How bad was it? I’d go again today if I could. How good was it? I won’t be mentioning it five years from. Well, maybe I will remember it five years from now but it is Jon Hendricks I’ll be remembering.
The greatest playwright of the 20th century writes a radio play incorporating elements of Dark Side Of The Moon. Voices by the likes of Bill Nighy and Rufus Selwell who act out thought experiments (like the sort you learnt in ethics class back at college, over the album played with most of the vocals removed in celebration of its 40th Anniversary. So where’s “Money”, eh? – B+
Back in the 1920s, sheet music was the main distribution for songs, a friend, a gifted so and so, would sit at the piano and play popular songs of the day, and the family would gather round the piano and sing along. The charts were the best selling sheet music.
Matt Smith as the 11th Doctor and David Tennant as the 10th Doctor meet up with John Hurt as… well, I don’t know what number Dr. Who it is, a War Doctor, finds the trio ready and willing and has done in the past, kill off a planet before going back to the future via a doomsday machine with a conscience, to not kill off the Daleks and the Time Lords in one fell swoop.
With 9 songs off Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and the first three nearly mirroring the first three on the classic double album, not only did Jack Phillips get it right here but my own anticipation level for the December 4th, 2013 is through the roof if not further.
The Book Of Love – The Magnetic Fields – From their greatest album 69 Love Songs, this is a flat out masterpiece but the singing is a little iffy – A
Yeezus isn’t what Kanye thinks it is, the move from “On Sight” -not giving a fuck to “Bound 2” -his emotional resurrection, to giving a fuck, through love. He doesn’t recover, he hasn’t recovered, even with Jesus in his sights
This was Kanye West’s week, he played four nights, I saw him twice and he was the epitome of artistic integrity and musical mayhem; an astounding statement defining musical and racial freedom in 2013.
I have heard good things about their reworkings of the Everly Brothers songs on the epic Songs Our Daddy Taught Us. Me? I don’t see how on earth the Joe and Jones album can’t suck. So I gave it to 1D
I can’t say I’m bothered by Robbie one way or the other, I am a big fan but this is awful thin gruel, otherwise this is all over the place and very English in many ways. Still, is EDM gonna lose its grip in 2014?
Not bad, pure pop UK 2013 style: Lily twice, Gary, Ellie, Litttle Mix, 1D, there have been much worse charts out there. No hip hop but two EDM hits as icing on the cake
Who’s Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet – The Everly Brothers – From Songs Our Daddy Taught Us, this is a strange and beautiful close harmony duet about romantic fealty – A
Paramount Records was the Wisconsin based early 20th century record company who filed a niche race records whole in musical recordings with names you should recognize even if, like me, you don’t know that much about race records of the 1920s.
For a pop band, a boy band, a TV reality show band, to maintain it through three albums, well the band have something going on that doesn’t appear to be going on. It seems to be having at the side of your vision. It might be hype but it can’t be all hype.
When you compare “Sweet Little Sixteen” with “Surfing USA”, you don’t hear the metamorphoses you do with Berry and Smith. Berry took an idea and changed it 30 years later whereas there wasn’t a decade between the Beach Boys and Berry.
Though he was so great that time, performing Astral Weeks, performing a “Slim Slow Slider” for the ages that it might very well keep you satiated for years. Just not five years. So his show at the Theater at Madison Square Garden on Monday is more than a giving thanks, it is a benediction. Rumor has it, this may be his farewell tour. You have to hope not.
A blues classic, I went to see Harvey three times on this time, indeed see her fanbase move her from the Academy to the Beacon, and this song was the set highlight. This is so exual and so deep, it is a swampy wet femininity she never did again – A
This is a different set from the one we posted, though it has similarities. What stands out is “All You Need Is Love” and “The Foreigner Suite (I doubt he performed the full version). The 16th is better than the 17th. The first three songs on the Saturday gig are essentially devastating. Even the third, “Midday” is his best Yusuf track.
What I love most about Amazon’s yearly best of is that it feels voted on by friends and colleagues and not pros. How else to explain Miley Cyrus and Neko Case’s appearance?
I’ve disliked Pitchfork for its insulated arrogance and lousy taste in music for years now And really, who on earth needs a Van Morrison retrospective? Tied to what? That’s something people with zero resources do -I wrote one two years ago, do, not fat bullies like Pitchfork.
Two albums rule here, Margot’s which is finally on Spotify and Blood Oranges’, a huge leap forward for Dev. Except for them it is the usual shift of a song here and a song there.
Bringing minimalism to rock writing for the people, this was an attempt to cut down the criticism to two words (except for Bottle Rockets though I only did 8 letters so it might as well be two words!). Call it the anti-Pitchfork Review
Still, it should break huge for her it hooks hard and Colbie doesn’t oversing it, which is a miracle, because it begs to be oversung, instead she allows her falsetto on the bridge to signify deep emotion.
“Straight female is ready to bj a guy/possibly sex a guy up for Brand New tickets.” Funnily enough, this is hardly new, last year women were offering sex for Stone tickets, but cmon Brand New ain’t the Stones, and the entire tone of the ad is pretty wild. I mean, what is “Sex a guy up” exactly?
Where is BB and Robert Cray playing “Sweet Little Sixteen”. Indeed, where is Albert King, Cray and Clapton performing “Everyday I Have The Blues” or Buddy Guy’s showstopping “Don’t Let The Doorknob Hit You… not here that’s for sure.
Any way there is always something and I plan to go on February 7th, the more mainstream of the three nights. Why? because Shellshag are playing and Shellshag are the proud owners of one of the best albums of 2013, the awesome Shellshag Forever.
The worst named musical in history, Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark, a counter-intuitive nonsense name for one of the worst shows in Broadway history, is being put out of its bone breaking, ear numbing, wildly terrible misery on January 3th 2014
Sinatra takes the lead and Pavarotti sounds like Rick Ross only being very careful not to overwhelm Sinatra are the song, even on the bridge he isn’t blowing it out. I hated it then, now, with both of them long gone, I feel kinda protective – B
This makes me miss the good ol’ days when we used to get together and trash the Twilight Soundtracks, here is another teen maelstrom of discontent and death and slaughter and more… another crappy soundtrack album.
1950s – Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley – the American songbook and the King Of Rock and Roll, and really, if there is a changing of the guards in 1956 it is between these two men. Incidentally, a sign of the time but neither wrote their own material.
Hand it to Ke$ha on this one, she handles the chorus with complete confidence and smartiness and the song is a sweet nothing but Pitbull always mixes pop smarts with Latin American savvy.
Well, I called Gaga as being better than Katy and it looks like I called it right, meanwhile why can’t Katy find a follow up to “Roar?
Sounds like a refugee from Wowie Zowie, all quirk and melody and none the worst for it. But it begs an answer to the musical question: exactly how much does Malkmus hate the rest of Pavement and also why does this sound like an influence on Vampire Weekend – B+
As a black man Kanye West’s ancestors were slaves and treated as property and the ramifications still effect West and black people till this day. His response is make music to enforce his absolute refusal to be anything but free. West is the sound of freedom.
One of his closest friends dies in a car wreck, another from cancer, on visits to his sister in the US nothing stems the depression so great Morrissey is nearly comatose and he can’t even get a part time job at “Targets”.
Rock nyc is close with both artists and have come up with the perfect solution, Tay and Yeezus should tour together. Can you imagine the synergy…?
Written in the aftermath of singer Matt Dillon’s break up with a girlfriend, the follow up to their debut album Brer Rabbit, the duo of Dillon and bassist Tre Acklin added drummer Chris Riddle and second guitarist Rob Dipatri., and came up with Public Housing, album # 2.
Jason has to smuggle weed (a lot, actually) from mexico in a Winnebago to settle a debt and pays off the other three to beard for him. On the way they become a family.
The Diana in question seems to be using Diana Spencer as a reference for a person’s more general breakdown and the song does what “Story Of My Life” fails to, it is touching but it also moves.
Hush – Eliza Doolittle – Not the keeper on the new album but still pretty damn good, a lovely, frustrated ballad – B+
Perhaps the most thoroughly charming UK pop star to fail to make a dent Stateside, here he covers some swing, occasional folk, an original, sells his album title pun with one Rufus Wainwright, and adds Kelly Clarkson, Olly Murs and more to the mix – B+
As last years controversy swirls this year, let us be clear: for all of Lady Gaga’s many gifts, and despite Gaga’s last four albums being vastly superior to Madonna’s last four albums, Gaga is no Madonna. In the 1980s Madonna was pop music and until the 21st century she very seldom faltered. Here is a refresher course:
I’m gonna go along with English TV who had a show wherein ordinary folks like you and me voted for our fave Presley tracks. As my friend Ted Cogswell noted, many of these wouldn’t be among my top songs but I don’t actively dislike any of them. I mean, it is Elvis, what’s not to like?
Arcade Fire must have a sense of humor, advising people trying to get tickets to the bands Barclay Center August 22nd and August 23rd , a Friday-Saturday axis in the heat of next summer, to dress in formal attire
The thing is this: like social security, the young are paying for the old and because of that, Obama had to repeal lame ass policies. He should have said “you can keep your policy if it isn’t a dog with fleas.
Don’t Be Shy – Cat Stevens – “Love is better than a song”? Debatable, very debatable, but if anybody can sell the concept in song it is this guy: like the cult classic movie it comes from, “Harold And Maude” it is a primer on dealing with life – A
“The set of nearly 30 songs is quite varied. There are songs from the 60s, such as “I love my dog” and “The first cut is the deepest.” The two phase Yusuf albums are well represented; memorable and uncomplicated, they fit well with the repertoire of phase Cat.”
Jake Bugg’s “Shangri La”, produced by Rick Rubin, has a lot of buzz and with Chris Brown delaying the release of X not much else worth bothering about (or do you like Daughtry?) gets the nod
When Stern joined the judges at “America’s Got Talent”, regained his audience and became a mainstream TV star as well. Now he has a mass audience here and with his Lady Gaga interview last Monday got everybody else at the same time.
Celine Dion: she might well be a working class phenom but she still is the most overblown singer on the planet; I can’t take her. She can’t express an emotion without drawing you a diagram
