Iman Lababedi

Like A Prayer MDNA World Tour/Live 2012 – Madonna – Just what the world needs? A masterful song performed live for the umpteenth time as part of her worst tour ever. Just wonderful – C

Andre and Hayley are much older than Jimi and I were, and it shows… A lot of people will go and see it who have never read any of the biographies and they will think it’s the gospel truth

Okay – Holy Ghost! -People keep ion comparing em to New Order but surely LCD is the influence here. This is a terrific dance track with a whompf sample interrupting the proceedings, like a hook that just misses annoying and gets to catchy – A

Elvis Presley, has been dead nearly 40 yearsold now and yet here is Cliff: stil doing it, still touring, recording, performing. In the States? I’ve had my eye out for decades but if he has played nyc I must have been asleep at the wheel.

In what amounts to a good week for new releases, the new Holy Ghost is a stunning dance album that Arcade Fire and Daft Punk will find tugging on their tail. “Dumb Disco Ideas” -superb track they pounced all over at Gov’s Ball earlier this year, is just one of many

Charlie Fink and I continue to lick our wounds after being rejected by Laura Marling. I think that would have been my first question: “Hey girl, what were you thinking when Charlie started sobbing uncontrollably? Were you wishing he’d take the night off?”

The band themselves are on fire throughout this album and if David Barnes harp hijacked the Howling Wolf EP, Mark Henry’s horns steals this one. There are three guitarists here and you keep on going back to the horns, everything they touch they take over;

Arcade Fire’s new single “Reflektor” leaked on Saturday and has been on heavy rotation ever since; a disco marvel that reminds me of LCD Soundsystem (for obvious reasons)

Neon Jungle’s dance rave house rusher is awesome and will definitely break here given the chance. Plus, don’t get me wrong, I don’t much like “Roar”, I just admire it for doing what it was created to do: hit thew top of the charts.

OK, sure, congrats to 1975, but, while not out Stateside yet what I’ve heard from Babyshambles new album is really good. I can’t wait to give it a proper test drive. Pete Doherty is like Keith Richards on fast forward

GiGi is a revelation to me, I’d heard her before on several Doncker songs (A lot of Doncker right, tonight is the True Groove release party), but I finally decided to check her out more and discovered a superb 1998 album One Ethiopia.

There is a brooding silliness to the performance but also an energy and rock and roll arrogance. The music is serious back of the Hall arena rock and when they get everything firing it is fun

The thing about QOTSA is they seem to be unable to play a riff without countering it with another one, everything is so complex it feels like showing off… and this from a guy who used to play with Screaming Trees

The beats are industrial and that figures but the hooks are industrial as well, and the melodies indelible in this brilliant album; not a return to form, they have never had this sort of form before. Experimental? Sure, it experiments with accessibility and achieves it- ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A-

Iit is Paul McCartney’s week with a classic McCartney harmony bridge, not to mention melody. The man, even when he sucks at everything else, can write a melody and this one is pretty damn good. So why is Ella Eyre’s picture illustrating this post? Have you seen Paul lately?

Now that we can no longer be Bon Iver fans, maybe it is time to turn our attention to Justin Vernon’s ambient wall of sound moody music Volcano Choir

Twosongs feature the great Bill Laswell, one with Doncker and one with Jah Wobble, the former Public Image Ltd bassist and one time… taxi driver??? Heading the list is blues rapping Ray!

I went in search of other other interviews and they fucking sucked. I could get more enlightening stuff out of her in five minutes than the diabolical Consequence Of Sound interview could in… well in how ever long they spent trying to get it.

The Twist – Chubby Checker – More than a dance a way out of 1950s, it was a trendsetting world changing romp of sex and sauce and, lest we forget, miscegenation – A

Despite my attempts to have Lady Gaga win this battle of the pop queens with her fine but no more and no less that fine “Applause”, she couldn’t do it. And while both Perry and Gaga were pretty lame at the VMA’s there is no discounting one crystal clear fact: Katy Perry has the most popular song in the country

Former Lazy Cowgirls takes his latest band, the wonderfully name rankoutsiders, on a rockabilly rave up here and leaves us the better for it. Meanwhile, Mary has woken up to Vampire Weekend so I refreshed myself before catching em live later this month

Laura Marling? Those four songs art the top of her current release is the best stuff I’ve heard all year and she is playing MHOW on Sunday and Monday -sold out but tix aren’t that pricey and it is a huge gig. I saw her earlier this year and it was the second best concert of the year

Avenged Sevenfold sell an OK for 2013 150,000+ units, for their second best selling album so far, and that’s the album charts for you, a shove and a push and it’s there.

And so, Katy conquors Robin and Stephani and grabs the throne where she roars through her Sara Bareilles rip off . It’s a wonderful thing, isn’t it? The magical mayhem known as the US charts where patterns form and dissolve before your very eyes.

Bonnie McKee is being steadied before blowing up big on the scene. “American Girl” is #100 on Billboard and the higher it goes, the better the grade.

Theme From “A Summer Place” – Percy Faith – 1960 – That melody line gentle swing from chorus to verse through to the bridge and back feels like a sumemr breeze – A

The 15 seconds off the upcoming Arcade Fire will get your heart pumping, and the Nine Inch Nails remix is much more Todd than Trent and the better for it. Both Kurtis and Annie are reflections of the Jahn Xavier interview, Pet Shop Boys is a terrific disco

Absolutely, this is a fabricated version of the bands but what isn’t, did you want to see them in a different light? . At its best, it explains why 1D became so big, it is revealing in the ways of chemistry and kindness. 1D are a good band and they deserve their success.

Story of the week was the Electric Zoo closed down a day early after two ODs related to Molly. The next step hasn’t happened yet but you don’t need to be a genius to know where it is going. I tried Ecstasy once in my youth and wasn’t thrilled

The first three are left over from Electric Zoo and the 1D from the movie, Nine Inch Nails are such a disappointment and Starlight Girls followed rock nyc on twitter. Yes, folks, that’s what it takes to get graded her