Four from Rebel Heart because business is business and I love the album any way, but none off Hard Candy, Confessions From The Dancefloor, American Life, I’m Breathless (though I seriously considered “Hanky Panky”) and Who’s That Girl? Two from Music and three from Ray Of Light.
The first thing that jumps out here is the complete lack influence his teenage daughters have over Barack Obama.on this playlist. one of whom is pictured above in a “Pro Era” tee shirt -the rap collective which includes Joey Bada$$ and Dirty Sanchez. Perhaps we don’t expect the POTUS to be namechecking them, but this is the man who quoted Jay Z’s “Dirt Off Your Shoulders” on the Presidential trail and pals about with Queen Bey, so he must have a feel for pop but pop is resolutely invisible. .
So given the facts, I neither want to provide a link and barely want to mention them at all. I just went in search of a quote of one of their dumbass reviewers, but all three I read were pretty good so here is the upcoming albums. You know what to expect right, Jason Isbell, The Chemical brothers and Tame Impala and that’s just next week…
“I AM THE GREATEST LIVING ROCKSTAR ON THE PLANET!” Kanye West claimed at Glastonbury yesterday and if you disagree maybe you should move on to bro country… I can’t think of a planet where that probably isn’t true and if West is the divining line in modern pop music stick me on any side he is on.
There is a sense of today about the setlist, it is so deeply buried in the present and personally if I had my choice only two of these songs would be on the setlist and that is why, if nothing else at all, Mo goes his own way and does his own thing. Morrissey Is None Of My Business…
I like the kid a lot, but don’t love him, still he has a handful of cracker songs. Two of his best songs are here, one of them “Even My Dad Does Sometimes” is MIA. Plus a little skimpy? I figure he is giving 90 minutes.
Er, I love U2 live even if I can’t much take em on record but really… to evoke his childhood this way is to provoke nausea in most people. I get it though, it is like Smallville and wee little Bono is the Superboy dreaming of saving the world.
The following excerpts from Steve Crawford’s book “1000 Essential Songs from the 1970s focuses on Texas born or Texas based artists with entries from Waylon, Willie, Ray Price, ZZ Top, Billy Joe Shaver, the late, great Townes Van Zandt, and many other musicians who were completely comfortable wearing cowboy hats.
Sure, songs remind you of times and places but does it remind you of some girls. For me I tend to let the girl dictate to me the song and I don’t mean our song, she might not even know it is our song, but somethings a song and a girl will come together…. Here is five such times.
What was the most important and influential U.S. city in terms of 1970’s music? A strong argument could be made for Philadelphia. Producers Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff, and Thom Bell created a silky soul sound that resulted in a string of hit records early in the decade and the disco beat was popularized by MFSB drummer Earl Young. Listed below are 18 tracks that were Philly creations, then several more inspired by the same sound and production techniques
After the British Invasion took America by storm in 1964, U.S. radio listeners long remained fascinated with U.K. musicians, who often were simply updating the Delta and Chicago blues traditions with a better sense of style. The U.K. bands represented below range from the traditional hard rock and metal of The Who and Led Zeppelin to the more progressive rock styles of The Moody Blues and Pink Floyd
Their organ/percussion heavy version of “Apache” wasn’t a hit, but was latter dubbed “the national anthem of hip hop” and has been sampled by Missy Elliot, LL Cool J, Moby, Nas, and Grandmaster Flash. Drummer Jim Gordon, who had played with Derek and the Dominoes, was responsible for what would become one of rap music’s most famous beats.
If your ears were glued to pop radio stations in 1981, you would have been enjoying “Endless Love” by Diana Ross and Lionel Richie, “Lady” by Kenny Rogers, and “Theme from ‘Greatest American Hero’ (Believe It or Not)” by the handsome and multi-talented Joey Scarbury. Scarbury also recorded “Flashbeagle” for the 1984 Peanuts special It’s Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown, an animated tale about a rogue pooch who was repeatedly arrested for indecent exposure.
This list of songs belong to my friend Steve, who is a very nice guy and a very social guy. I like some of em, “Judas” is an inspired choice, “Faith” a great song by any standards, but is “Stairway To Heaven” really a song of faith? Indeed, how is “Both Sides Now” a song of faith. I mean faith in not knowing?
One of the saddest days in the year for me are Father’s Day, it is the one where it becomes clear that I have no children and nieces and nephew aren’t a substitute. It is a day dreamy concern (I don’t like the responsibility of a woman or a cat so it would be a form of hell…) but when you hear songs like this it triggers something. Less the urge to continue the Iman line and much more the urge to be loved
Scroll around the page and you will find what you are looking for, from ‘baroque ensemble’, to ‘pop gaze’, from Arab folk’, to ‘French punk’ and ‘Ukrainian rock’, from ‘filter house’ to ‘new rave’, you name i
My problem with the Who in 2015 (well, 2013) is they are too bombastic, I love the psychedelic pop group Who vastly more than the heavy duty hard rock band. Much better “I’m A Boy” than “Behind Blue Eyes”. Still, this is a great setlist, it is a careerist setlist. I can’t wait to see em at Barclay Center. “I Can See For Miles” was the fourth song I ever learnt to play…
“Crawford, you are a first rate goldbricker. When will you start earning your keep, you lousy bum?” “Um…hello…is this my mom?” “Funny. Do you know what it means to be a contributing writer to Rock NYC?” “Limited street cred with aging punk rock strippers?” “It means you actually write for us. Alyson Camus sends in more articles in a week than you do in six months.”
This setlist might have problems selling Arenas in the US (forget stadiums). Where is “Madness” for one obvious question? And while there best live moment is here “Stockholm Syndrome”, it assumes too much on the audience. What is “Agitated” doing here?
I have been thinking hard about the new Laura Marling album, Short Movie, getting ready to review the Tuesday release, and also getting ready for the Monday concert at Warsaw. I’ve had it in heavy rotation and then began dipping into Laura’s earlier albums.
Our Song – Despite the fiddle and the plunking guitar and the hee haw, this was a pure pop stroke that stands as a highway sign to the next three years and an instantly romantic song, thanking god for another great day.
This was City Winery, you can’t find ticket brokers for it, they don’t provide tickets so why didn’t I think, “oh ok, I haven’t heard Croz yet, but if it is a dog I’ll just blow off the $60 or whatever and if it is good? So much the better, right? That was what a smart person would do but nooooo.
Working her way through her ninth and one of her best albums, the recently released Vulnicara, what I know about the show is what I read in the tabs: the Post, NYT and USA Today all raved, though, reading between the lines a little, Bjork and her 15 member orchestra may have been a little snoozy at times.
I am as completely unbiased when it comes to music as I can be,, and if you want proof here is my review of Madonna at Yankee Stadium. But there is doubting her pop music genius and while Lady Gaga may one day find herself in the same league, it sure hasn’t happened yet.
Maroon 5 are performing a skimpy though career spanning 17 song set. Three out of the four songs from V (their latest) are already hits, though the five songs from Overexposed feels like overkill and surely Songs About Jane is over represented
My problem with The Big Picture is my problem with Kat: her voice is so damn distinctive even when she is covering blues, country, rock, it all sounds like Kat. Good over a coupla of songs but a little too much over an hour. But I may be wrong and this is a great setlist.
Well, I know we are both salivating at that three song mini set i the middle of the encore. The only song from Call The Doctor is one of the best they’ve got and it is surrounded by their two other best songs ever. Otherwise, I am less of a fan of their other stuff though they scatter the wealth pretty well and altogether, scuse me if I get very very excited now
An unescapable world for Dylan and a heaven in the heavens for the sun. Dylan gives the song the deepness of age, the weariness it bears itself. The music, more than anywhere else here sounds like classicist (indeed, all the songs here sound like they are arranged for a full orchestra – Grade: A
5 songs from the excellent Blunderbuss but only 4 off Lazaretto, which suggest he realizes he dogged it proper, 8 White Stripes tracks, rwo from the Raconteurs (the best two as well) and nothing from Dead Weather
It sure seems to me as a little late to be pushing the product, plus, except for “Whiskey And Pills” none of it is all that hot. So yeah, serious problem for me. But the hits just keep on coming and just think of this, how many hits does this damn guy have? I lost interest at eight. So, yeah I’m psyched and here is the spotify list…
Hot 97 Presents: The Tip-Off starring Puff Daddy & Snoop Dogg on February 12 th. 2015. A Thursday, which isn’t a Friday but isn’t a Sunday either. And the chance to see two legends, one of whom stands as the inventor of modern hip hop and the other one of the great voices of rap.
Here is the songlist from London’s count down to New Year 2015, punctuated by fireworks and lota other good stuff… and here is a question, why is the lead song by an American? Sure, as European an American as you can possibly get but even so… Plus I Spotified and reviewed it…
If I download a CD, I can only hear it on the PC I downloaded it on with Spotify, but I can hear it anywhere with ITunes. Specifically, when I am listening to concerts I’ve recorded, demos I’ve been sent, like that, I can’t use Spotify.
Taylor was a mentally disturbed, introverted formerly institutionalized guy barely past his teens, who hit it big and became a suicidal junkie and now? Now he is a caustic wit nostalgia MOR trip, maybe the best in the business. I’m sorry I missed it.
Luckily, nobody else feels that 1989 is sad in ways that Red isn’t, that 1989 closes off romantic hope to such a degree and for a woman like Taylor, from what we know and believe about her, friendship and freedom isn’t really a substitute for true loves kiss.
It got me thinking of protest songs for the people of Ferguson. I have somewhat liberal friends who agree with the verdict but I don’t. In the end of the Police Force is 98% white and the population of Ferguson is 98% black, this is, to put it simply, apartheid
The concert was on November 20 2014 and featured Marshall with Neill MacColl on guitar, Henrik Irgens on bass, and Michael Blair, who came over from Stockholm and played drums. Michael introduced Neil, Kirsty’s half-brother and Ewan’s son, to Crenshaw, and the two totally hit it off
I must admit to feeling out of step with modern rock critics (older, younger and inbetween), the problem with his list is its complete indifference to what people actually listen to. Its terrible unpopness.
Show me a show that opens with “Things Have Changed”, includes another movie soundtrack song, the excellent “Waitin’ For You”, has four songs that open albums, five songs off Tempest, (including the two best) and ends with a very early song and a Sinatra song that will be off his next release, and I’ll show you a set worth catching twice.
“The Bottle,” a look at the personal destruction caused by alcoholism, became one of his most famous songs; a sad irony for a man who would later experience significant substance abuse issues that derailed his career.
“Across 100th Street” was the title track for a soundtrack to a 1972 blaxploitation film about solving murder crimes in Harlem. While there is no subtlety in the high schlock arrangement, Womack’s gritty, been there, done that voice gives the lyrics about dope, pimps, and street prostitutes a sense of tragic urban reality.
After Steve Marriott left the Small Faces in 1969, he formed Humble Pie with guitarist Peter Frampton and scored a #4 U.K. hit with “Natural Born Bugie.” Frampton had left by 1972’s Smokin’ album, which went to #6 on the U.S. charts. “30 Days in the Hole,” a plaint about drug related jail time, has elements of gospel and blues, with a hard rock sound similar to Free/Bad Company. Sadly, Marriott’s career with sidetracked with chemical dependency issues and he passed away at the age of 44, from a fire he most likely caused by accident.
In the early 1970s, it was a custom for African-American men to sport large Afros, wear polyester suits, and sing in falsettos that made wine glasses tremble. Here are 15 groovy soft songs of love and heartbreak from 1970 to 1972. The line below lists the songwriters and the peak position on the pop charts. I know you can dig it, baby
I asked around and discovered the Wang Theatre was in the middle of nowhere, a big problem for a guy without a car and also, a four hour drive from New York, as opposed to a 90 minute ride to Philly so, I guess i saw no choice. I’d actually caught Stevens 20 minute set at Barclay Center earlier this year and had been very very impressed; it really is a must see.
the exciting young Australian rapper who ruled the summer with two smash songs, “Fancy” and “Problems” and then “Black Widow” bringing up the rear. Meanwhile her debut album The New Classic might not be the revelation her debut EP, 2011’s excellent Ignorant Art, hey she will be playing songs from both on Friday.
The Heart That Time Forgot – Kelly Willis – MCA Nashville made her a star but not on the Bang Bang album, her sophomore effort and still a masterful 80s country album with strong countrypop songs including this one by Nashville pro Kostas Lazarides. Willis aches through the melody and the guitar break is simple and understated.
So what do we make of the setlist? Quite a bit from the new one, a handful of oldies, some obscurities, tons of stuff I want to hear but he won’t be playing. Tracks off that double that wasn’t a double with Cardinals. “Oh My Sweet Carolina” as close to a must play as there is. Personal fave “Crossed Out Name”.
For better or worse, I’ve started on a book about 1970s popular music. I plan is to write about 10 entries a day, which means I should have the first draft done sometime in December. I’ve divided each year into pop, rock, soul, and country. Here’s my first 12 rock entries from 1970.
If Howard Devoto set the tone as a sorta quasi arty wanker, Shelley was a good kid fifth former. But as rock fans, they glommed onto the Sex Pistols immediately and soon formed the Buzzcocks, releasing the Martin Hannett produced Spiral Scratch and their current setlist starts with their biggest song on the EP…
A song about a song about being in love, the melody written in 1927 by Hoagy Carmichael, the lyric by the sublime Tin Pan Alley lyricist Michael Parrish, Hoagy was 28 at the time! Covered and covered and covered, this is the version to find with Armstrong half mumbling, half emoting the sweet dream of a dream of a memory lyric “Sometimes I wonder why I spend the lonely nights dreaming of a song, the melody haunts my reverie and I am once again with you.”
