US Top 10 Albums 1-11-14
1.3M and counting for Beyonce and except for the tenacious Ms. Clarkson who keeps it wrapped in red even after Santa has been and gone, everybody else is moldy left overs.
US Top 10 Singles 1-11-14
Not much to think about here, right? The bloody charts haven’t moved in a month and here is a question, where the heck is young Beyonce? Surely XO should have hit the charts by now? I hope they don’t think “Drunk In Love” is gonna put it just because her husband is on the track.
10 Songs: What rock nyc Is Listening To 1-3-14
New York – Angel Haze – the final release of 2013, after poet cum rapper got sick of waiting for Interscope to release , I’m considering 2014 so I can include it in my 2014 brain. This is a reggae beat ode and very very good – B+
Morrissey's "Autobiography" Reviewed
Moz mixes intense ego with unconsolable self doubt. In his mind, even in his 50s, he seems to see himself as one of the victims of the Manchester Moors murderer Myra Hindley, running in the dark as horrors come out at him from every direction
The Drought Is Over: New Releases In 2014
I don’t know what is floating your boat in 2014, but I am eagerly awaiting the new Marla Mase and Kevin Jenkins. I’ve heard some of the new Marla Half Life dropping February and would be surprised if it doesn’t emerge as one of the best albums of 2014. Meanwhile, I’ve been busy cutting and pasting for you in 2014
Fear And Loathing And Pitchfork: Their 2014 New Releases Post Cut And Pasted For You
In the world of websites I hate most in the music world, Pitchfork reign supreme if only because they are such insufferably pompous jerks (nothing personal, guys) , which is why it is an especially pleasure to cut and paste their hard work and hand it of to you.
Top Albums Of 2014 By Artists Over 50!
To me, the shocker is how great the extra songs on The Next Day are; if you save two songs from the initial release and add it to the newer songs you have a serious contender for the album of the year. Something the original release certainly wasn’t.
10 Songs: what rock nyc is listening to 1-2-14
Future Farmers Of America – Lou Reed – It sounds like it has escaped off his New York album, with a swift powerful kick and hard buzzing guitars from his final masterpiece as the millennium turned – A
Billy Joel At Barclay Center, New Years Eve, 2013 Reviewed
people trust him. He does the right thing by them. Before last night you could never imagine him portraying the hubris Springsteen so often does, Joel is too smart, too professional. Yet here he is and there is another track from Songs In The Attic.
rock nyc's Best Albums Of 2013
While I’ve claimed 2013 wasn’t much of a year, I did find 137 albums to love and really managed to spend every waking moment listening to music I loved so what I guess I mean is that it was a directionless year, there was no sense of a future within its grasp or a music scene that could unite us. In other words: 2013 was a year floating in space.
rock nyc's Best Songs Of 2013
472 songs, over 30 hours of music, and all of this is good stuff, worth your interest and admiration. Some of it is more than that, my top song and Modern Hut’s “History” are important exposes of the world and its sins. Angry, pained, shaken, and walking through the mirror, they are as great as protest gets.
Best Concerts Of 2013
I don’t think I’ll ever go to this many concerts again in a year! I’m exhausted and by the time I reached December I was getting dimishing returns. I guess that’s age for you, right? Still, despite a terrible Jingle, a good year for concerts, and a surprise finish with a spectacular set by Bobby Womack.
rock nyc's Album Of the Year 2013: "Generic Treasure" by Modern Hut
To call it less than nihilism is to misunderstanding what it means to believe in nothingness, in an end where even time has no meaning, where everything has ceased to exist. We like to call this an existential bummer.
Death Of The Year: Lou Reed
It is the sine qua non of rock, it is the post-rock and roll foundation vastly sturdier than psychedelia or any form of prog rock: the Ramones used it, the Sex Pistols, the Clash, Titus Andronicus -worlds, universe of sound got their first lesson in how to do it through the Velvet Underground.
10 Songs: what rock nyc is listening to 1-1-14
Chicks, Man – The Del Lords – This might not be the best song of 2013 (I think I put it at # 3) but it is my absolute fave and it goes to the heart of what I was writing earlier about happy-sad songs, here you get a perfect pattern song that ends with death! – A+
Bob Klein Starts A Website: You Can Own These Bruce At Work Pix!
Klein doesn’t take a brush to his pictures, he manipulates their shadings online, deepening with sepia colorings on this one of a Springsteen rehearsal before the 2009 Superbowl, by making the sight heavenly, otherworldly and thick as the cream at the top of a bottle of milk.
MY TOP 18 ALBUMS OF 2013: # 2 – POWER OF THE TRINITY – A SLIGHT RETURN – TOMAS DONCKER
Tomas always sees a better tomorrow, he always sees a world where everything gets better through love and community and while he bristles in anger which his eleven piece band feeds off, in the end his answer is one voice, one love.
Golden Slumbers: Death In The Music Community Through 12-31-13
Jamaican reggae songwriter, sprang to prominence when Luke “Scratch” Perry agreed to produced “Police And Thieves” back in 1976. Which Junior only a minor hit but the Clash covered just a year later and it became the theme song for the Notting Hill riots back in 1977.
That Was The Week Of 12-23-13 That Was
As we count down to the de Blasio era, it is worth noting that while stop and frisk may well be racist and discriminatory, between 2001 and 2012 the City’s incarceration rate has now fallen by 36 percent, while at the same time, the national incarceration rate grew three percent. If that’s Bloomberg’s legacy it is a great one.
Hear Ye: What rock nyc is listening to 12-31-13
Spirit Of The Mountain – Bob Dylan – No chorus but who needs one with a bridge this smart, it flows like a river and it shimmers on your consciousness as an adult, maybe even senior, love song, “You think I’m past my prime?” Dylan asks, “let me see what you got….” Sublime way to end the year- A
Tomas Doncker's Top 10 Albums of 2013
The two revelations here are Cody Chestnutt’s superb r&b album from late 2012 and Bernie Worrell’s brilliant new album which opens with Miles Davis and closes with Bob Marley and in between is a subtle and beautiful jazz masterwork for piano.
MY TOP 18 ALBUMS OF 2013: # 3 – YEEZUS – KANYE WEST
This mix of harangued fury, industrial strength beats and wildly brilliant samples have lived alone with mostly rock critics and rap geeks flipping out and the rest of the world.
UK Top 10 Singles 1-4-14
Maybe I underestimated the Avicii track, the instrumental bridge is pretty good. I wonder why “Happy” got a second life? That one take video of a woman dancing to it? Maybe??? Otherwise, everything is still place and we wait for the rest of our lives to begin!!
Hear Ye: what rock nyc is listening to 12-30-13
Sweet Baby James – James Taylor – Written for his nephew when his nephew was still a baby, it remains a self-portrait and a lullaby to loneliness and aloneness and late night fears put away and rocked to sleep – A+
Phish At Madison Square Garden,Saturday, December 28th, 2013, Reviewed
I went to see the Knicks at Madison Square Garden a week before, the Knicks lost, and it is the exact same thing as this set. Exactly. That’s what it felt like at the Phish concert. You come in with hopes, they play lacklustre for three hours, put on a sport to get it close and then it’s over. Better luck tomorrow.
My Top 18 Albums Of 2013: # 5 – Yes, You – Jahn Xavier And The Bowerytones
This sounds like a downer and it is, but remember, great music restores truth with art and in song after song this is what Jahn and his terrific band do, songs are lovely as “Black Water Blues”, “Walk The Other Way”, full on romantic loss “Under The Moon”, “Hang Together” spotted among the biggest moments and held together by Xavier’s astounding vocal tour de force.
My Top 18 Albums Of 2013: # 4 Tie Once I Was An Eagle
There is something about Laura which is less naiveté repressed and more privilege expressed; it comes across as a form of feminism: a sort of proto-rock star unwillingness to be signed up for anything approaching a long term commitment : she lies back, she stands up, next verse.
Active Viewin': rock nyc concert picks 12-23-13
Billy Joel will be doing the working and I will be doing the dancing at his Barclay Center New Year’s Eve gig. The first song of the New Year will be going out live on ABC! I wasn’t crazy over his 12-12-12 performance, but he has been on the money way too often for me to give up the chance to spend NYE with him
rock nyc's Top 10 Songs w-o 12-23-13
With the world of music taking a snooze this week, I figured I’d go back to the beginning of the year for this chart and I must say I hope this January is as good. Olly, Fantasia, Pissed Jeans and Teena Marie will survive to make it on to my best albums of 2013
hear Ye: what rock nyc is listening to 12-29-13
The Rainbow – The Apples In Stereo – I saw em open for Television years ago and I might add they were awesome. This Beatley (check out the band name) remains a real pleasure. Gives power pop a good name – A
Power Pop Lives On In 2013
So Aaron posted his top 25 albums of 2013 and I didn’t know one of them, though I do know Richard X Heyman among the honorable mentions and, er, the Beatles At The BBC among the best compilations.
My Top 18 Albums Of 2013: # 6 (Tie) The Long Lost – David Bronson
At 41 minutes the album is like a play cut into separate scenes but more like a play of the mind where everything is happening at once; it doesn’t feel linear, it feels as if the story is occurring simultaneously, and so less than a story and more like a series of emotions going through change after change and ending in anger
Most Overrated 2013: Haim, Sky Ferreira And Lorde
Vampire Weekend’s Modern Vampires Of The City is overrated and I love the album. Katy Perry’s Prism is overrated and I don’t like the album but neither are quite as overrated as these three, VW is better, KP is worse, but these three most overrated albums of the year are off the charts…
US Top 10 Singles 1-4-14
While America slept, somewhere out of sight, “Drunk And In Love” is in t #12 and Miley’s “Adore You” has a new video and here is an easy prediction, they will both spend the next two months on the charts. PS “Adore You” is a terrific song.
US Top 10 Albums w-o 1-4-13
I really love it when an artistic success is a popular success and looking at my list of fave albums, well, even Yeezus didn’t sell that much. Beyonce is a beacon of artistic integrity and musical kismet. A complete triumph to end 2013.
Hear Ye: what rock nyc is listening to 12-28-13
Once upon a time at home
I sat beside the telephone
Waiting for someone to pull me through
When at last it didn’t ring I knew it wasn’t you
Must See: Lady Gaga At Madison Square Garden, May 2013
Four songs off the album are among my favorites of 2013, and if nobody else likes her, well, you’re not her accountant, what does it matter to you? It shows you aren’t a member of a rabid pack of naysayers, you can go your own way and be true to your own, beter tastes.
Music Publication Round Up 2013
Music writing is an instant mix of po-faced beat dissections and ass kissing and usually both, except, in an attempt to prove themselves above the fray, a major publication will dis a major work by a major performer (pace: Pitchfork).
Morrissey's "Autobiography" Reviewed In Segments: Moz In Court
The writing here is Dickensian in its outrage, and while it is, of course, outrage at harm done to him himself and not to society, the ramifications are indeed for British society where the law is at the whim of a senile old bastard. Morrissey knows his “Bleak House” and by the end of the 40 pages, you can join Morrissey in absolute fury at the nonsense justice meted to him.
Popdust's Top 20 Songs Of 2013
Popdust is probably my favorite music website, it looks like a dream and is wildly sarcastic and funny and fun. It obsesses over K-Pop and has better ears than Pitchfork; if Popdusts Top 20 songs of 2013 seems a little obvious, well, the whole point with pop music is that it be popular…
My Top 18 Albums Of 2013: # 6 Tie Beyonce – Beyonce
As the name suggest it is a self portrait of sorts, Beyonce attempts to balance her insecurities as a woman with her securities as a woman, her refusal to compromise her and willingness to share that with an audience (not me: wrong fantasy).
Hear Ye: what rock nyc is listening to 12-27-13
Tug Of War – Paul McCartney – Lost in the midst of time, and never rolled out even when Macca is looking for something to change up in his show and despite it appearing on Wingspan, there is a real tug to the song, a sweet sadness – A-
John Lennon And Me
When you get past his agitprop and get closer to the pan-humanism of Imagine and Mind Games, this is what you find. The heart of Lennon, of Double Fantasy, is placing the love of one on an equal footing with the love of the many. Seeing one as part of the other.
Rush To Kinky Boots Before Stark Sands and Annaleigh Ashford Leave
If you haven’t heard Annaleigh sing “The History Of Wrong Guys”, it is one of the most wonderful things on Broadway, just funny and sweet and true and somehow you can hear Cyndi Lauper behind it as well… So fork over a hundred bucks and go before it’s too late.
My Top 18 Albums Of 2013: # 8 Won't Be Long Now – Linda Thompson
Linda’s cover of Anna’s “Fast As My Feet”, with her three kids and Grandson joining in, works as an antidote to Rufus’ sorrow, as though despite all odds there is joy in life and in family that can remove the sting even from death through love and art. Perhaps the moral of this entire album.
My Top 18 Albums Of 2013: # 7 Something About Knowing – Maria Taylor
She builds an artistic house of seasons and times passing and love and hope and than she surrounds it with melodic to care for it and take care of it, and as she studies these feelings, and shares them, they have the permanence of true love.
The Beatles "Bootleg 1963" Reviewed
What is missing is the internal intelligence of the Live AtThe BBC sets. Which it is true that it is all of a year, and a great year, in the Beatles history, still something feels off in the way the songs follow each other.
Hear Ye: what rock nyc is listening to 12-26-13
“If you ever leave me I’ll be sad and blue, don’t you ever leave me I’m so in love with you”… Written by Lennon (“I Call Your Name” is on the flip side) this is Brill building brilliance from a 1960s pop superstar. The Beatles would have gone at it harder, there would have been a touch of self-parody – A
A Merry Christmas To U2
Written by Phil Spector along with Brill Building giants Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry, Bono has he work cut out for him trying to match Darlene loves heartwrenching take , that it has become a holiday staple in this version is purely because only a band with the heart and sincerity could even try to match it
rock nyc's Naughty And Nice List
Santa is looking over my shoulder and tutting or nodding his head in appreciation because, just before he flys off to give all the good girls and boys gifts, he is picking up our list to help with some of the more famous among us and rock nyc is here to help…