The current issue of Rolling Stone was better. I can’t express my admiration for Weiner’s writing in the current Rolling Stone highly enough. The Lorde interview was good, nothing wrong with it, but the Paul McCartney interview was simply magical
Bad Girl – Avril Lavigne – With Marilyn Manson and I realize I may lose my rock writer credentials for this, but I quite like this meeting of two sounds in one, it’s like ultra bubblegum Marilyn – B-
The video, released a couple of weeks ago, is the sort of version of a song he would once sing for his son, his own “Living Proof”. It is like he took that other worldly heart and he beamed it from his family back to the people who followed him through the long Wrecking Ball tour
Put them together and you have an album that is so lovely it seems to exist somewhere out of the realms of everyday rock and roll. Life can’t be so good, people can’t write such lovely music, can they?
I know I’ve been writing “Applause” is good not great, but it is great compared to the rest of this crap and it is great in context, closing down ARTPOP
Hell, even Kelly is sucker punching us with a seasonal album and it may be ok, at least a coupla songs perked my interest, it isn’t even Thanksgiving yet!
Glad Tidings Take 9 – Van Morrison – Now available on Spotify, this version, a slower, sweeter, more powerful than the version on Moondance, is, alone, worth the time it took to piss off Van and archive the studio sessions – A+
“I absolutely hate them. I hate their somnambulistic country/rock hybrid, which is neither country nor rock. I hate their combination of well-crafted, uninspired studio “perfectionism” and the insufferable conceit of ego monsters Henley and Frey”
I wish Young was playing with Crazy Horse and not, as appears to be the case, solo. While an acoustic set might work like a ringing bell in this acoustic cathedrl, he has been so great electric I wanna hear that
ARTPOP sounds like Lady Gaga’s version of Madonna’s Music, a breather and a makeover, but with everything just a little better. Already significantly superior to Born This Way, it may well end up being a Thanksgiving Turkey before Thanksgiving is here and I am not sure why musically.
The last time I saw Billy was at the 12-12-12 gig, and the time before that the closing of Shea Stadium. He was terrific in one and not terrible in another but absolutely the perfect way to take out (or bring in) 2013 – 2014.
I plan to mine Morrissey’s “Autobiography” for every post I can get and through the first 50 pages, documented every song he mentioned! So with no further ado, the first 10 songs that formed a Smith!
Heavy Metal Heart – Sky Ferreira – The best moment on her amateur hour opening slot for Vampier Weekend a coupla months ago, the album has lots of great moments, and this isn’t even the best – B
Matangi – M.I.A. – This isn’t any better than Vicki Leekx, but it isn’t any worse, and it has “Come Walk With Me”, a potential dance crossover hit and so many beats it’s gonna seriously shake up your life – A
Back to the beginning: if the magnificent “Reflektor” doesn’t break pop OR dance, what will? And if the point of the album is to reboot the franchise, what will they do with a dud? They will tour it and become Arena rockers.
With the recent passing of Lou it stands as a tribute and more than a tribute, it is like Phil took an old black and white picture from the 1920s and gave it color and life.
Winchester Cathedral – New Vaudeville Band – In the mid 1960s appropriating sounds from the 1920s was all the rage and here NVB sound like a time machine band with a foghorn, blaming an ancient building for the singer being stoof up at the alter – A-
“Ender’s Game” isn’t a particularly good movie but it is better than “Gravity” and Asa is a terrific actor with a perfect mix of innocence curdled and naivete paid off. In a sense the directing of Asa in the movie exactly mirrors the directing of Ender in the movie.
‘ve heard the Eminem and M.I.A. and I love them both, also I’ve heard some of Midlake and I like that a lot as well. Also, Tennis are a real good band and Hellogoodbye are above average emo rockers, Cut Copy are the EDM you love to hate, haven’t heard Luscious Jackson in awhile AND FINALLY… Celine Dion and James Blunt missing Halloween by that much.
The rock and roll world reeled from the death of one of the all time greats Lou Reed and I wrote “this outpouring of affection for Lou Reed: it is like mourning Scrooge if Scrooge had died before he was visited by the ghosts.” though I was pretty upset myself.
The John Newman album is so great that I don’t care if Arcade Fire sold more, it is the top of my charts. This guy is waiting to blow up big, his Bowery Ballroom gig early next year is impossible to get a ticket for and from every bit of film of him live I’ve seen it all, this guy is the real deal
At the 2013 Electric Zoo “Eat Sleep Rave Repeat” was the national motto and Fatboy Slim actually does it justice, and that’s one of four good new songs on the chart including, shockingly enough, the only time the Wanted have ever trounced One Direction and not including the lousy new Eminem. Eminem has some killers on his new album and this ain’t that.
Galang – M.I.A. – I would claim it was a highlight of Friday’s gig but so was everything else, instead I’ll claim it is the only the second song with the words “London Calling” in them that’s a masterpiece – A
From the crushing deep pain of extreme pain to the punishing deep pain of success, M.I.A. holds her paranoia like a weapon but she let it drop for 70 minutes and builds her world behind the beatings upon beatings of a place where the third and the first world meets.
the melodies are consistent and tuneful, the songs very well designed and executed, and the entire enterprise a pleasure. You can even waltz to one song. Now all I have to do is find the courage to show the review to him.
Sure he died and that sucks and it was a little too young, I mean, he might have made it do 86, why not, right? BUT the outpouring of love and affectionate, the willful misreading of the man, the canonization of Lou… I bet Lester Bangs is scratching his head somewhere wondering how the hell that happened.
I think we can all agree that Jay- Z schooled Justin Timberlake in stadium rock at Yankee Stadium last summer BUT Arena rock? My bet is young Justin is gonna kill it at Izod Center on Saturday.
1960s classic from the middle class Cilla Black, a sort of London answer to Cilla’s Beatles backed working class girl. This is a classic that bypassed the US but just listen to how it goes down an octave an the denouement. It’s like the voice of doom! – A
It is about itself as much as anything you will ever hear, it is self-referencing and not past referencing: it circles itself in family and lives inside its own sound and feel and world. Despite a few folk song, it sounds more like itself than an idiom, or a form.
The lesson here isn’t David Bowie’s The Next Day, it is Justin Timberlake’s two 2013 releases. Buoyed by two smash hits, 20/20 has been on the charts all year, whereas without a hit single in sight, 2 of2 disappeared.
Mick Jagger took an 18 year old Katy who was singing back up on “Old Habits Die Hard” to dinner and then made a pass at her. That was ten years ago or so which would have made Jagger sixty years old.
Barclaycard should sponsor best live show award while they are at it by the way, but they haven’t so OK, I will let Jake win this one without too much whining about my girl losing.
Arcade Fire, Maria Taylor, Linda Thompson ruled this week, I could have filled every position with their songs. AF, maybe I’m being difficult but I really do like it, and Maria and Linda are both on my top 10 albums list of 2013.
(She) – JD Samson And Men – Soundscape of beeps and beats and techno jive experimental dance with repetition in the nix and intoned calls to a female deity – B+
Justice always matters but past the question of the LAPD either investigating or closing the file on Elliott, or punishing wrongdoers if indeed there are any, what does it matter whether Smith jumped or was pushed?
As Fast As My Feet – Linda Thompson – A pop song but an old fashioned one that walks on its title melodic hook all the way there, with a sound not folk but folk-rock and of course, Linda’s gorgeous voice.
6. Something About Knowing – Maria Taylor – One of the top indie Queens finds a truth within the truth, a truer truth in true love, marriage and childbirth, then she tells us how it feels to be a mother and how it feels to know what she didn’t know. A miraculous album.
ARMS – Studio At Webster Hall, Tuesday, October 15th, 2013 – Todd Goldstein is a one band except he has a full band and they take the stage to a soundscape indie rock of power and beauty and a smart sound you would do well to listen to.
Still Into You – Paramore – The band’s greatest moment off their excellent current album is a total hook lined wonder of love and connection – A
Whether Morrissey shall turn out to be the hero of his own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, this post must show.
Wallace died last week at the age of 70. She is survived by her son, Michael Hawley. One part actress, one part MILF, RIP Mrs. Krabappel
When you love somebody you feel them differently, they inspire you elsewhere and differently. It is as if you see inside them. In music, when you feel it in a certain way, it becomes divine, the person you see is not the person they were. And then when you fall out of love, they fall to earth and become something else
The same three top three songs for 7 weeks and counting and the rest of the songs have been most bubbling around for a month or so.
Prism sold more than 2 thru 9 combined and I guess that means sales are still in free fall because it’s not as though Prism sold a million or even half a million units.
A Lullaby For You – Maria Taylor – Sleep deprived Maria wrote this as a melody she sang to her infant son every night that slowly became a full song and lead her all the way to her current album, Something About Knowing, it is like a deep dream of infancy and hope and protection – A
I expected a performance off the charts and I got a snooze; Sunday night Drake was disappointing, Monday it was jackson’s turn to put us to sleep. Del McCoury would have told Alan bluegrass isn’t about musing.
…”It’s like all of a sudden — nobody would look at the Runaways, they’d laugh. Everybody really slagged us, everybody: no radio play, all bad press. Then the Runaways break up and you try this and you leave and you come back and finally. FINALLY…”
It feels fake, I know it isn’t and I realize people are really grieving but it feels like they’ve got it wrong and Helen has it right. I hate sentimentality, I hate pathos, I prefer the messy hardness of tough emotions.
“A story’s around that, at the time of Rihanna’s punching, allegedly he’d been texting homosexuals. The story says this triggered their fight.”
The rest of the world will ignore because, well, because it is like reading “Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix” without ever knowing the first books. The album, New, doesn’t stand alone.
