You won’t know it from the reviews, but if these three songs are anything to go by, this won’t be much of an addition to the canon, in much the same way and for many of the same reasons the last Beach Boys album wasn’t. Like Bruce and Paul, and an army of others, Brian does what he did only not half as well.
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?
I Don’t Prefer No Blues – Leo “Bud” Welch – hard electric guitar blues by an unknown master who just celebrated his 83rd birthday and 50th year in Church and hear sounds like maybe you should be locking up your daughters. Man, is this guys mojo working.
Joan Of Arc – Madonna – An impossibly fragile madge, shows her heart is going up in flames as scumbugs like your truly put her through the ringer for being a middle aged diva well past her prime. Which she might well be, but you can’t tell from this song
Dream Lover – The Vaccines – The band behind the excellent “Post Break Up Sex” are back and the song is a thumping riff but without the prerequisite melodic buzz. It is like when your teen friend grows up and becomes a complete pain in the neck. This is a bluesy disappointment – C
Laura, Alisson, Madonna and Brandi all got two songs on this list, and that is while I was making a concerted effort not to get more than one song off an album. A very strong month for songs, although not for albums. I would love to see Alisson live again, but she doesn’t appear to be playing roud are way.
Impossibly lovely and gentle, a lost love track with Zayns lovely voice, 1D will really miss his impossibly beautiful voice and if he continues working with the truly gifted Khan, this could prove a great collaboration, while adding a touch of credence to what I was writing yesterday about Pakistan and the UK
A memento mori for the Mom he barely knew, this softly acoustic folk album conjures the ghost of Elliott Smith to show how beautifully you can sing about the saddest things. I never really liked Sufjan but I could be wrong, you know – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A-
Great Expectations – Toto – The thing about prog-rock is that it is smug for no reason, it is the Bob Lefsetz of popular music, highbrow content for low brow sensibilities. This song closes out the new Toto album and the only thing we know for sure is lower your expectations right now – D
I saw the Drifters a coupla years ago, whoever was with them then, with the Drifters at least there was always a lot of singers coming and going ( around 60 by my reckoning) but they didn’t go within a million miles of their 70s hits. Still, more than a number in your little black book,go on Amazon to check em out, the 70s Drifters isn’t on Itunes or Spotify.
St. Jude – Florence + The Machine – Ever since seeing a lousy set at Radio City, Florence Welch sure felt like a lost cause but this full bloodied ballad feels like a return to form; a gorgeous, powerful song that should make its way up the charts with ease – A
I missed this 82 year old Gospel blues man from (where else) Mississippi debut album last year but this more secular take on the blues is ridiculous. Full throttle, hardcore with tons of guitar, all filthy dirty, and a man who sounds his age and that is perfect for the blues. Listen to Welch yelp on “I Don’t Know Her Name” and stand back in awe. from the Delta to your house, this is a great set and a must hear – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A
“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.”
“Go Out” a goodie with a very catchy chorus and a singalong attitude even if it doesn’t entirely lend itself and “There Are Too Many Of Us”a dreary somewhere in the middle of it all slog through overpopulation and now here is # 3, which exists somewhere in the middle.
I have gone back to Pimp-Butterfly over and over again and I am stuck respecting it more in theory than enjoying it in practise. I really don’t like feeling OBLIGED to like something that is leaving me more bemused than amused.
With a handful of early releases, here is some before the early review reviews, two are retreads three are new reviews, all are pretty good without changing the world.
Morrison sounds great as he sings everything from Irish lullabies to the purest of blues, with soul, pop and everything else there as well; no longer young, he never really sounded all that young any way and now he sounds timeless. Morrison recently decried the state of rhythm and blues (no rhythm, no blues was his assessment) and here you hear wh
If it works from the edges, if it is clearly bewildered, if it could only send her away and if true love, or at least true hope, is so difficult to cling to, these are flaws in life not song.Perhaps at her age, it is wrong to search out a new thesis, her failure here is in laying one out, in a confessional that doesn’t know where it’s at
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.
“I’ll Be There” and “Back In The Old School” are simply first rate and the reason is the same precise reason “Get Lucky” was so great, Rodgers, rhythm master guitar is sublime on both tracks, on “I’ll Be There” it is so huge it powers the entire track, on “Old School” the horns do more than merely back it up and if Bernard Edwards, through no fault of Niles, is not along, and Alfa Anderson, Luci Martin, and Norma Jean Wright., who would have been a huge addition to these songs
Overall, It is a beautiful listening experience, Avett and Mayfield’s voices have a real chemistry and the harmonies are delightful, however, there is a few things missing. ‘Baby Britain’ has lost some of its nervousness and energy, while ‘Somebody That I used to Know’ and ‘Let’s Get Lost’ are respectively all bright harmonies and all melancholic depression
Entropy – Grimes And Bleachers – This is where Grimes makes her move back on the charts as a mainstream popstar with help from Jack Antonoff, making both popsters better on this bubblegum downer of immense proportions – A-
Not that I wish him dead of course, he is a really nice guy, but because his haunting vocals and song constructions, his beautiful damaged persona, his ghost of Jeff Buckley (not to mention Roy Orbison) personality would be so very much more popular if he was indeed a ghost.
There is Beatle cover bands and then there is anything former Styx Glen Burtnick adds his name to. Last time I saw Glen he was playing McCartney to Marshall Crenshaw’s Lennon at BB Kings, here he is the Neil Innes of contemprary power pop. Maybe more than that, these are less satiric copies and more stand alones which make their own case – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A-
Wrong Crowd – Young Guv – There is nothing not surprising about Ben Cook, whose Fucked Up third guitarist is more an offshoot of his other work. Like this disco mood piece with a very steady beat and bass motif – B+
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.
Between money, success, the black man’s plught and the wages of sin, this is not untypical hip hop land thematically and while Kenrick can rhyme like a motherfucker, that ability hides his shallowness to a certain extent. Sometimes he is worth listening to, sometimes he is too self-obsorbed.
I have my eye on the new Alisson Moorer, she was so good with her ex husband Steve Earle a coupla years ago, and given the turmoil of her last year, I wonder how deep she can cut? To the bone? For sure, it will be better than Earle’s Terraplane, if not better then her former stepson’s Absent Fathers
The sound of this CD is high quality but the only deterrent is that on a few songs you truly get to hear every note that the late “Phantom” Dan Federici plays. This is not the best live show that I have heard them play but between you and me, I would gladly give up a couple years of my life to have been there in person. Ladies and gentlemen, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band…
With news that JB is playing this middle of Brooklyn King’s Theatre in September, it is as good as any excuse to give the man a spin. This late period, romantic dream is everything Browne does best, reminds me of an ex, and the “solitary nature notwithstanding” line still hits home – A
I’ve written before about the impermanence of what feels like it will last forever. The way the Ramones were always playing around town in the late 1970s, early 1980s, we just assumed it and now it felts like a dream. In the 1990s, Morrison recorded album after album in the 1990s -TWELVE! We thought it would never end but in the 2010s he has recorded exactly one album of new material
The first song off his eagerly anticipated collaboration with Pharrell is a Parliament/Funkadelic soundalike plus Snoop rap, and what is wrong with that? Nothing, but it isn’t exactly a shocker either and the heart of the song is a blad everyman modern hip hop veneer on a nothing special track – C+
This is their first new album in decades and while Jo Callis is missed, Fay Fife is here and though these have moments of maturity (sadly) and though there is nothing as great as “(My Baby) Does Good Sculpture” -what do you care if you’re listening to “Spike Heel Assassin”? Terrific, fun, a little older, not much wise… and FAY FIFE – ALBUM OF THE WEEK A-
This is the truest song you will hear about how death effects the living, it is so mournful it hurts to listen to it. When I saw him perform the album at Carnegie Hall, it sounded like words left unsaid. Today it feels like the deepest recesses of untimely grief. His greatest and most human song.
the Van-Womack duet is here now and it is wonderful, everything the terrible Michael Buble couldn’t begin to bring to “Real Real Gone”, Womack brings to “Peace Of Mind” -a punchy, upbeat r&b workout with Van and Bobby trading off on lines before bringing it home together.
I Really Like You – Carly Rae Jepsen – So this is the FOLLOW UP follow up to “Call me, maybe” and I will be surprised if it isn’t a hit but I’ll be shocked if it I a huge hit… Sure catchy songs should have an irritatant factor, but not the first time you hear em – B
Country singer songwriter dabbles in rock and roll and comes out the better for it even if not always, “The Eye” is such a great song it makes the riff of “The ainstream Kid” soound pedestrian. At its best it is as good as this ten year veteran can get, at its worse it is pretty good – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – B+
A really awesome, hard rocking classicist heads down piece of ultra catchy rock and rock glammy rocking whomp, and a benefit for a rock nyc friend and good guy, and the Pagans only do it for two and a half minutes?
So Close – Keath Mead – Check out the way he spells his first name and make a decision: is he too precious or too young? My guy is the latter because he can sure write a song, this is a beauty, power folk filtered through a folkie singer songwriterly aesthetic – B+
‘The words to today’s song are taken from Psalm 137. It’s a song of sorrow and rage from the mouth of a refugee whose city has been destroyed. The sorrow portion of the psalm is extremely famous and often quoted – ”How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”
The playing is consistently excellent and the sound, the arrangements, the guitars plus touches, make for an unceasingly pleasant ambient track: the songs and the singing aren’t there, but the music is a pleasure. Hey, they will buy it in the UK and he is always welcome to sell out the Beacon
Up Above My Head – Rhiannon Giddens – Her achievement on this is not to iprove on Sister Rosetta Tharpe, neigh on impossible, but to sing it beautiful and to make make some of its heaven Rhiannon’s very own
If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late – Drake – Remix tape? I prefer it to his last album, though it has no “Hold On, We’re Going Home” or the single that won him a punk from Diddy and a Grammy. Any album with songs as good as “Legend” and “Jungle” needs no caveats at all.
February was a come down afre a terrific January, the difference between the two wasn’t quantity (even though the first two weeks of January were dead so really, January had a lot more good songs, but quality. I’m not certain where to put D’Angelo in the great scheme of things but even if “really Love” was released 2014, for me it is a February song. So not a great February…
When Nate moves away from fun. he sounds like fun. without Jack. If that sounds like a slam, it isn’t. This is a big sound pop extravaganza of the first order. A great song, and an important one for Nate – A-
Ricky Warwick sounds enough like Phil Lynott to tug your memory and not enough to sound a copy, and this band, first a very late Thin Lizzy band and now a foil for Scott Gorham’s lead guitar, made the right choice in changing the band name. without the baggage, or at least without too much of the baggage, you can appreciate it as very good, old time hard rock – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – B+
Gotta Serve Somebody – Pop Staples – Staples covered it on his blues album Father, Father, and this live take off the posthumous new album, ends the proceedings with a stunning take on the Dylan classic, a graceful take – A
It’s a good rock album, straightforward, 90sish but not grunge, sounds like what it is, smart lyrics, straightforward. Nothing as great as “Spin The Bottle” but the first two songs are huge inclusions for the Hatfield songbook.
“I’d like to tell her what, I’m really feeling but…” when I made my peace with my Mom, I did it without really mentioning the past. She was 80 years old and I didn’t have the stomach for it. What difference does it make? But I wish I could have told her about watching her sleeping, sitting quietly by, watching over her. How much I had loved her. I guess it wouldn’t really matter, would it?
Yeah, I haunt the first listen on NPR and seriously hit pay dirt from time to time. This week I have The Pop Group and Screaming Females new albums on heavy rotation. I might listen to these guys more than when the album is actually released.
