I wish Mary was still that little girl who wrote for me five years, but change just is and I know how proud her Mommy is over Mary’s constant successes. As am I, though I have nothing to do with it except look at the last five years with a certain sadness she will never be that little girl again.
A source close to Suge tells us … he was shot in the stomach and arm and apparently in other places as well… Suge walked out on his own power … a cop spotted him and walked the rap mogul to the police car where Suge sat. Suge was then put in an ambulance and taken to a local hospital.’
“Seven months ago we didn’t know each other and just three months ago we were still in our day jobs, so our lives have been flipped upside down and now we have an album out on an amazing record label! We are so grateful for the whole experience and to our fans for getting us here.” whoever these fans are they must be stopped.
Union J are a boy band with a hit, Taylor we know, and the other new releases are dance except Guetta, which is dance as well of course, but dance as a soundtrack to a Western shoot em up and pretty good stuff. Dunno how he snuck a new one out without me knowing.
Half As Much – Hank Williams – Yes, I did call Elvis Presley the Thomas Edison of youth culture, which would make Williams what exactly? The Grandfather on the mother’s side of youth culture, I guess – A+
I caught three DJ sets, eleven year old wunderkind Ju5tin, who played mostly house, La Mega superstar DJ Alex who mixed Reggaeton with hip hop and dance, and DJ Lobo who was hardcore Latin American beats. None of them were bad but watching DJs has very limited appeal and the sparse turnout didn’t help with the atmosphere.
They compiled the volume of works by year and the figure clearly demonstrates that, as a manic depressive, he was much more productive during hypomanic phases than during normal and depressed periods.
It seems that no matter how many times we will repeat that Elliott’s death was NOT determined as a suicide by the coroner, people will treat it like a suicide. The LAPD has left his case open, I wrote this post to sum up the main points of what we know so far.
The keeper here is Michael Cera on Letterman. Cera -the Superbad actor who made unassuming a lifestyle choice, has a pretty good album just released, True That, which you can stream (or boy) here and may I recommend the Blaze Foley cover “Clay Pigeons”.
So the summer is over, kids are back at school and we’re still hear readying for Autumn with a busy week of new music, starting with Ariana Grande, who has released two good tracks from this alum and has also appeared on a number of other killer tracks this year and will probably have come up with the goods for her second but really her first album.
I’ve been waiting to catch Phil Gammage on stage all year, his January release Adventures In Bluesland remains one of my favorite albums of the year and the man has some pedigree. Great on the harp, bluesy rootsy voice, and the aesthetic of an art rocker, this is a big gig for him. BB King’s on Thursday. And a four hour gig!!! For ten bucks.
True Love – Coldplay – They got one, two? hits off the last album, not enough to give em the smash they are use to but enough to justify the downer uncoupling album, This, attempt number three or four, is a good song, nice strings, pretty – B+
AF couldn’t quite cash in on the good vibrations, how can so many people fail to cease the moment and imprint themselves on our DNA? There were short sharp dance sounds and a sense of restraint that didn’t build into a singular vision, a singular event. Seldom did they manage to sustain it, they were like the 2014 Yankees, they couldn’t put three wins together in a row
As much as the ‘80s are maligned musically, ’84 was an outstanding year for pop music. Check out my lengthy list of Honorable Mentions below #20, many of which are as good/even better than the twenty annotated below in alphabetical order.
‘Fuck suicide. Life isn’t anything but what you make it. For all the people who walked from the grocery store back to their house, only to be met by a robber who shot them in the head for nothing — you gotta hang in there’,
the imbecility of telling your record label they don’t have a contract when you don’t need one? What is that stupidity, right? It is like your holding four aces and when it comes your time to bet you show your hand first. Can nobody play the game? You sign contracts and then if they aren’t signed you don’t warn your record company.
“A number of people said to me on Twitter, if you’re going to go to St Lou, are you going to go to Ferguson? But we didn’t want to just go there and walk through Ferguson and be tourists. We wanted to do something for the community.”
Most of the Harvest team are very nice, and I sincerely thank them for trying and caring so much – even if their promotional duties were fully undertaken by the Morrissey audience themselves, whose You Tube videos for World peace is none of your business fully provide the art that the label could not muster. The listeners instantly understood how entertainment could also be art.
The thing about all these acts is they define ordinary, never gonna be superstars but fast the first couple of hurdles where they can be part and parcel of some sort of 2010s revival tour in 2023, all they need is three hit songs and they are in, five hit songs and they can headline, ten and they aren’t on the nostalgia circuit at all.
Underage sex, alcoholism, threesome, and a quick wit. A gorgeous melody, great anthem. If this was released today Scotland Yard would have him in handcuffs, be searching his mansion, and wanting more information about his friendship with late Jimmy Saville, and 50 year old alcoholic women would be suing him.
Can’t Give You Anything But Love – Tony Bennett And Lady Gaga – Not the epic disaster of “Anything Goes” mostly because Gaga gets a little muscle into her verses but otherwise an incredible waste of energy and the death knell to what remains of Gaga’s once earth shattering career. A real pity – C+
I will sing, play guitar, and play the keyboard for my music therapy profession to help ease patients during chemo, in the NICU, patients who have long stays in the hospital or alzheimers patients. I am excited to be in this profession because I can help so many people, young and old
Year by year, you see the evolution of what people buy and consume, from vinyl totally dominating the market with cassettes in the 80s, to the overwhelming dominance of CDs from the 90s till the mid-00s, and finally the takeover of MP3s, downloads and streaming services from the late 00s to present.
If “Black Rage” is an accidental commentary, J. Cole’s “Born Free” is an “Ohio” for a different generation and another outrage. “That there is no justice kills my soul” Cole sings (not raps) on the Michael Brown tribute, where Cole sobs somewhere between a rap and a song. It is a powerful piano ballad, and it went viral, directly hitting the mark and answering the concerns of many black people.
Aztec Camera aka Roddy Frame aka the bloke who looked like he shoulda been in Orange Juice but instead was a sorta grown up Haircut 100 and got lumped but wouldn’t fit in all that early 80s Postcard scene. Listen to “Oblivious” below if you wanna know what the sound of 1983, aka thirty years ago!!
still can’t make sense of the Haim sisters’ enormous success, I saw them a few years ago at a tiny street festival in LA and there were like 10 people, then saw them at the Santa Monica pier a year later and they had attracted a rather large crowd, but now they are literally headlining the FYF fest? They have a 9 pm spot just before the Strokes, which is big deal
This maybe the best ten songs list of the year. Right at the top are two songs which will be very high on my end of year list, along with a third at the very bottom which will also make the near top of the year, meanwhile three artists I am on the record as to loathing, McGraw, Chesney and alt-j came up with crackerjacks, Kimba, who I have never much noticed, has a good album (I underestimated it earlier this week).
With the first album already in the tank, this is Americana if the term means a thing to you, a splendidly constructed singer songwriterly classically attuned rock ballad with a guitar break which is a pure beauty, and a bridge which seems to hover in space. This duo has a back story and I will write it up when the album drops, but till then hear this here – A-
The album has also been taken down from streaming site Rdio as well as the Stateside Amazon store as a digital purchase, reports Slicing Up Eyeballs, who add that it is currently not known if the move was at the behest of Morrissey or Harvest, the label on which the record was released. A UK representative for Morrissey refused to comment on the removal of the album in the US.
I am willing to accept that I underestimated Lil Wayne, who was personable, smart and had tons of great songs and as for Drake? I have no idea what woke him up but he was wide awake and indeed he won the battle of the rappers
On a personal level, my goal is to always extend that comfort zone. It’s hard to learn much in life if you are only willing to dog paddle within the same peer group. It’s a big, messy world out there. Go out and explore it with open ears and an open mind. You might discover that both Glenn Miller and Kanye West are pretty hep cats.
It is difficult to exactly pinpoint Bahamas’ music, the set was quite eclectic with a few of these quiet songs (he said he was really into these quiet ones for his new album), and other songs more classic-rock-inspired, but overall, the music was distilling breezy and exotic soundscapes with soothing harmonies. Exotic
If you find this offensive, well be prepared to be offended by a Gap commercial, and about anything in life? And please don’t open your TV, don’t watch any sitcoms, don’t watch SNL, don’t even think about listening to any stand-up comedians. Swift wasn’t even trying to be funny, critical, or a comedian, she just wanted to dance!
Now this is more like it. The story here is both Ariana Grande and Iggy Azalea being represented by three songs each -yes, they overlap but so what, right? And none of them are dogs, really they’re not. I saw Ariana on stage last year and she was dreadful but with a hit album, who knows,, right? Next week: Taylor Time
The first three albums are various artists albums, the first two are REALLY various artists albums. The Gaslight Anthem sold 33K copies, their best ever but hardly in U2 territory. Otherwise this is much less volatile than usual isn’t it, a bit of a snooze actually.
Crushin’ It – Brad Paisley – Say what you want abut Brad, and I haven’t been a big fan in over a decade, he sure is his own person, this is another piece of extended funny plus guitar solo – B
Day three (and last day) at Echo Park Rising was concentrated inside the Echo /Echoplex. There was still a lot going on about everywhere, but there was already so much to see inside the two-level club, and the twelve or so bands that I saw there kept me very busy.
Taylor responds to claims she can’t hold a man, indeed, seeing her ex with another woman, by dancing. Cohen reacts to hell by dancing the samba. And both react to troubles with humor. At the bottom, both these songs are darkly humorous. It is almost like shaking with laughter, it is almost like darkness. But it isn’t darkness yet.
I have a really really bad feeling about this one. rock nyc have already voiced serious concerns about the T Bone Burnet (the man who gives bad taste a bad name) produced high concept album, where in big time pop stars of a certain type, let’s call em Americana follies wherever they might come from, write the music to recently discovered Bob Dylan lyrics from when he was 26 years old.
This is very thrilling stuff as far as I’m concerned and I can’t wait to see if he can pull off a second album as drastically brilliant as his first. Smith and FKA twig, both UK stars by the way, are the sound of 2014 and the sound of 2014 is melancholia mixed with desire. It uses EDM but it isn’t EDM, and if its roots are in soul that is only at the deepest level.
She doesn’t want drugs to be part of her narrative, although this interview exists, it took me 2 seconds to find it. She really said this, and it was only 2 years ago. She simply could have said she regretted saying this, it’s okay to say ‘I was wrong to glorify drugs’, ‘I was wrong to do this to sell my album and become famous’, but it’s not okay to say people are assholes because they are just reposting her own words.
to McCartney. certainly, if they get it right it will be big time.
Next, “All Day” -a mix of “N—-z In Paris” and Draker’s “Started From The Bottom”, “All Day” is the way Kanye performs pop songs in 2014. Basically, he builds the entire song around repeating the hook every second line and third time around at an increasingly fanatical pace. I love it but I would.
You Can Be Loved – Orenda Fink – A hushed piece of heartbreak, though how it fits back into the overall theme of the album, I am not sure. Like so much of the best pop, it is a statement which needs know further affirmation – B+
Look Again To The Wind: Johhny Cash’s Bitter Tears revisited – Various Artists – His 1965 concept album in support of the Native Americans (again, in 1965 -before “Bury My Heart At Wounded Hill”) is giving some fine performances by the Milk carton Kids along with folks like Emmylou, Earle, Kristoffersson and I for one didn’t know the original but love this folk album very much – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – B+
There was a grrrl riot in the making with Sex Stains, a provocative moniker for two bold women, Allison Wolfe (Bratmobile, Partyline) and choreographer Mecca Vazie Andrews (artistic director of The MOVEMENT). Allison with her shark-week dress and ocean-blue lipstick and Mecca
I am the furthest thing from a prude (nor was I innocent when I was younger) but I can be somewhat conservative as I ahem mature or maybe it has more to do with having little girls. Troubled me seeing young woman drunk or on drugs walking by themselves or throwing themselves at men (boys)
The first track off Smokey And Friends, the Motown giant’s duets album was so indifferent, Cee Lo joining him on “The Way You Do (The Things You Do)” and for the most part I was right but the album did have moments. Smokey is in fine voice throughout but he gains nothing special from the duets, nobody spurs him to heights.
This should be a blast and more importantly a place for Doncker and the many groups and singers of all types and styles his label presents, to test drive material off their upcoming releases. Including September 9ths eagerly anticipated “FUNKY WORLD,” True Groove’s Club/Dub/Dance compilation, which you can stream here
Kim you should know that first, the pictures you post on your instagram page are much more provocative, second, it could be inspired by Boris Vian’s violent novel ‘I’ll spit on your Graves’, a famous social criticism of race relations… I know it’s ‘spit’ not ‘piss’, and I am totally making this up as I have no other information, however I am pretty sure Kim doesn’t know who Vian is…
Former Smiths members keep on sucking and stupid ass writers keep on lying about them. The only good thing about the death of the rock crtic is nobody has to read the twerps at Rolling Stone’s brain dead blather about stuff they don’t quite grasp. In pitchfork synths are icy, in RS bass’s throb. Never met an adjective they couldn’t sexualy abuse.
