The Allman Brothers – The Fillmore East Recordings 1971 – Bill Graham: “Last night we had the good fortune to have them get on stage about 230 3’oclock and they walked out of here at seven o’clock in the morning. And it’s not just that they played quantity but for my amateur ears, in all my life I’ve never heard the kind of music this group plays, the finest contemporary music.” And over 40 years later, a lot of these songs remain central to their live shows – A
Beck + Various Artists – Beck Song Reader – Look at it this way, if you’d never heard “Where It’s At”, would you be listening to this? The worst songs both Laura Marling and Jason Isbell have ever recorded and everything else is just abut as crappy. Musicians like thisbecause it’s hard to play – C
Cosines – Oscillations – Indie pop for London with personality to burn and a kinda New Wave vibiness B
Random White Dude be everywhere – Diplo – Not a good year for EDM, and while Diplo tries to cover everything from Avicii to, well, Diplo and back, the songs aren’t sticky – B-
The Kinks – Classics – The Best Of The Kinks – This was released today and doesn’t begin to answer Steve Crawford and my complaint that the Kinks catalog hasn’t begun to be digitized but it does beg an answer as to how Crawford missed “Stop Your Sobbing” on his best of list – B+
G.R.L. – G.R.L. EP – “Ugly Heart” is a terrific song by this rising from the ashes of The Pussycat Dolls band, everything else is about as good as you’d expect from a band named “G.R.L.”
James Brown – Get On Up The James Brown Story (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) – Here let me help: the movie is all about how Brown transferred his abandonment-Mommy issues on to his career, and the soundtrack is useless to you and me but might do as a primer for some less enlightened souls – B
Eric Clapton And Friends – The Breeze (An Appreciation Of JJ Cale) – After the dire Old Socks, this coulda have been a disaster, but it isn’t, what it does is place Cale out of the “Cocaine” one hit wonder category and into the basic blues canon with some of Clapton’s greatest acoustic warm glow performances since Ocean Boulevard and a cast that includes Petty, Knopfler, Mayer and others rising to the occasion – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A
The Voyager – Jenny Lewis – Not as good as she thinks it is but still her best work since More Adventurous,;the trick isn’t Adams or Beck, the trick is her songs cling to you often enough tp push through the weaker numbers – B+
A Life Worth Living – Marc Broussard – Louisianan boogie by the numbers by a guy seeped in it – B+
Lese Majese – Shabazz Palaces – From the guy who gave us Digital Planet so you know what to expect and you’ll get it – B-
Shawn Mendes – Shawn Mendes EP – Huge disappointment from the teen idol wannabe – C-
Wreckless Eric – Le Beat Electrique – Possibly the most underestimated rocker to come out of Stiff records, this is a lo-fi masterpiece. Plus, before you feel tooooo bad for Eric, remember his gal is Amy Rigby – A
