Winner – Tom Stoppard – One of the most thrilling musical-theatrical experiences of the year has been the great Czech-English Playwright’s comedy about moral ethics inspired by Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon, Darkside.
Face The Crowd – Beady Eye – In the worst albums of the year sweepstake, the sophomore effort by Liam’s band is way up there. This song is remarkable in how little it has going for it – D+
The songs are just plain awful, all of them, even “Let It Go”, even “Let It Go” when sung by Idina Menzel, certainly one of the best Broadway singers of the 21st Century, even with a Idina Menzel portraying Princess Elsa, the Snow Queen -a sort of Silver Surfer who can’t control her powers
Actually, they seem to be more influenced by their fans than anything else, since their fans had launched an online petition asking them to cancel the show scheduled for February 15th 2014. Whatever, it’s a good thing they have decided to boycott Seaworld,
Me, I love Cher if I don’t have to look or listen to her in 2013, Like, I love her in theory even if in practise you can put the blame for Lady Gaga and Madonna nearby her. Cher always seemed like a strong, irritating woman.
I cant imagine how challenging working for Morrissey must be. The show cancellations alone must drive the band nuts. Meat free venues? Vegetarian tours? You must have to have an amazing loyalty to your art to put up with such shenanigans
M.I.A. – Terminal 5 – November 1st, 2013 – A masterpiece of modern pop with a conscience that puts former contemporaries like Madonna and Lady Gaga into the nostalgia files, while M.I.A. finds the middle ground between beats and beatings.
he lights will go out on Broadway and the show will move to Vegas for a second shot at success. The interesting fact is the financial “autopsy” the production will leave. This will go down in infamy as the most joked over production with the worse press and the most gossip.
Right about now it is always touch and go with Elton John on stage, last time round he promised a greatest hits package and it sucked what there was of it anyway since half of the sucker was that crap album with Leon Russel. What a ripoff. So why am I going again on Wednesday, December 4th, 2014: well, Elton is playing a lot off Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Life Round Here – James Blake And Chance The Rapper – Haunting and beautiful, but of course that comes on the James Blake label, what doesb’t is Chance The Rapper, atonal rap so weird and in place – A-
Utilitarian in the extreme, it is an overbearing drag with lousy lyrics and embarrassing looks under the covers. Of the 18 songs there are maybe 6 goodies and two greaties and that would be more than enough on a reasonably sized album
They probably have about the same size and weight so it could go on forever! But it’s ridiculous, none of them is the fighting type, they re both civil and courteous guys and so this is a waste of time on a slow-news day.
“Who’s to say he didn’t save a serial killer? Or a mad bomber on a date with destiny? Or just people who fuck you up normally? Geography teachers or ticket inspectors or boyfriends who shag your best friend? People who write the small print, see over the penalties? People who go ‘I’m telling you for your own good’ and ‘can’t you read we’re closed’?”
Do it for charity, do it for the poor, do it for someone else. That way you can spend more in a night than most people will make in a life time and still feel good about yourself.
Black Flag news on a black Friday? And not really good news, although it entirely depends on what you think of the revival surrounding the iconic hardcore band. Black Flag , the Greg Ginn team, not the Keith-Morris-Chuch-Dukowsky one, has fired its singer Ron Reyes in the middle of a show,
‘We are thrilled to honor these music legends with performances from amazing Grammy-winning artists who were influenced by the Beatles’ unforgettable music through the years and that incredible performance in 1964.”
Dylan back at the Royal Albert Hall with a two hour set covering 18 songs but seven off “Titanic” which could have sunk it and brought back memories to 1965 and to 1966, from folk to rock with a lotta blues thrown in
The problem here is much the same as the problem on the entire album: the songs aren’t there. Oh the singing is powerful and felt, the instrumentation first rate, the atitude a poerfect mesh of here and now and then, but the song can’t sell it – B-
Literature is too insulated, motion pictures too social, art is wet literature, and none of them have the wham bam social compatibility. None of them matter and don’t matter as much for so many. Music is everything and without it life can be lived but man would it drag
I thought that one of guys looked awfully like Rilo Kiley’s Blake Sennett, then for some reasons, I thought it wasn’t him… Silly me, it was Blake, proving one more time that there is a musical life after Jenny Lewis!
But as if the North Star cleared the way a miracle happens at 30 Rock this December 21. A line up so perfect that for one day I will be sure to watch. Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon. These two should just tour together.
The 1960s were a rich era in popular music and one could easily list 500 outstanding songs from that decade. Bob Dylan and The Beatles created musical templates that others have followed ever since, while Stax, Motown, and Muscle Shoals provided ample competition against the British invasion.
It’s very comforting to read this about a human being. She is doing better these days, she is still in treatment for Lyme disease but has started performing again with her band the Julie Ruin.
It was with pride and humility I discovered last night that I had gone over one million entries on google. Yes, folks, we the few, the cute, the famous!! But then a friend told me he was nearly at 3M!!!
The most known ‘Still…You Turn Me On” has the harpsichord of fun and the wahnka wahnka 70s sound that sealed it’s fate as a classic. OK, sure some of the album sucks. We need only to venture to ‘Benny The Bouncer’ for an instant migraine.
That Cities thing is from a Minneapolis radio station KTCZ, it is for charity and it takes the best live performances from the past year, guys like Passenger and fun., and it sells the albums at Target. They sold out their entire 40,000 production run in a week
Some time this summer when Passenger was blowing up he UK charts I predicted this would crossover Stateside and though, to be honest, I am not always exactly accurate in my predictions, this very appealing track was more than everybody gets it right once in a blue moon.
Thanksgiving Theme – Vince Guaraldi Trio – I tend to go along with Pauline Kael, who loathed the movies and loathed the twee twinkie doodley music. Vastly preferred the comic strip. No thanks – D+
They sang about cats, taught us to be ninjas, and asked us our favorite colors. They convinced us that unicorns were real, and came to join us to dance in the crowd. They got us all to do the hokey pokey and step out of our comfort zones
My concept is that since it was cover songs from second wave Brit Beat bands of the early 1960s, and since these bands, the Who, the Yardbirds, the Pretty Things, Pink Floyd…, since these were all boy bands attractive in post- Beatle sense to a girl fanbase with pictures from “Fabulous” pasted on their walls, well, they were Pins Up, weren’t they?
These shows are heavy and too serious and they have a strict no picture policy by the way! But this didn’t stop someone to shoot the footage below, which proves that this type of policy never works and that Beck wasn’t kidding when he said his next album would be a follow-up of ‘Sea Change’.
In 2010, I reprinted an interview with Dave Davies and here I am going to repost a newsletter by Bob Lefsetz. I am not a huge Lefsetz fan (he is terrible on music) but I forgive him a lot for being so right about so many subjects here. read em and weep
This is probably what happened to this Mozart’s picture, strangely contemporary looking, it’s not Mozart, it’s an idealistic average picture of him. But why does it matter so much after all? Why does it matter if this musical genius was good looking or not?
The thing about disco bands as opposed to DJs (even though Newman has done his fair share of the latter) is that the pop showcase move and sell of disco doesn’t exist in EDM and Newman is a salesman, he wants to be popular, he wants to sell a lot lot lot of copies
September Song – Ella Fitzgerald – Not a great fit, the change in sections clumsy ups the lyric, and I prefer my Ella with a bit more tiskit in her taskit but the voice? You can only surrender to the immaculate perfection of sound and diction – A
The greatest playwright of the 20th century writes a radio play incorporating elements of Dark Side Of The Moon. Voices by the likes of Bill Nighy and Rufus Selwell who act out thought experiments (like the sort you learnt in ethics class back at college, over the album played with most of the vocals removed in celebration of its 40th Anniversary. So where’s “Money”, eh? – B+
“”Four Simple Words” is his most famous tune, I’d say. It’s the song that got my friends and I into him in the first place. In that moment, when he sang the first words, the world faded around us. It was an automatic response to turn to the person next to you and begin a dance, no matter how small the space you were in.”
Back in the 1920s, sheet music was the main distribution for songs, a friend, a gifted so and so, would sit at the piano and play popular songs of the day, and the family would gather round the piano and sing along. The charts were the best selling sheet music.
I was the first black man to ever pitch an Italian designer leather jogging pants’. Every time, I say to myself, this has to be a joke, right? But if it is a joke, it’s getting old,… we don’t need more of this absurdity, the real Kanye should show up, or is this the real Kanye West?
With 9 songs off Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and the first three nearly mirroring the first three on the classic double album, not only did Jack Phillips get it right here but my own anticipation level for the December 4th, 2013 is through the roof if not further.
Schreiber has a high opinion of his publication, which will focus on design, photography and of course writing: ‘The price point is in line with the literary and cultural journals that exist, like Monocle and Kinfolk. It will be substantial, printed on quality stock. With vinyl you’re paying more than a download, but it’s permanent and substantial.’
THREE glorious songs in Oslo Norway. I would actually pay to see him sing three songs. What wonderful news, he is singing. Despite his never ending cancellations the ol’ man is hitting the stage and I am thrilled since this obviously leads to the inevitable ‘will he do more dates’.
The Book Of Love – The Magnetic Fields – From their greatest album 69 Love Songs, this is a flat out masterpiece but the singing is a little iffy – A
It shows concert footage that’s dark and gritty in the most punk rock way possible and then contrasts with the band messing around and being goofy. It’s the same quality that One Direction fangirls squee over and get googley-eyed for, only more hardcore, of course.
Let’s just stop there, a ten-year relationship with Cuomo? I wonder what Cuomo would say about this, According to Weezerpedia, she was Cuomo’s on-again off-again girlfriend between 1992 and 1995! Hey that’s barely 3 years
Yeezus isn’t what Kanye thinks it is, the move from “On Sight” -not giving a fuck to “Bound 2” -his emotional resurrection, to giving a fuck, through love. He doesn’t recover, he hasn’t recovered, even with Jesus in his sights
This list does not clearly define how this wealth was obtained but looking at the names in sequence I attribute a lot of this to savvy investment firms and not from actual annual earned income.
Kings of Leon have released a new video, for the song ‘Beautiful War’, and it plays like a mini movie about cowboys, love, bar fights, Urban-cowboy-style bull riding, and even jail.
I have heard good things about their reworkings of the Everly Brothers songs on the epic Songs Our Daddy Taught Us. Me? I don’t see how on earth the Joe and Jones album can’t suck. So I gave it to 1D
I can’t say I’m bothered by Robbie one way or the other, I am a big fan but this is awful thin gruel, otherwise this is all over the place and very English in many ways. Still, is EDM gonna lose its grip in 2014?
