Golden – Lady Antebellum – Golden – Moribund country song featuring Stevie Nicks who has too much life in her voice for this nasty little love song with weak rhymes and melody by numbers. Whatever happened to these guys? – C-
This manifests itself as a callousness, a neglectfulness, about the music people listen to. Since they don’t own the music, they don’t have anything invested in it. There interest is as limited as somebody who is spending a coupla nights in a Days Inn
What would I have him play this time? Since I will probably only get one, I guess I’ll stick with “Radio Girl” but if I get more? His awesome cover of Dave Alvin’s “Jack And Diane” , anything off Life’s Too Short, maybe I’m Sorry *But So Is Brenda Lee)”, Hendrix “Fire”…
This is a movie without a joyful moment. Not even when the dove with an olive branch arrives is their happiness. Not even when they get off the Arc. All you get is rain and slaughter.
To claim EDM rules popular music is like claiming guitars or drums rule pop music. It has as much to do with the type of music being played as streaming has to do with the type of music. An instrument, a piano, can be used to play ragtime as easy as Baroque, doesn’t that mean that piano is either
Is it worth noting that the top four songs are Dylan covers and the following two are other covers? Call me an aging cynic but I kinda date people will be covering “Phreakin Awesome” thirty or even one year from now.
She’s So Perfect – 5 Seconds To Summer – “She looks so perfect standing there in her American Apparel underwear”? Pre-teen girls may be questioning these bubblegum cuties but once the girls hit twelve years old they’ll get it – B
It’s been suggested the movie was faked and to a degree it sure serves Matt because he comes across as the sweetest and most reasonable big brother on the planet, trying to express the limits of his stardom and also the limitless of his affection for his uncomfortably jealous little brother.
The album is excellent and so was 2011’s build a rocket boy which I dismissed out of hand. What can I say? I couldn’t hear it to say my life. I think it is Garvey’s voice that put me off, he sounds like Thom Yorke if Yorke was a baritone. Anyway, all is forgiven
This isn’t even a popularity contest. Book ended by two perennials, the 8 in the middle will be gone by next week. So let me take a moment to mention how much I enjoy MCR greatest hits? Alright? On to next week.
Yeeeeesssss! Lil Jon is back on the charts to tell the truth to power on this real old fashioned slice of EDM heaven. This is House as written with a catchy catchy hook and flying synth lines into the outer stratosphere. Lil Jon said this about the song to Spin: ” It’s amazing, because that’s what I’ve been doing all my career: just getting people amped up and hyped up.” And remember he al… oh wait I already used that line.
Quieter Today – Cloud Nothings – The first track on the newbie is a return to the obstreperous roar electric of the Albini moment but with an extra dollop of melody – A
hirty years after “Hiroshima” came Kraftwerk and forty years after that they are still dealing in the same language, even the same musical language, and Kraftwerk are still dealing with good guesses.
Propped up by a propulsive 33 year old drummer and a two pronged very large and loud riff machine, Ozzy stood his ground. Plus, do you think Iommi and Geezer could fill Barclay’s by themselves? Now, dya think Ozzy could?
Waves – Sleeper Agent – The first song off what might be the sleeper album of the year joins up with an image of California washed away while the band plays on the beach. An anthems anthem.
The True Groove Allstars – The Cutting Room – March 11th, 2014 – Lead by Tomas Doncker and featuring astounding turns by Charlie Funk and James Chance, it put the band and label right at the center of the map.
Country Pie – The Charlie Daniels Band – Dylan has seldom written a purer country song and Daniels boogies all the way through it till we pay the fiddler during the break. A terrific version – A
If this is the best rock album of 2014 so far, that is as much an indictment of rock as a celebration of Dylan Baldi who began life as a one band bedsit guy recording with Bridgetown before growing outward with an Albani jolt. This is pure rock and roll energy and a constant mind bending loud rules head strung screamer of an album – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A
Friday is a wash out, Outkast’s take Kanye’s position as the finishing end and Saturday is somewhere in the middle. Okay, I’m overstating. Some folks haven’t seen Vampire Weekend three times in twelve months
“I am so excited to be living in New York City and where else can you decide to perform a concert in the late afternoon and play it at night?” she said before leading Harry into another half dozen covers including Kacey Musgraves “Silver Lining”.
166 songs so project out and you are looking at 700 700ish mark for the year, down from last year but not by much. The month itself found two albums just filled with great songs, GIRLS and ABout Last Night, plus the awesome art rocker by Elbow.
The Take Off And Landing Of Everything – Elbow – A sort of uncool, unelectronic, art band on their sixth album and first post-major breakthrough and they manage to top just about anything they’ve even done with the possible exception of “My Sad Captains”
Heart Is A Drum – Beck – Elegant folk ambient mood music includes the sweetest melody he has written in many years and a mix of string instruments that has some of the airiness of Laurel Canyon in its DNA and the rhythm of life flowing through it – A
At the very least, Andre was central to those early Prince gigs (he even sang on “Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad”) and as an early friend, playing with Prince in Grand Central, his influence on Prince’s bass sound is self evident
In 72 I was 14 and a way too short and baby like a boy to be anything but seldom taken seriously enough by that baffling other sex and Browne, who certainly was taken seriously enough by that other sex, lived out worlds of love and breakups and sad smile ladies standing and staring miles away with eyes like windows to another age.
D’Angelo’s live album from ’95 is a flat out masterpiece and a sad reminder opf a promise he just couldn’t keep. Was it two years ago ?Love was telling us the final over a decade late new D’Angelo was 90% finished? And what happened next? A handful of cancels and that is it, D’Angelo disappeared again
Boatloads more energy than Roger showed on last years Who tour, this farewell to the terminally ill Wilko Johnson, one last tour, one last album, stands head and shoulders above most stuff that passes for rock and roll.
The Duke Dumont remixing of Whitney famous Parton track is excellent but 5 Seconds Of Summer are the most perfect case of product management ever. Social media savvy beyond belief, the Aussie boy band opened for 1D last year and have been poised to break through the moment they release their debut EP. OnDuke Dumont Tuesday here.
Adore You – Miley Cyrus – The second best song off Bangerz is a full blooded ballad as tuneful as it is moving, a hardcore moving epic of sexual love that points the way forward for an adult Miley – A
Andy Karl as Rocky acts a little too much with his porkpie hat (I kept expecting him to break into “Ralphie boy”) but he is fit and sings well, and while Margo Seibert can’t do much to save Adrian, she does what she can. Luckily the set is a beauty
Great pop thrives on consistency but great art lives on experiment and Solitaire feels experimental in the best sense. It keeps going places you don’t expect it to and as songs you could cull up quite a few kickers here but as an album you have to put too much trust in Frank to get you there.
Hands down, this is Thievery Corporation’s week to lose. I saw em open for Massive Attack at the Beacon a couple of years ago and can state without fear of contradiction that they were awesome. The new single isn’t all that, but take it from me the album should.
They’ve been touring on and off since the excellent 13 was released last year and this is about as big a concert as they are gonna get. I missed out on years of Ozzyfest because I couldn’t be bothered hitching to the swamps of New Jersey. But the swamps of Brooklyn , Monday at Barclay Center? That I can do.
Daft Punk – Pentatonix – With zero interest in talent shows or pitch perfect cover versions, I was pleasantly amused by this a cappella mash up of Daft Punk songs into one glorious voice menage. If I’d heard it before I might have bought a tix to their Beacon gig – A
True went too deep into the vocals and became a mainstream pop album and if it was left at that fine, not my cup of tea but what else is new? But it didn’t. Avicii portrayed himself as the second coming and the album couldn’t withstand the scrutiny
How can recorded music not leak? And who would record a double album and not leak tracks. And once they do (and they will) what would the value of this exclusive album be.
I’ve never seen her on stage but apparently she was big on costume changes and production designs so all I will add at this time is I would really love to see her, if only to hear “The Man With The Child In His Eyes” live in person… so will she play New York?
So right now I am debating whether to scalp a tix to Perfect Pussy next Saturday or not bother or go to sleep or… any way here is some more upcoming releases. Knock yourself out but don’t turn on the ignition while you’re doing it:
A Night With Janis” -Joplin that is, has moved to my favorite club the Gramercy and that means a place which is like a miniature Best Buy is out of commission for the immediate future. Bummer. I love janis as much as the next guy but who on earth needs it stealing one of our best night clubs on the planet? I can think of a dozen places it would be more at home. How about the Show World on 42nd Street for one? Why steal a good club?
Miss You In My Life – The Belle Brigade – This is too soft even for the soft sidey Souther Cali Laurel Canyon hand, the song is too ethereal, the melody doesn’t lock you in, and much like the album, it floats away – C+
Over half of the, er, songs will be repeats from the 2005 concerts, and five will be off 2009 Radio-Activity album. Ergo, however much the 3D Kraftwerk might or might not be cutting edge, they are working from the same template as everybody
you can chose any movie here completely at random and thoroughly enjoy it. Like Hitchcock, but in many different milieu’s, Truffaut made going to the movies fun and he made it more than that. One of our greatest, like I said.
Christine, who left in 1998 because she hates to fly and therefore hates to tour has been gone for so long it was easy to believe she was never ever coming back , indeed Stevie had just said there was a better chance of an asteroid hitting the earth and now GUESS WHAT!!
“Heroin freed me up. I hate talking about this because of my daughter, my family. But, for me, it was incredibly creative. A combination of heroin and playing really simple, beautiful, repetitive shit in Africa changed me completely as a musician”
I know I trashed Hold Steady earlier this week but I said it might be a grower, I love the line “heartbreak hurts but you can dance it off.” And I know I said the new Belle was a bummer, but this is a good song. And I know I hate Avicii but the remix album is terrific.
Every song these guys play sound the same as the one before em because every song gives it up to lead singer Damian Abraham. For good reason, and this is a fine song though it sure ain’t as good as “The Recursive Girl”. Not close – B+
I would imagine Darin wrote it as a country ballad (it twangs on the last verse) and Ahmet rearranged it for the pop charts and it was a huge hit so the trick worked but the song itself was harmed. It is the melody and not the hook .
Bloody Burnett. I am so tired of this guy, there isn’t a thing he does I approve of any more. I blame the Coen Brothers, it all delves from the O Brother Where Art Thou, where he took Harry Smith’s work and put his name on it.
Now one of two things will happen. Either their clientele will get the message and stop buying music, or they won’t get the message and Spotify will beat ITunes. Either way, Apple is completely and totally fucked
We appear to be in a period of extended mediocrity within the upper reaches of the charts. The album charts are so volatile it has no middle ground any more. In 2011 albums were staying in the top ten for months on end, today the album charts reflect something at all. Meanwhile, the single charts are so conservative and static they seem set in stone. Nothing on this list is good enough. It is a dreadful disappointment
