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
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 is no real science behind such analysis, it’s often qualified of pseudoscience even though people really want to believe there is a strong correlation between personality and the way a ‘b’ or a ‘d’ are formed! For me, it’s a bit like astrology, some ancestral superstition based on false science
Farewell – Bob Dylan – From the “Witmark” demos, the Coen’s get most things wrong in “Inside Llewyn Davis” but using this as a goodbye to the folk era? They get that right – A+
The hatred between the two ethnicities was real at the time and I would be surprised if there wasn’t any leftover,… Dylan’s sentence wasn’t offensive at all, may be it wasn’t exactly politically correct but it resonates with history.
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.
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
It sure is original but I wonder whether this is a metaphor to tell us that everything on TV sounds the same and that this delusion of channel abundance is just, well, a delusion, and that nothing beats a good old Dylan song?
Sounds like a refugee from Wowie Zowie, all quirk and melody and none the worst for it. But it begs an answer to the musical question: exactly how much does Malkmus hate the rest of Pavement and also why does this sound like an influence on Vampire Weekend – B+
Glad Tidings Take 9 – Van Morrison – Now available on Spotify, this version, a slower, sweeter, more powerful than the version on Moondance, is, alone, worth the time it took to piss off Van and archive the studio sessions – A+
There is nowhere for Mary Lee to run so the words come thundering down and perhaps its good because the primary question mark, the sexual confusion having a woman sing these songs, gets lost in the forward throttle of the track.
Knockdown Dragout – Sammy Hagar – Along with Kid Rock and Joe Satriani, and I know it should suck but this thing is bursting at the seams with riffs and shout outs – B+
This is the sort of meeting of a subculture defined by so many failed attempts to reunite in a moment and also extened the moment into the present. The moment was the Lower east Side in the late 1970s, and the extension was musical and triumphant.
A waste of money? Oh, I guess, it is the sort of thing you treat yourself though you know you have no real need for it. It just looks cool, like the mono album CDs in their original covers earlier this century!
More Than – Au Revoir Simone – This reminds me of all those indie pop bands with a touch more better living with electricity thrown into the mix. Sort of Pains of Being Pretty At Heart – B+
I’ve written about musicians I’ve never seen but wish I had but that isn’t this article! This is about musicians I didn’t see on specific tours or even concerts that I wish I’d caught. I mean more than wish, like dream of having been to
