To call it less than nihilism is to misunderstanding what it means to believe in nothingness, in an end where even time has no meaning, where everything has ceased to exist. We like to call this an existential bummer.
It is the sine qua non of rock, it is the post-rock and roll foundation vastly sturdier than psychedelia or any form of prog rock: the Ramones used it, the Sex Pistols, the Clash, Titus Andronicus -worlds, universe of sound got their first lesson in how to do it through the Velvet Underground.
Klein doesn’t take a brush to his pictures, he manipulates their shadings online, deepening with sepia colorings on this one of a Springsteen rehearsal before the 2009 Superbowl, by making the sight heavenly, otherworldly and thick as the cream at the top of a bottle of milk.
Tomas always sees a better tomorrow, he always sees a world where everything gets better through love and community and while he bristles in anger which his eleven piece band feeds off, in the end his answer is one voice, one love.
Jamaican reggae songwriter, sprang to prominence when Luke “Scratch” Perry agreed to produced “Police And Thieves” back in 1976. Which Junior only a minor hit but the Clash covered just a year later and it became the theme song for the Notting Hill riots back in 1977.
Spirit Of The Mountain – Bob Dylan – No chorus but who needs one with a bridge this smart, it flows like a river and it shimmers on your consciousness as an adult, maybe even senior, love song, “You think I’m past my prime?” Dylan asks, “let me see what you got….” Sublime way to end the year- A
Watching Mat, you could notice his focus and his voice was fantastic and the lyrics really resonated. For me, Elvis Depressedly always felt like a persona, not a person. Seeing it right in front of me made it feel so incredibly real and solidified my love for them.
The two revelations here are Cody Chestnutt’s superb r&b album from late 2012 and Bernie Worrell’s brilliant new album which opens with Miles Davis and closes with Bob Marley and in between is a subtle and beautiful jazz masterwork for piano.
“I grew proud to be a part of my local scene. This band has a ridiculous amount of potential and I know that they’re going to just continue growing- to be able to have just seen them in their living room before they get massively popular is really freakin’ cool.”
This mix of harangued fury, industrial strength beats and wildly brilliant samples have lived alone with mostly rock critics and rap geeks flipping out and the rest of the world.
Christmas albums past 12-26 are like fireworks Past November 5th (English reference folks, you can use July 4th if you like), useless, embarrassing, you kinda wonder how you got suck into the entire mess and you don’t wanna even think it till after Thanksgiving.
Maybe I underestimated the Avicii track, the instrumental bridge is pretty good. I wonder why “Happy” got a second life? That one take video of a woman dancing to it? Maybe??? Otherwise, everything is still place and we wait for the rest of our lives to begin!!
Sweet Baby James – James Taylor – Written for his nephew when his nephew was still a baby, it remains a self-portrait and a lullaby to loneliness and aloneness and late night fears put away and rocked to sleep – A+
I went to see the Knicks at Madison Square Garden a week before, the Knicks lost, and it is the exact same thing as this set. Exactly. That’s what it felt like at the Phish concert. You come in with hopes, they play lacklustre for three hours, put on a sport to get it close and then it’s over. Better luck tomorrow.
This sounds like a downer and it is, but remember, great music restores truth with art and in song after song this is what Jahn and his terrific band do, songs are lovely as “Black Water Blues”, “Walk The Other Way”, full on romantic loss “Under The Moon”, “Hang Together” spotted among the biggest moments and held together by Xavier’s astounding vocal tour de force.
There is something about Laura which is less naiveté repressed and more privilege expressed; it comes across as a form of feminism: a sort of proto-rock star unwillingness to be signed up for anything approaching a long term commitment : she lies back, she stands up, next verse.
Billy Joel will be doing the working and I will be doing the dancing at his Barclay Center New Year’s Eve gig. The first song of the New Year will be going out live on ABC! I wasn’t crazy over his 12-12-12 performance, but he has been on the money way too often for me to give up the chance to spend NYE with him
The Rainbow – The Apples In Stereo – I saw em open for Television years ago and I might add they were awesome. This Beatley (check out the band name) remains a real pleasure. Gives power pop a good name – A
So Aaron posted his top 25 albums of 2013 and I didn’t know one of them, though I do know Richard X Heyman among the honorable mentions and, er, the Beatles At The BBC among the best compilations.
At 41 minutes the album is like a play cut into separate scenes but more like a play of the mind where everything is happening at once; it doesn’t feel linear, it feels as if the story is occurring simultaneously, and so less than a story and more like a series of emotions going through change after change and ending in anger
Vampire Weekend’s Modern Vampires Of The City is overrated and I love the album. Katy Perry’s Prism is overrated and I don’t like the album but neither are quite as overrated as these three, VW is better, KP is worse, but these three most overrated albums of the year are off the charts…
While America slept, somewhere out of sight, “Drunk And In Love” is in t #12 and Miley’s “Adore You” has a new video and here is an easy prediction, they will both spend the next two months on the charts. PS “Adore You” is a terrific song.
I really love it when an artistic success is a popular success and looking at my list of fave albums, well, even Yeezus didn’t sell that much. Beyonce is a beacon of artistic integrity and musical kismet. A complete triumph to end 2013.
Once upon a time at home
I sat beside the telephone
Waiting for someone to pull me through
When at last it didn’t ring I knew it wasn’t you
Four songs off the album are among my favorites of 2013, and if nobody else likes her, well, you’re not her accountant, what does it matter to you? It shows you aren’t a member of a rabid pack of naysayers, you can go your own way and be true to your own, beter tastes.
Music writing is an instant mix of po-faced beat dissections and ass kissing and usually both, except, in an attempt to prove themselves above the fray, a major publication will dis a major work by a major performer (pace: Pitchfork).
Popdust is probably my favorite music website, it looks like a dream and is wildly sarcastic and funny and fun. It obsesses over K-Pop and has better ears than Pitchfork; if Popdusts Top 20 songs of 2013 seems a little obvious, well, the whole point with pop music is that it be popular…
As the name suggest it is a self portrait of sorts, Beyonce attempts to balance her insecurities as a woman with her securities as a woman, her refusal to compromise her and willingness to share that with an audience (not me: wrong fantasy).
Tug Of War – Paul McCartney – Lost in the midst of time, and never rolled out even when Macca is looking for something to change up in his show and despite it appearing on Wingspan, there is a real tug to the song, a sweet sadness – A-
If you haven’t heard Annaleigh sing “The History Of Wrong Guys”, it is one of the most wonderful things on Broadway, just funny and sweet and true and somehow you can hear Cyndi Lauper behind it as well… So fork over a hundred bucks and go before it’s too late.
Linda’s cover of Anna’s “Fast As My Feet”, with her three kids and Grandson joining in, works as an antidote to Rufus’ sorrow, as though despite all odds there is joy in life and in family that can remove the sting even from death through love and art. Perhaps the moral of this entire album.
She builds an artistic house of seasons and times passing and love and hope and than she surrounds it with melodic to care for it and take care of it, and as she studies these feelings, and shares them, they have the permanence of true love.
What is missing is the internal intelligence of the Live AtThe BBC sets. Which it is true that it is all of a year, and a great year, in the Beatles history, still something feels off in the way the songs follow each other.
“If you ever leave me I’ll be sad and blue, don’t you ever leave me I’m so in love with you”… Written by Lennon (“I Call Your Name” is on the flip side) this is Brill building brilliance from a 1960s pop superstar. The Beatles would have gone at it harder, there would have been a touch of self-parody – A
You better not pout but da Bing is sure letting the Andrew Sisters do a lot of heavy lifting on this version, gives them the best word to sing on the track “With little tin horns and little toy drums, Rooty toot toots and rummy tum tums…” – B+
There’s no doubt in my mind, Cults have a collection of sweet sweet catchy songs that curl in your ears like a warm kitten on a sofa, but will they be able to continue in this direction forever? How many ‘Go Outside’, one of their most famous songs, can they produce?
“The Great American Cult tour is not only brilliantly titled, but brilliantly supported. Four Year Strong, Daylight, and Mixtapes are the supporters. This is a diverse and wonderful lineup that will not only draw the pop punk crowd, but the rougher post-hardcore crowd as well.”
In “Saving Mr. Banks”, the Disneyfication of the pre-production behind “Mary Poppins”, the backstory becomes one of children and their fathers. Emma Thompson’s extremely bad tempered PL Travers is mourning who beloved father who died when Travers was a child
You hear about these kinda things but until you actually see it,a man shed 20 years just by getting onstage, it is hard to believe it actually happens and yet there it is! The great, one of the greatest, soul man, found the fountain of youth just by performing his songs to an audience at City Winery and perform them he did, in 90 minutes of take no prisoners soul he smashed through every barrier and came out triumphant. It’s a Christmas miracle.
If I preferred beats to melody, Matangi would be my favorite album of the year. These polyrhythmic beats on beats songs are to EDM what Kanye West is to Hip Hop: they sound nothing else, they sound even wilder than her previous albums.
Home For The Holidays – Perry Como – This one takes me back some eight years where a good friend used to sing this for me every Christmas, it is a sweet song isn’t it? – A
The melody is gorgeous, and Taylor sings it with a voice that sounds fragile at first but then you catch the strong undertow, as though gentle emotions can have just as much strength as the most ferocious; the joy in that sort of lyricism should need no explanation here
The album is here because the tracks can function as songs, without really knowing what’s happening, just as separate songs, great songs with great words, lots of jukes. “There is no plane, no pilot, it is a thought experiment…” Perhaps. but one with a heart.
So old folks and shuffle board, biker mamas and car mechanics rejoice. You got your rock and roll tour right here, WITH BUFFET! Yup, booze and old broads and 38 Special its a dream come true. Don’t forget your Levitra and cholesterol meds.
X Factor gets its winner Prison Officer Sam Bailey to the top of the charts and wins the UK Christmas single of the year, something that means not much here!!! People like the sub Celine Dion ululating climb every note to a towering thunder singing of game show vocalists but people are stupid
I’ve listened to Beyonce any number of times, and while it may not all be great, not a song is close to bad. And I’ve listened to One Direction any number of times and if a few songs are good, nothing here is great.
Love Is Gonna Come At Last – Bobby Womack And Patti Labelle – Womack is on the record as hating rap but the way he uses the chorus like a hook on this song, opening and closing the track with it, is an ancestor of rap for sure – A
When you start off with Paul McCartney singing “Merry Little Christmas” you set yourself up for goals unheard of. Right down to the adorable snow.. and I DONT EVEN LIKE MCCARTNEY! The magic of Fallon just radiates.
Here we go again, another singer receiving big bucks to perform in a less-than-okay country. Mariah Carey adds one mark to a long list (Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce, Usher, Kanye West, Nelly Furtado, 50 Cent, Sting,…) as she was paid $1 million to perform for Angolan President
she pretended that her tweet ‘was never intended to be public, and upon learning it wasn’t a private message, immediately removed it’. So Courtney Love didn’t know what Twitter is? What a joke. She also said that ‘the entire Twitter Posting was hyperbole making light of Holmes’ constant attention-seeking, and not a statement of fact’… attention-seeking?
