This isn’t a bad top ten, 17 year old Dutch sensation Martin Garrixx has a wonderful slice of House beats here that have taken Europe by storm and Lily Allen, who I may well be congenitally incapable of saying a word against has for the second time in her career released a cover that cuts the original
Sutphin Boulevard – Blood Orange – Devonté Hynes poppiest moment from two years ago sounds as fresh today as we eagerly await Cupid Deluxe which maybe I should have made my sneak peak of the week elsewhere – A-
ARTPOP is a very good album, it will eventually go platinum and it will perform its primary responsibility: it will maintain her career. But the days of Lady Gaga as the Queen of pop are now over.
Two great shows are playing New York in the immediate future and these are so close to a must see that one is gonna force me to go out on a Sunday (something I truly truly hate doing), and the other will find me on the Upper West Side!!
This is the big one, Kanye west being opened for by Kendrick Lamar. Four nights, and I have tix for two, one at Barclay Center and, more importantly, a Saturday night gig at MSG. I’ve seen West twice In the past year, both times, the 12-12-12 gig and closing down Governor’s Ball, have been the sort of gigs you think about for a long time to come
Slippin And Slidin – Otis Redding – One of the great covers mostly because Redding has one of the great voices, but also because Little Richard was a teen phenom and his original sounds like a pop song, Redding sounds like a soul song – A
Ross is not a hip hop leader, he is a male Nicki Minaj, a guy who works better on the edges where his performance can add shading and depth and get out before you realize how average his flow is
He’d go to the toilet with his guitar, he’d make breakfast with a guitar. In an interview with Dick Cavett, Jimi expressed his, more than disinterest, worries about fame, about praise, about really anything that distracted him from what he was born to do: play the guitar.
I loved glam as well, and essentially the same bands as well: T-Rex, Bowie, Roxy, Mott -you know the rolecall. And Moz writes about them with all the positive passion where until then the passion was seriously negative. 80 pages in and I’m loving it.
Lady Gaga’s week, the new album is very very good, her best since The Fame Monster, even if I got “Dope” wrong in my review! We will see how the charts work themselves out but whether it is a smash or just a hit, it does not herald the end to anything.
This is the ultimate Ross song, and the most inspired use of the word
pussy ever, every verse works as a hook upon a hook upon a hook with Ross singing the hook on the space beat the beats – A
This stuff belongs to ages but it also belongs to me personally, it is my life, my childhood, I remember so well all three big sisters being huge Beatle fans, there music played all the time in 1963, 1964. It is as subjective and personal as humanly possible
It is a catchy smart lyric and a catchy smart song. It will be huge in the UK and I don’t see why it shouldn’t crack the charts here. Plus Lily, you are movie star ugly. Where the actress takes off her glasses and her hair and suddenly becomes Kate Middleton.
The victims of, and the remains of the victims of, 9-11-01 did not lend themselves to what amounts to a form of anthropomorphism: essentially, changing their character to make them what Springsteen needed them to be in order to fit into his true blue collar tableau
Starts with an oom pah pah before evolving into an off base tunefulness and a psychedelic calliope of sound whirling round John’s self-abasement and regret.
it is elegiac and heartbroken, it tears at the political fabric, and it tears at God, only to extoll us to “rise up” like the fire people rising through that tower forever upwards to eternity – A
Lorde sings it pretty well, she isn’t a twenty something, she doesn’t see it as a life sentence but a deadened teen cool moodiness, the swingin party here is a mood not a rope swingin
I got a Thank You after a review once, and a thumbs up after a comment, and believe me, the amount of people who want Taylor’s attention are huge, I mean millions upon millions, that’s like winning the lottery.
“The Monster” sales slide is owed to iTunes’ customers who opted to “complete” the “Marshall” album by upgrading their earlier purchases of “Monster” to a full album. Effectively, consumers who completed the album were returning a song
Eminem has sold as many copiess, nearly a million, as #2 – #32 combined. Eminem is a big star and the album is a serious continuation of Part One, but even so the explanation here is that sales fall off so precipitiously that once you’re past the Top 20 at best, they are essentually meaningless.
Of the five songs he has released so far from his upcoming album, only one is a complete dog, and this one is a specific bruised new r&b song of the first order and a refutation of his new born reputation: “I ain’t all bad” he claims, and I buy it – B+
Yeah, you heard me. You wanna be the biggest and the best than be the biggest and the best. Does Z-100 think we don’t know the L.A. Jingle got Katy and Gaga? Do they think that?
Reed is referencing “Slippin’ And Slidin'” -in an album of sexual transformation, in a song that is a signal post, Reed draws right back on his rock and roll roots. Morrissey’s change of the line is cultural vandalism.
As tragedies go there seems to be layers to it, and the first is that both Yellow Dog and the band that the shooter was in The Free Keys, are all about deep social reprehension in Iran
The thing is, having said all that, if Miley is the poster child for bad behavior in the under 20s, where does that leave bad behavior? Really, I am not sure what Miley could do to shock, or maybe I mean DESERVEDLY SHOCK, the world?
The Art Of Letting Go – Mariah Carey – Mariah turns her back on the pop moves of a decade with this major r&b ballad and makes it pay off – A-
How obsessed you are going to be over this second volume of live recordings by the Beatles for the BBC will depend how you feel about the concept of John Lennon playing a chugging guitar riff for two and a half minutes on “Lucille
Tim learns he can time travel at 21 years of age, and uses it to correct excruciatingly embarrassing moments and also to get the girl of his dreams.
The 7th Avenue entrance not only was speed lightning to get into but the “Chase Square” is absolutely gorgeous (you can see my picture there) though after you get past the wow factor, it is the same old windows to buy tix from
Her best song in years and the jewel in the ARTPOP crown, and the penultimate number on the album , just before “Applause” and ending the album on the highest of highs, this is a pop ballad of both beauty and seriousness. Major stuff for Gaga fans – A
Luscious Jackson made a welcome return to the fray with an album that is shockingly wonderful and fun. The 1990s indie band reformed in 2011 and just released their first new album and it is really great. I know I’m gonna forget about it but I hope you don’t.
Obviously Gaga is the biggie but since I’ve already reviewed it, I’m gonna namecheck Welsh Singer Cate Le Bon, whose Cyrk was excellent and blew me away at Mercury Lounge last year
Shane Filan, who he, you ask? A former member of the former boy band Westlife, that’s who. Anybody else you need? The Overtones, five man harmony group rejected by X Factor as a foursome, add a fifth and bring home the goods
US House DJ Storm Queen follows in the footsteps of Avicii, with a heavy house pop song of wit and wonder. In other words: not bad at all.
Are You With Me Now – Cate Le Bon – Terrific pop song with a 1960s Marianne Faithful flavor and a Florence Welch method but with a sense of restraint. One of the best songs of the year – A
In 2013 JTstarted off great but derailed a little. Despite the weakness of too many tracks and parts of his live show, he did a pretty credible job. But when you are playing in these leagues pretty credible won’t cut it. JT? Great? Yes. Greatest? Nah, in hindsight that experience has passed him by.
The trick with countries in the middle of civil wars is the same as the trick with the Eagle: knowing when to get up and leave. The second half of the show plunders the post Greatest Hits, where whatever minimal charm the snide smelly superstars ever had was lost for good. So I left.
I saw her at T5 in 2008 and thought she was really cool and Sandie Shaw of herself and if the cover of Keane’s innocuous “Somewhere Only We Know” is her second step back (she did the Pink duet last year), it isn’t a bad one at all.
Live on stage the man is a whole other thing. Whether at the Gov’s Ball or the Clapton Crossroads, or, indeed, opening for King’s Of Leon, which he will be doing early next year, GCJ is aiming for the highest reaches of rock God status.
Rick Ross went from a Biggie Smalls soundalike to a big fat gangsta rapper with a major maybach crew and a headlining slot at Beacon Theater this Friday. If he lives long enough he could be as big as Big Pun.
Wicked Games – The Weeknd – The sound of modern r&b is a slo mo dub step droopiness that the youngsters seem to dig today, if it had a better melody maybe I’d agree that this production star is big time – C+
The problem with Taylor’s contemporaries, with the Katy Perrys and Lady Gagas, and even music producers from Dr. Luke to the Weeknd, is that while the music may sound great and everybody can write a hook in 2013, the songs are the weak spot. And that’s where Taylor excells, even by country music’s standards the woman can write a song, by modern pop standards she is a genius.
A King of Lebanese pop music who put colloquial Lebanese into song alongside such giants as Egyptian pop maestro Farid El Attrach and crossover Fairuz. One of the most beloved pop stars in Lebanon, if you can hear Arab pop, you’d love him.
A gormless Thor, a Shakespearian Odin, a Needlemeyer Loki, an underused Rene Russo as Mrs. Odin, and Natalie Portman who has now officially run out of every single inch of goodwill I’ve ever had with her as a weak as dishwater Jane Foster, the love interest
To be this big, the biggest selling female singer of all time, you must be connected to a huge audience on a subconscious level, as though beneath the woman lies the woman who is an every woman.
Gammage should cover Bowie by the way, including this terrific remix. Springsteen? I haven’t felt this strongly about a Springsteen song in years. One more thing, if I had the time I would love to give Luscious Jackson a long listen.
When You Sleep – My Bloody Valentine – From their album before last, they owe a sonic debt to JAMC but paid it back years ago and they’ve paid it back in full and here the melodic feedback and close harmonies are a harbinger of sound to come – A
Bandshe sound like Fiona Apple without the breakdowns meets Daughter without the hipster tag, while managing one of the great tricks of our time, being solipsistic and universal at the same time.
I think you’ve got Testament dropping early January and one of the good ones of 2013 is gonna be one of the great ones of 2014. Absolutely, if you have any sense of wanting to be a part of pop music next year both Rudimental and John are a good place to start
Ooly in Disney can the sands of change run in verse and we get Goodman and Crystal as college kids in the almost equally excellent backstory “Monsters University”. Before they were “scarers” Scully and Mike were trying to become scarers
