It’s back and worse than ever! Yes, you remember when Helen and Mary used to write this for us but then they stopped because the dynamic duo got sick of it but since they are both enjoying their vacation and I alone am responsible for the next EIGHT DAYS!, I’m am resurrecting it. With any luck no one will read this because it sucks
You better not pout but da Bing is sure letting the Andrew Sisters do a lot of heavy lifting on this version, gives them the best word to sing on the track “With little tin horns and little toy drums, Rooty toot toots and rummy tum tums…” – B+
In “Saving Mr. Banks”, the Disneyfication of the pre-production behind “Mary Poppins”, the backstory becomes one of children and their fathers. Emma Thompson’s extremely bad tempered PL Travers is mourning who beloved father who died when Travers was a child
You hear about these kinda things but until you actually see it,a man shed 20 years just by getting onstage, it is hard to believe it actually happens and yet there it is! The great, one of the greatest, soul man, found the fountain of youth just by performing his songs to an audience at City Winery and perform them he did, in 90 minutes of take no prisoners soul he smashed through every barrier and came out triumphant. It’s a Christmas miracle.
If I preferred beats to melody, Matangi would be my favorite album of the year. These polyrhythmic beats on beats songs are to EDM what Kanye West is to Hip Hop: they sound nothing else, they sound even wilder than her previous albums.
Home For The Holidays – Perry Como – This one takes me back some eight years where a good friend used to sing this for me every Christmas, it is a sweet song isn’t it? – A
The melody is gorgeous, and Taylor sings it with a voice that sounds fragile at first but then you catch the strong undertow, as though gentle emotions can have just as much strength as the most ferocious; the joy in that sort of lyricism should need no explanation here
I would like to thank all our readers, while we are small, we have had over a million readers over the years and we have done this simply through the writing, no faking readership or viewers, and I appreciate you spending your time with us.
After a disappointing couple of weeks for concerts, Bobby Womack brought his eleven piece soul band to City Winery for the old time soul concert of the year and turned December around! Looking his age but acting timeless, Womack sang some of the great soul songs and most of which he himself wrote.
The album is here because the tracks can function as songs, without really knowing what’s happening, just as separate songs, great songs with great words, lots of jukes. “There is no plane, no pilot, it is a thought experiment…” Perhaps. but one with a heart.
X Factor gets its winner Prison Officer Sam Bailey to the top of the charts and wins the UK Christmas single of the year, something that means not much here!!! People like the sub Celine Dion ululating climb every note to a towering thunder singing of game show vocalists but people are stupid
I’ve listened to Beyonce any number of times, and while it may not all be great, not a song is close to bad. And I’ve listened to One Direction any number of times and if a few songs are good, nothing here is great.
Love Is Gonna Come At Last – Bobby Womack And Patti Labelle – Womack is on the record as hating rap but the way he uses the chorus like a hook on this song, opening and closing the track with it, is an ancestor of rap for sure – A
By now everybody must be sick of rock nyc’s obsessive writing about Morrissey. I am nearing the end of his biography and you can expect at least one more “Morrissey In Segments”. But before that I thought I’d take a sprint down the solo albums, and review and grade em.
you can tell the strength of a Costello album from the outtakes. ‘Watching The Detectives’ and ‘Radio Radio’ from My Aim Is True. The superb ‘Big Tears’ and ‘Tiny Steps’ from This Year’s Model. The weak ‘Talking In The Dark’, the awful ‘Wednesday Week’ and the touching ‘My Funny Valentine’ from Armed Forces. From the Get Happy!! sessions in Holland, a splendidly rewritten ‘Clowntime Is Over’ and a cover of Van McCoy’s ‘Getting Mighty Crowded’.
The complaint is the songs don’t link thematic in your mind, it is more like a random collection of tracks, a playlist, but both the sound is the linking and Natalies voices sounds unique throughout. A terrific album.
So Feinstein’s is so no more and Michael has moved himself to San Francisco and opened a new room and yes, folks, it is missed but here he is again back for a Christmas stand at Birdland. A little pricey but should be worth the admission fee –I’ll be there Christmas Eve and Mike will be jazzing things up through December 28 th.
You Send Me – Sam Cooke – The smoothest of all soul singer seduced a white audience with this grown up puppy love masterpiece of 50s; pure and innocent but with the suggestion of sex – A+
The amazing thing here is how involved the big man is in the music, how alive Womack is to the sounds, how at 69 years old he might still be l a badass but he is a joyful, surviving badass; it’s like the world has grown only as big as the stage he controls and this world is timeless soul greatness.
The big thing with Rudimental is dance pop is fun, and they are having fun presenting it to us but Home takes awhile because they don’t record it with the sumptuous oof they give it live. “Feel The Love” doesn’t achieve the anthem quality on stage, the cresting waves of melodic soul hooks, and it is still great.
Everything fell right in place for Beyoncé, a great album, a stealth campaign, just about no competition anywhere at all, a quiet week but a week that had the potential to explode, and an explosion. And, did I mention this, a great album.
“This is a great honor. Thank you to the people who nominated and voted for us. Thank you most of all to Kurt Cobain. And to everyone who’s kept rock music going strong for 60 years and counting.”
So this tour, her two nights at Roseland an instantaneous sellout by the way, is a victory lap or a farewell to stardom. Usually I can take an inspired guess but now I can’t because there is too much riding on what you can change up on the next album.
Anything Could Happen – Ellie Goulding – This is a big song for Ellie, completely addictive with those “wee wee wees” playing in the back of your head long after its over and a chorus of Ellie’s bringing it back home. Huge in the UK – A
The difference between streaming and buying music, is not the difference between renting and buying a house, it is the difference between enjoying what you own when you’re alive and losing it when you die and believing you are gonna take it with you.
So with new son and husband in tow, and just before Maria’s US “Up All Night” Tour (actually, the tour doesn’t have a name, I named it for her), she is performing a half show with her family live from her kitchen
This isn’t subtext on Modern Vampires Of The City, with its strange echo of “The Elders Of Zion”title? I still don’t see why more isn’t being made of Ezra being Jewish when it reverberates through Rolling Stones album of the year
The “and I’m sticking to it” has more stickiness than the rest of the album combined, which is why it was a minor hit, though it doesn’t explain why Black Panties, is Kelly’s bestselling album in years. Maybe the album cover does that – B+
The band are a touch generic though it sure doesn’t hurt the knockabout “Super 8” ( and the accumulation of stories work themselves into a worldview and while it isn’t a happy one, it is true one, and while it is mostly a bunch of stories and they don’t always end well, they always show people at their most humane.
let’s say, you are one of the lucky ones, well, it doesn’t matter because if you have nothing to be sad about, devastated about, your brain won’t let you rest. You’ll make one up. Yes, and if it gets really really bad and it can, it will, it does, it can leave you an emotional and physical wreck, insane with grief, you can die, you can be alone, you can kill yourself. Life doesn’t care.
Pitbull is right back at the top after his phenomenal performance at Jingle Ball last week and “Timber” is the only song I’d listen to for, how you say, pleasure. I hate “Counting Stars” although I can hear how some other people might love it…
Beyonce is head and shoulders above the rest with a ridiculous 750K + units moved at fifteen bucks a pop and no overhead, no publicity, all digital. Brooks is quite impressive with his non-digital release. It might be more last hurrah than new paradigm but as hurrahs go, I’m impressed.
Low key, ambient dubby sound with Charlotte’s whispery willow vocal all adding something desirable and sexy to the blues song. From her upcoming movie “Nymphomaniac” –a picture of which nearly crashed the website. Produced by beck, maybe she should get out more – B+
A good set, all four bands gave everything they had, it was generous, the sets weren’t overlong, DVP played for only 65 minutes, and it allowed the audience to come to them, to join with them. More people of faith should use the Devil Wears Prada as their example.
It’s the idea that heartbreak isn’t actually such a big deal. I know– that’s sort of weird coming from me. But it is. In fact, it’s almost minuscule in comparison to some of the other things that go on in a person’s life. Or just life itself
The album is strong and yet supple, it is a Taoist achievement about how life comes to it, to the couple and its friends, and how that is enough. In the familial, or at least in the communal, in the me and my friends at the center of these wonderful friends is a vision of a musical life as an ongoing community.
Tis the season to make lists and thank god for that because there is nothing going on in the music business and I’d be left reviewing Jingle Ball again in anticipation of next years where I think we will finally be getting Katy Perry. Or Taylor Swift. Or most likely both because they owe us for the disastrous 2013.
Who will judge the judgers? I will! NPR have put up their top 50 albums of 2013 and I have only two questions 1) Do I know it and 2) is it any good… no wait here is 3) Where is Queen Bey!. Well, let’s take a look at what the lefty muckety mucks have been listening to, 11 of em
Kiss Me Last – We The Kings – A “Save The Last Dance For Me” for the 21st century and as sweet an idea as pop music can throw up, in a world of black panties, it is so innocent and emo in name, in nature it is pure pop for now teens – A-
Yes, folks, the industry is napping but B.o.B., the Georgia rapper who opened for Eminem and Jay Z back when he was 22 years old is back and he has his moments here, though not enough to justify a purchase.
She wants to be us and she wants to be Queen Bey at the same time, and she manages the trick by cutting in old footage of herself, it is a humanizing element. All of it wouldn’t matter if the songs weren’t so great and great they are; the equal of 4, maybe better, and after Yeezus the hip hop album of the year.
It seems to me a possibility that the casual listener will not be buying albums they don’t really know for friends and lovers and that’s true but on the other hand, serious music fans won’t be taking the holidays off and this will be a terrific opportunity to reach people who wouldn’t have the time to check out stuff they don’t know under normal circumstances.
From the kick it into gear “When The Drugs Kick In” to the jammed out masterful Neil Young cover “Southern Pacific” this album doesn’t falter for a moment, the guitars are tactile, ringing, powerful -a thing of real beauty and smartness like scalpels of sound.
This is Lorne Michael’s fault, he has grown lazy or maybe just bored with SNL. The Michael’s produced Jimmy Fallon Show is much funnier, why doesn’t he move some of those writers? Doesn’t he sit in on the meetings. Doesn’t he wake up on a Monday morning like Tom Coughlin, wondering what hit him?
Vivir Vi Vida – Marc Anthony – A “My Way” for the Latin American superstar stands as an anthem to living your life in the way you choose, for Anthony that means horns handling the melody – A
The setlist is about what you’d think, six off 8:18 (the latest album, guess what the album refers to, I’m sure you can do it), three off the one before it, the somewhat superior Dead Throne, three off the personal best genius Zombie EP and two off With Roots And Branches Below. SO no shockers there
At 45 years of age, Anthony has had his midlife crises and has now returned to his roots on this huge hit in Latin American, a perfect album which proves Anthony has the voice and the chops, and the arrangements, and the ear, to still be the biggest Salsa star living.
The surprise release of Beyonce couldn’t have been better timed, new albums have slowed to a crawl and the only knock out punch last week was Claptons ’74 – ’75. The new Beyonce may be as great as 4, certainly it is the best r&b album of the year.
I really do love the Eminem but the lyrics stop it from being a masterpiece, two Michael Bubles? Christmas we get, but To Be Loved??? But I am happy my old pal Olly Murs is back in the charts!
