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, Upcoming Concerts

Must See: Pharrell Williams At the Apollo, June 3rd

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

Slideshow

10 Songs, Friday, May 23rd, 2014

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

Slideshow

10 Songs, Thursday, May 22nd, 2014

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

Album Reviews, Slideshow

"Definitely Maybe 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition" Reviewed

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

Slideshow

The A+ List: May 21st, 2014

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.

Slideshow

Spotify Message To You

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.

Slideshow

10 Songs, Wednesday, May 21st, 2014

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+

Slideshow

Sum 41 Lead Singer Deryck Whibley Nearly Drank Himself To Death

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

Slideshow

Billboard Winners In 2014

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.

Album Reviews, Slideshow

Dolly Parton's "Blue Smoke" Reviewed

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

Lists, Slideshow

Barry Gibb's Setlist 2014: Spotified And Graded

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

Slideshow, UK Top 10 Singles

UK Top 10 Singles, May 24th, 2014

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.

Slideshow

10 Songs, Monday, May 19th, 2014

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

Slideshow

10 Songs, Sunday, May 18th, 2014

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+

Live, Slideshow

Elbow At Webster Hall, Friday, May 16th, 2014, Reviewed

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

Slideshow

Lego My Bjork

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.

Slideshow, Upcoming Releases

Direct Current's New Releases Thru July 2014

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.

Movies, Slideshow

"Oculus" Reviewed

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.

Album Reviews, Slideshow

Coldplay's "Ghost Stories" Reviewed

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

Album Reviews, Slideshow

Wesley Wolfe's "Numbskull" Reviewed

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.

Slideshow

10 Songs, Friday, May 16th, 2014

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

Slideshow, US Top 10 Albums

US Top 10 Albums, May 17th, 2014

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

Slideshow, US Top 10 Singles

US Top 10 Singles May 17th, 2014

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.

Slideshow

10 Songs, Thursday, May 15th, 2014

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

Album Reviews, Slideshow

Naughty Boy's "Hotel Cabana" Reviewed

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.

Lists, Slideshow

Morrissey Setlist 2014 Sptofied But Not Impressed

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.

Slideshow

Americana Awards Nominees 2014

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.

Scroll to Top