So now I am going to see both bands, and what this proves is a variant on Herman Edward’s, former NY Jets coach, “You play the game to see who wins”. You play the album to hear what’s good.
I didn’t much like her myself, but I, unlike Morrissey, am not a socialist. I believe in some form of middle ground between rampant monopolies and goverment run business. Thatcher brought the UK back from the brink but she destroyed millions of lives while doing it.
I promised you, I swore on a stack of Bibles, that the Macklemore and Lewis were one hit wonders. Yet here is their second hit, which is why I edit a music website instead of running a major record labell. Otherwise, except for Drake this is very draggy stuff.
Forget everything else and shout out Tyler! Nearly 100K units moved, double the amount of the (admittedly superior) Goblin. Thebreakdown here is interesting, two country albums, one rap, two rock and the rest modern pop. Is rap not having a good year?
The James Blake album is pretty damn good and here are two songs that prove it, Jadakiss? Where the hell has he been? ANd no it isn’t the 2Pac classic though I wish it was. As for Kurt Vile? That song is TEN MINUTES LONG!!!
On Monday night when Stevie and Lindsay shared the stage while Fleetwood and especially Mac kept them steady, it seemed like a type of symbiosis. Everybody was better and especially Stevie managed an artistic habitation I have never seen the pair share before unless you go back to the early early pre-Mac 70s.
I believe we will get the best Sinead imaginable if what she is doing is presenting her favorite spirituals. Among the names the Lincoln Center have mentioned as influences are Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and the Staple Sisters
If you are destroying a native American burial to build a hotel, you can bet the ghosts are gonna be mad. And if you are making a movie about familial genocide over and over again, and you find many references about mass genocide, the chances are excellent Kubrick meant to put it there.
His brand new Duet album finds you with the Anka not of the early 1960s but the mid 1970s when he had convinced himself that he was a modern pop phenom and releasing overorchestrated slop for the people and not Bobby Soxer pop ballads for Sinatra’s audiences children.
50% of this is a nod to Monday nights terrific Fleetwood Mac concert and just how great the missed Christine McVie, the English Beat wrote the very best Thatcher protest song, one of Sinead’s best off her last album, Orange Huice great Buddy Holly soundalike and a great early Pissed Jeans track.
Must enjoy “Law and Order”, cute Jewish ladies, and petting dogs while eating chicken wings. Good sense of humor critical, doesn’t mind his lady touring a lot, must live in New York, no drug addicts, creeps, stalkers, slackers, or vegans. Age, race, and religion: not a factor
If Mamet meant to make the story of Baden becoming reasonably doubtful her client shot Lana, why say it is fictional? What parts are fictional? I mean, if you are casting doubt on the guilty verdict, how can you cast doubt on your casting of doubt?
Sometimes I’ve imagined little trilogies of songs in my head, seeing how a song on the first, second and third albums all form some kind of Vague narrative. But we don’t write rock operas – yet
the member of the Mickey Mouse Club most likely to get a boy through puberty went on to sing more than Disney tunes as she because a babe in bikini and followed it with a successful career in music covering the American songbook and movies. In 1995, Annette announced she suffered from multiple sclerosis and earlier this week she died from it at the age of 70.
Not a bad week at all, the keeper is James Blake but Volbeat are a great band and I got Olly Murs last year in the UK and it is a cracked. Brad Paisley can be iffy tbut he second single off the album killed already and I wonder if Dawes are gonna get sophomore jinxed.
With Paul Williams at Cafe Carlyle later this month, the Bowie and Carpenters are in heavy rotation, and as for the Kermit cover: this is a song tough to screw up though River and Hayley try their very best.
At 72 years old, he has a song on new Daft Punk album as well as a documentary, “Paul Williams Still Alive” which I just downloaded off ITunes for $5.99. The tix to Cafe Carlyle cost $65. He will be there April 23rd to May 4th and if you are serious about pop music you really have no choice so make sure you go.
Bring Me The Horizon’s newbie is so good, light years ahead of Imagine Dragons, a band whose success I find mind bending and strange. Wolf, an album that is growing off me, made into the top 10 so that’s good news.
Duke Dumont is a damn good producer and this is quite a dance mover. I see Buble made it on the charts, I was surprised it had no action in the US. The Nelly is pretty hot in here and otherwise bring on the usual suspects.
Three of these songs are Phil Spector productions, all three are among the greatest music ever made. Should genius let him get away with murder?? Three of these songs are part of the Leonard Cohen effect, “Democracy” is one of the great political songs of our time.
Not every day you get to see a Zen Buddhist Monk enthrall a sold our Radio City Music Hall. Not every singer songwriter’s grandfather was the founding president of the Canadian Jewish Congress. And not every poet can write a lyric like “from the wars against disorder, from the sirens night and day, from the fires of the homeless, and the ashes of decay, democracy is coming to the USA”
Riffs appears to be where it’s at, at least at this stage, for Deaf FM. The hard dark riffs of “Hate Me”, according to the band, is more their style than the gorgeous progressions of the acoustic set I am also including here. My bet is that there is a place where the two will meet up
The surprise of the week is Alkaline, I was so impressed I stubhubbed a tix to their best Buy gig next month, the two here are the best on a real good album. The Chris Brown sticks out as another real good post-MJ dance track. nd the Virgins track? It happens sometimes that I get an album completely wrong and I feel as though I seriously underestimated the new Virgins.
After 17 years pounding out Goth punk anthem, Alkaline Trio have finally released the album of their career. Power punk swirls of smart lyrics, catchy hooks, clever melodies. Who are they? Green Day? “I Wanna Be Your Warhol” (“hanging on your wall-alll”) is a song of the year and so is “I Lied To The FBI” and if they can’t maintain this level of smarts, they don’t miss by much. ALL OF THE WEEK – A-
For a good cause, Clapton’s rehab center, I am going to the Friday of this two day blues guitar extravaganza. Here is a list of everybody performing:Albert Lee, Allman Brothers Band, Andy airweather Low, BB King, Blake Mills, Booker T, Buddy Guy, Gary Clark Jr, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Vaughan, John Mayer, Robbie Robertson, Robert Cray, Robert Randolph, Sonny Landreth, Taj Mahal, Vince Gill and more
Yesterday was Leonard Cohen, tomorrow Fleetwood Mac, and tonight the rejiggered post-rehab Green day and, and I’d forgotten this entirely, Best Coast opening. I wish the new Laura Marling would drop already PS FM are NOT playing #10, one of their best ever.
Impressive line up for this years Gov Ball, the Festival you can go home and take a shower during reaches its third year and I bought a VIP though not a SUPER DUPER VIP. Of the three headliners, I’ve seen all three before and I promise you one thing, if Axl thinks I am waiting around to midnight for him to make his way on stage, he has another thnk coming.
I saw Kris Kristofferson blow Geoge Jones off stage at Carnegie Hall in 2006 and I will stick on to that comment the caveat that Jones had ONE ARM IN A SLING. But even so, I had waited my entire life for that concert and Kris with every reason to be just a nuisance was brilliant with just a guitar.
Last Wednesday saw the eagerly anticipated return to the stage of Fleetwood Mac, the So cal Mac, the Buckingham Nicks plus Mick plus the bluesy couple of McVies with the exception of one of the Mcvies, and, after Buckingham, the most important member of the band. Christine McVie
What do all these bands have in common: Beyonce, Rolling Stones, Depeche Mode, Fall Out Boys, Phoenix, Atoms For Peace, Jay-Z, Barbara Streisand …? They all chose Barclay over Madison Square Garden in an act of unprecedented dissing to the world’s greatest arena. Barclay Center, less than a year old, are slam dunking one show after another and I don’t see why. I am guessing the reason is money but how much more are they paying? Either way, MSG must be right on their toes now.
Rocky rocky… two Fall become somebody I was following on Spotify were listening to them, a disappointment from Jonas Brothers because, well, because I still keep hoping they morph into Hanson and instead they make dross like this faux disco track, second song off upcoming Vile a woofer, Younglood looks like he should be much worse than he is, and the rest are odds and sods new releases.
I am hard pressed to do anything but deeply admire an 8 song set where I loved everything. 8 songs and I was almost in pain I was so disappointed when it was over. I worry about over selling Modern Hut but I place Joe on a continuum of great young songwriters
“Dance dance dance” is the extollation as G-Dragon dashes through the night till the break of day and beyond: every synth and beat is high pitched, smacking twacks of sound
I don’t like Dolan but it is a pain in the ass to go to Barclay’s Center and MSG better start getting their act together or sell the damn place or, preferably, both
As part of a “Golden Age Of The Album” series, the listeners voted on the best albums of all time and what the hell Coldplay’s relentlessly mediocre second album is doing on the # 1 spot is beyond me. Not one album would’ve made my top ten (though several might have made my top 20)
Essentially, Jigga uses his star power to attract the talent, and the Baseball wing of Creative artists management manage em
30% of this is a reflection of Wednesday’s gig, including the # 1, a talented girl singer songwriter whose currency is misery, 40% reflects upcoming concerts, including Alyson faves Cold War Kids (who have yet to improve on “Coffee Spoon”) “Curios” I was curious bout and Kurt Vile s a triumphant nine minutes of guitar.
Yes, folks, it is that time of the year again, the bi-annual tradition. Pitchfork post their list of Spring and Summer releases and we repost while slamming the arrogant , boring music website for being po-faced, self-important know it alls… did I mention poorly written?
In the year of Our Lord 2013, we my never agree on anything again as well as we agree upon how completely awful the Lil Wayne album is. It has taken over five years of a downward spiral of cough medicine, lousy songs and worst lyrics to reach this place. The bottomless pit of lousiness that is Weezy.
This band, Imagine Dragons, they are the death of rock and roll, this is where rock and roll is worst than the worse dance, country (except for Tim MCGraw, of course), hip hop, anything. I am certain they are lovely people, but this time of lugubrious rock is an affront to everything I believe in.
I went to see Modern Hut last night and that explains why two of their songs are here, as for Alkaline Trio -I was shocked out how good these guys are, they had never made the slightest impression. As for Rilo Kiley, this song is the exception not the rule. Plus, why are there liner notes and a cleaning out their closet?
”Freddie told her we were going to the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, a notorious gay bar in London. Diana said she had never heard of it and said she’d like to come. ”Now this was not a good idea. ‘It’s not for you,’ said Kenny, ‘It’s full of hairy gay men. Sometimes there are fights outside.’ This didn’t put her off in the slightest.”
The difference is that DJSsand producers, even the biggest of em, even the David Guettas and Calvin Harris, lack definition wheras the professional wrestlers are ALL definition. Wrestlers can be viewed at a glance while after an astounding 90 minute set by New World Punx on Saturday I am not bigger a fan.
Phil Ramone produced Clay Aiken, Burt Bacharach, The Band, Bono, Laura Branigan, Ray Charles, Karen Carpenter, Chicago, Peter Cincotti, Natalie Cole, Bob Dylan, Sheena Easton, Melissa Errico, Gloria Estefan, Aretha Franklin, Billy Joel, Elton John, Quincy Jones, Patricia Kaas, B. B. King, Julian Lennon, Shelby Lynne, Madonna…
I remember the bar and I remember the pinball machine where I spent my life playing flippers through some of the greatest bands to ever grace the stage and a whole lot of the worst. The real question is, what will Jahn Xavier make of it?
30% of these songs reflect the BBC Radio 2 best albums of all time list, 10% is a reminder that Rilo Kiley weren’t all miniskirt and hype amd 60% are new releases of which Tyler, The Creator and Erykah Badu together should never work this well but does and 60s Soul and Gospel live up to Crawford’s high opinion.
I find the material distressing ordinary and much much better on covers of Jimi “He taught us 50% of everything we know” Hendrix than on simply mediocre stuff like “Flashback”.
The latest in a line that goes back at least to Marvin Gaye and maybe more like Chuck Berry and Louis Armstrong, black boys damaged by the USa and breeding in into eccentric far reaching art.
A quarter of the year through 2013 and it is a bit of a loser. Music has been on a slow but constant trickle down ward since Black Eyed Peas failed to change EDM with The END. So many big bands have brought out bad albums over the past two years and if bad is too strong, just say whatever albums, let downs, nothing you will remember in three months from now. Some of them (Hi Justin Timberlake!) may well be on this very list.
Absolutely zero doubt that Tyler The Creator is the man to beat this week, his new album Wolf is already among the best of 2013. And I am not certain Rio Kiley are the band for an odds and sods compilation, certainly “Let Me Back In” was pretty lousy and if you are waiting for a new “With Arms Outstretched” you better hurry they won’t wait, they also won’t provide it.
