Bronson is both an original and a throwback to an earlier age of popular music, where the sound in a person’s head is all encompassing and needs to be sculpted into the way they want it heard: it has the delicacy of time and purpose. and it will be a pleasure to hear Bronson express this
I would miss most things to see Pharrell Williams at the Apollo, which is where he is playing on Tuesday June 3rd. And I would even if I was a lesser fan of GIRL, a great pop album, because you know that after Pharrell tours (he is setting up Europe for the summer) and plays the much larger Barclay Center (as he will later this year or next year), it will be a production number but the Apollo Theatre which be a much straighter production
As for the interview, that Flaming Lips guy Coyne needs to stop fellating pop stars, it is getting embarrassing. Muehl says “Sean is super-intelligent but lacking in self awareness.” No, she is wrong. I don’t even know the guy and I can tell you self-aware is what he does.
Ain’t Nothing Going On But The Rent – Gwen Guthrie – The Queen of the Paradise Garage’s finest moment spelled out exactly what she expected from the man in the her life with a spare funky bottom and an all rhythm disco. They sure don’t make em life this any more – A
“Miles Davis Way Block party in NYC on 5/26 (birthday of Miles)!? NYC is officially re-naming West 77th Street to “Miles Davis Way.” The celebration will include Miles alumni, special guests and unveiling.
After years in the wilderness of pop maelstrom, overreaching, eclecticism, and middle age blahs, Old 97s have roared back with their current, best album of the year contender. And as we ready ourselves for the June 3rd gig at Webster Hall with more anticipation than certainly any time this decade, let’s take a look at the setlist…
Soooo, now we can finally the Governors Ball festival at a glance (see below) let’s see how the long weekend works out. One thing is for sure, it is an easy way to catch a lot of bands you wanna watch and the only fESTIVAL YOU CAN TAKE THE SUBWAY HOME FROM!
Can I pick em? No, not at all. I could’ve sworn both Coldplay and Michael Jackson were gonna bomb and bomb big and they both hit the charts in the first week. Avicii produced by the Coldplay song, I just assumed it was Eno!
Wow, that really sucks. Worst list ever in fact. I think I might have gone easy on Black Keys, Michael Jackson, Rascal Flatts, they are all “D”ish. It is real strange that a chart that takes so little to make an impression on could be so terribly bland.
Good Vibrations – Todd Rundgren – From 1976 where the often woolly Todd does an astonishing act of replication with the excitations that was one of Brian Wilson’s most intricate and highly arranged pies of progressive pop. An act of, well, complete strangeness and the better for it – A
Oasis rode this sound hard for years and years to great effect. It was like my bloody valentine without the artiness, the Beatles without the soul, the new art school of punk burnt to the ground and rebuilt. Like punk, it was working class, grimy boots nowhere land. You know how young Morrissey was bullied in his youth? Noel and Liam were the boys doing the bullying
Heaps Of Sheep – Robert Wyatt – Perhaps his single most accessible song to date, finds the paraplegic dreaming that he is wandering on the seashore. Insomniac Robert’s goose was cooked till finally the freedom of dreams lets him walk again.
It reminds me of those stupid subway “There is a traffic ahead of us, we are sorry for the inconvenience”. No, you’re not sorry, you’re a machine you have no feelings. So is Spotify. It is a software machine and it isn’t working hard because if it was it’d have El Camino. It is just sliughing you off with an inane and irritating comment.
Time Forgot – Conor Oberst – Not a bad little folkie whiner but he comes across as such a prick it’s a turn off. He wants to not shave and not have to be nice to people; from what I hear that would be business as usual – B+
Former blues boy wonder still forging a career with this home town set on a new label. The Stevie ray Vaughn “House Is A Rockin'” is superb and nothing here doesn’t work: Albert Kind, Muddy Waters, Freddie King, BB King -these are very powerful blues that aims at nothing else and hits its mark unerringly. A great set of songs – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A
the reason i got so sick is from all the hard boozing i’ve been doing over the years. it finally caught up to me. i was drinking hard every day. until one night. i was sitting at home, poured myself another drink around mid night and was about to watch a movie when all of a sudden i didn’t feel so good. i then collapsed to the ground unconscious
Billboard doesn’t lie or at least money doesn’t lie and so even if your taste doesn’t coincide with the members of the zeitgeists, well here you have what the zeitgist is really like. Or was in 2013. I admire a lot of these names. And am happy to concede Timberlake as the artist of the year if not Katy Perry as best female artist.
During his first show of the weekend, the Boss yelled “Massachusetts!” several times to a confused crowd at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn. The Bay State shoutouts came during one of Springsteen’s encores, prompting dozens of fans to shout back “No!”
The thing about tribute albums is live ones don’t work (not even the Dylan MSG gig was all that) and that song to performer is everything. This is too obvious: Derek Trucks and Warren Hayes are all over it, Susan Tedeshi, Devon Allman, everybody who has seen the Allman Brothers in the last few years didn’t much need any of it.
I Will Never Let You Down – Rita Oro – Jay Z protegee breaks through after a coupla years of featured chorus singing and this is good EDM pop, sweet and not very assuming – B+
The difference between Better Days and Blue Smoke, is the former had all those great songs off the musical and the new one doesn’t and the songs are a little stale. “Miss You-Miss Me” is sweet but a little bland, “If I Had Wings” is so obvious you wonder why she is bothering. The “If I Had Wings” followed by “Lover Du Jour” stops the entire album in its tracks and it never recovers
With threat of rain for Friday evening, a threat I take seriously given Barry Gibb is playing the outdoor shed Jones Beach and I have intention whatsoever of sitting around getting soaked for hours on end, and therefore may miss a gig I’ve been zooming on for months now, it seemed like a good time to check out the set list
What does it mean when the leftover scraps fallen off Michael Jackson’s dinner tape and tossed into a stew with roadkill is the # 1 album in the UK. It means better the leftover scraps you know than the warmed over TV dinners you don’t know.
Rita deserves her # 1 position, she’s worked for it, it is a good song and it begins to make up for the double standard sexism that has gone along with the claims of promiscuity. As if it wasn’t her body and her choice. Otherwise, I like this list a lot: it is alway better than the US at least because it changes faster and we ain’t stuck with Bro country.
Just Snap Your Fingers – Marshall Crenshaw – The best song off Jaggedland is also a view of Crenshaw the lyricist the you don’t always hear: “You can count on my love till the ultimate end” is pop poetry of the first order – A
“I’ve been asked to do a Game of Thrones cameo, they asked me if I’d be interested in playing Theon’s sister, and I felt uncomfortable because I would have had to go on a horse and he would have touched me up and shit”
They balanced this sense of humour with seriousness. With Johnny Marr on guitar and Andy Rourke on bass you couldn’t lose. And Morrissey’s voice is the closest thing we had to Elvis.”
It could well be the last time for Barry Gibb as well so a package that finds Barry with a couple of second generation Bee Gees supporting him, has forced me out to the wilds of Long Island’s Jones Beach on Friday. Will it be worth? I’ll be shocked if the harmonies are anything great but attempting them is their birth right.
A good week for concerts. I went three for three, Lady Gaga followed by Lily Allen, followed by Elbow and all three were a whole lot of fun, though I think, maybe, Elbow were best. Still, two of these will make my best of the year list and the third maybe should as well.
Yes, I know, I haven’t been crazy about the Conor Oberst songs I’ve heard off Upside Down Mountain and I do remember giving Coldplay an almost positive review once upon a time this week, but Conor has a history (Wide Awake was my fave album of the 00s) and I really believe once you get deep inside the album it will all make sense.
16 Shades Of Blue – Tori Amos – Her best song in years isn’t much different that her worst song in years, but any song with a line like “50 is the new black, hurray” is getting her Emily Bronte on musically while watching the clock carefully – B+
Sometimes a bore, sometimes self-important (though not on stage), and sometimes they really do suck, yet they include you in and have the rouseiness of a football stadium with the subduedness of a manic depressive. They are one hit away from breaking really big in the States so catch em in nightclubs while you can
That’s why these lego works are more fun than the Beatle ones, it is because they are presented as more fun. It is because there is a connection in the playfulness, the childlike wonder at the heart of Bjork’s artisty.
This takes us half way through the summer and it isn’t all bad. A new Imelda May is always a pleasure, Conor Oberst new songs might have sucked so far but who is to say? Miniature Tigers, Sharon Van Etten, Levon Helm is the live one we’ve deserved with any luck, but I think the two biggest will be either Manic Street Preachers or Lana Del Rey. “West Coast” is such a great song and the Manics are always excellent.
So this is all going to go very wrong of course and it soon does, plants die, cameras are moved, inside the house they are terrified, so they go outside but do they. And that’s in the present. In the past their daddy is having an affair with a ghost and their mother is going round the twist and torture and mayhem are the order of the day.
1. When Did I Stop Loving You, When Did You Stop Loving Me – Marvin Gaye – From one of the greatest little know albums of all time, Gaye’s contact
Lily has gone on the record as not being entirely thrilled with Sheezus, but really, enough of this fucking English self-deprecation album. What is better? Prism? Lily has made three albums the equal of You Broke My Heart In 17 Places, what more do we want? Well, I’d rather not be called a misogynist but otherwise it is great to have Allen back.
Ghost Stories is the real thing, it feels like the real thing, the ache on “A Sky Full Of Stars” is real, but Coldplay can’t put it across, they can’t sell it the way Beck could. Not one song here had been running for the eject or the repeat, nothing moved me to tears, and nothing quite moved it either
Poking around, it seems that the latest version of Android (KitKat) disables certain kinds of uses on these storage cards that I had purchased; Google (who helped develop the Android operating system, and later bought it) seems to have intentionally crippled my devices
Numbskull maybe be tired but it doesn’t sound tired, what ever might bother him doesn’t effect his music, or maybe it just make him use his arrangement gifts to change your ear levels, to make you hear what he wants you to hear. Wolfe won’t wrap it up in a pretty bow but he doesn’t have to. It stands as a rarity: ten perfectly crafted progressive pop songs.
Chromeo ran away with the week but the surprise here is Coldplay, I’ll give em two out of three songs, not masterpieces but at least I don’t want to punch Chris in the nose. Always a step in the right direction. Swans is Swans –I like em in small doses.
Man, Solange has been hot lately: beating up Hay Z and having it caught on camera, a side trip to a wedding in South America, filled it at Webster hall on the Saturday, tweeting that Mother’s Day was one of the best days of her life, and then on Tuesday, she released this masterful new r&b track with Chromeo. Hot indeed – A
Yeah, we are all little monsters in it together doesn’t really mean much and yes, she has written a song as good as “Bad Romance” in way too long, and yeah, popstars need consistency, and Lady Gaga seems not to have it really. But they also need energy and joy and a throbbing exciting basslike brilliance and that she sure does have.
The only positive thing I can think of adding to this story list is most of it will be gone by next week, Frozen, an album I can’t stomach, loses its # 1 position to a compilation franchise. How sickening is that? And the rest of this is MOR drips and those that aren’t didn’t sell much anyway. Sad stuff, really. To have your record broken by a franchise album
After seven years in the wilderness, the not best song on Paramore does the trick and gets them back on the singles chart. A fun video helped no doubt. SOrt of pop punk meets pop dance and not a bad polace to put the band. The two Iggys are great… but you already knew that.
Rather Be Cash Cash Remix – Clean Bandit – One of the biggest songs of the year gets bigger with the pop DJ duo Cash Cash superb remix, it’s like listening to the song on steroids with House-y zoom effects on the track and Jesse’s vocals going through the roof – A
It is really a first album the way first albums are meant to be, it’s like Khan couldn’t stop himself and just had all these ideas and had to run with them. The Deluxe version includes a song with Professor Green and a cover of “Get Lucky”. It’s like a vacation and a time to indulge yourself.
Helen was was complaining that the Morrissey setlist for North America 2014 seemed a little on the iffy side and she may well have a point there. This is a strangely obtuse bunch of songs. What is more worrying is his actual performance may have finally descended into schtick. Really, enough with all the hugging already, it no longer signifies affection or love or interest or respect, it just disrupts the performance.
What is Americana? Glad you asked. Americana is the Kwanzaa of pop music.; a wholly made up sun division of country. You could define it as country rock except Luke Bryan could be defined as country rock and Americana sets itself up as the opposite of bro country.
White Women – Chromeo – I’ve never been much of a fan of this disco duo, never hit me as inventive as Holy Ghost for one, but they get it right here. High energy, melodic, if a little old fashioned. The Solange song is terrific the Ezra Koenig song uses his falsetto to great effect and the opening track masterful – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – B+
