into whole other worlds. Actually I am kinda mad at myself for not writing about em last year.
It might actually be catchier than I am giving it credit for. I’ve really sorta grown tired of the band and I don’t like waiting four years for crap albums, but this one could have been worse; extended childhoods could be their own rewards.
Malkmus sings slightly out of tune and the song winds and wheels along, from one traffic light to the open road and he wonders about a future but it feels stream of conscious, his mind whether skateboarding or travelling, or wondering about paying his dues, and the song ravels like the road behind ever forward to a dream dream dream, which, today, is just completely over.
A good week all round, not least because one of my great adages was proven true: you can strip a song bare or you can whistle and toot it but if it is good, it will stand up. That’s what Us The Duo did with Taylor and it paid off big big big time.
Alan Freeman Days – Robin Gibb – Fluff!!! The great BBC DJ, who died back in 2006, remembered from way back when, from his radio Luxembourg days, and Robin, who listened to him before the Bee Gees hit, is touched by the past. really, the entire album is about the past, and here Robin even samples Freeman. Man, there is something so depressing about this – A-
The Replacements – Forest Hills Stadium – September 19th, 2014 – The return of the biggest alt rock band of all time becomes a gigantic singalong as 16,000 40 somethings get to hear them at the very top of their game for 90 minutes of hits. The Replacements you always dreamt of.
I’ve had Clean Bandits in my sites just about since the beginning on the year, when it started showing up on the UK charts and remained their for months. That shows how long it can take, nearly a year, between a song being released and a song breaking pop big time. That violin hook is money in the back, it just takes awhile
Gaga and Bennett in at #1 on the album charts? 131K units moved. I am now officially the worst prognosticator since that dead ringer groundhog deBlas dropped… Otherwise, the charts no longer tell you whether music is god or bad, anything released in any given week that sells over 50K will be on the charts. Essentially, it is ten albums that have been released recently
Slow – Leonard Cohen – His Greatest self portrait ever finds the man defining the race not being close to the swift but to he who reaches the end slowest, whether it be sex or life or God knows the blues. A work only those of us growing old faster than us will understand completely
If “Fireproof” had the chance of being a fluke, this second song off the upcoming album Four, is a coming of age for the hottest pop band on earth. with every single modern hook imaginable, from handclaps to guitar licks, to voices raised on elongated choruses and another great tune to boot, this makes em two for two and a classic rock band for a different world – A
This is a truth Mellencamp seems to instinctively understand, these songs are about people with a different sort of understanding of life, a different type of connection to the land: that’s why he plays Farm Aid. Plain spoken, from the earth to the earth, American homeland, Mellencamp plain spokenly speaks for it and us on a fine, folk rocker album
Nothing as excited as last month, here they are mostly album tracks, plus songs off albums that didn’t make it onto the best of they year list. Three from Julian Casablancas but put that down to contrariness, and the only reason I only put three of the four Trainor tracks here is I was afraid of overkill.
Popular Problems – Leonard Cohen – He is melodic the way a bassoon is melodic, or maybe the way the memory of a teenage love is melodic, the contours remain there even if the details are lost forever and the two first songs are among the best he has ever written and everything else is damn near perfect as well.
Action Cat – Gerald Way – This sounded impressive when he leaked it last month and as the leader on the fine new album it is a fuzzball of garage rock and proto-emo guitars – B+
One more chance to hear that wonderful falsetto on a terrific and beautiful pop album. On “Don’t Cry Alone” he sounds operatic and glorious and if the tempo is a little too slow too often, he wrote it right after Maurice died and everything will get to you. Hold on for the Bee Gees cover – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A-
Through our friendship with Roger And Cowan, rock nyc was invited to be a strategic promo partner at the Cake Shop Acoustic Anarchy Gig on Octber 9th. Having hung out just about every night from 1979 to 1980, when I finally got a job and couldn’t spend all my time there, there is nothing I understand much better than the spirit of CBGBs
He deserves to be jailed, he was a woman beating asshole of huge proportions (as David Mamet recently had Spector say in his movie: “why was Jesus Christ killed? He got too big for his britches”) and even so, I like there to be choices in life and this is just a dreadful story with no choice whatsoever
I am really psyched for The Art Of McCartney, an elbow live (they were so great at Webster Hall earlier this year), really interested to see if Devon Allman can step into the family business, Bob Dylan’s complete “The Basement Tapes”, Neil Diamond back t his pop roots, Brian Wilson, TV On The Radio were great earlier this year but not sure about the album, and, er, Jerry Lee Lewis!!!
I’ll Never Know – Tweedy – Slow albums always seem to have the urge to slow things down even further and here they are slowed to a completely croak. Still, not bad as many a lullaby – B
