"A real fucking group… they also make fucking records. They don't just go and twiddle around on stage to make a bunch of fucking money" –Iggy PopBetter forty years later than never; The follow-up to the first record ever to...
One quick trip through the annals of pop and rock music history will reveal how wildly common it is for an album for be described as “ahead of its time,” but what does that really mean? That the artist who made the record had the forethought to see where music trends were headed and rushed just far enough ahead of the curve to appear visionary when everyone else caught up? Presented in that light, a record which enjoys the stature...
Hey you junky bastids youse,Aw, yer gonna lurve me dis week junky, no doubt about'at. Dis week, I gotta strain o' rare smack fer youse ta sample, an' I think yer gonna wanna know abottit right off cuzz'is kinda stuff has been off da market fer almos' ten years. I gotchu some new David Bowie! I gotcha da firs' song offa The Next Day, “Where Are We Now” – how da ya like datcha addicts? Geddit now, cuz it's hot...
CDs like Starlight by Joan Armatrading remind me of why I hate genre classification in music. Grace Notes labeled this "Country & Folk,” which is plainly absurd; seeing that label attached to Starlight has to be some holdover from her earlier career, which she might reasonably have been classified as "Folk" (certainly never "Country"), but only so much as "A woman with a guitar" = "Folk." That was then though, and this is now – and this album is certainly...
Eric Burdon does not seem to realize the Sixties ended long ago. And that's a good thing. He still believes that music can change the world, and he still sings like that's true. On 'Til Your River Runs Dry, Burdon tackles a number of political and social issues. The central theme, as indicated by the title, is the water crisis; the growing lack of fresh, clean water for much of the world's population. Although he does present water as both...
Endorsements and condemnations of different recorded music formats get made regularly, but what is the difference between an LP and a CD, really? Barring a few obvious exceptions (like the differences in the mastering, production and equalization that NOFX put into the CD and LP versions of Heavy Peting Zoo and Eating Lamb in 1996), the differences between the sound on a CD and that on a long-player record couldn't really be that dramatic – could they? Well, yes and...
After the reasonably abysmal response that the band received for Year Of The Black Rainbow in 2010, fans began to get justifiably worried. After the first installment of The Afterman was released in late 2012 though, many critics projected that the days of Coheed And Cambria existing as a heavier than hell, mathy metal outfit were counting down quickly. As it turns out, Coheed And Cambria's critics were right; Descension (the band's seventh full-length album) plays even further into the...
Awrightchu worthless junkies youse,I dunno who you ben talkin' to, but I feel like I've had a tail on me ova da las' little while. I's like, everywhere I go, i's hard findin' stuff thit fell offa da back o' music industry trucks! You wound'know anything about that, wouldja junky? Cuz if you did, well, that'd be a real shame fer youse. So le's keep ya right, awright? Dummy up an' nothin' bad's gonna happen. Inna meantime, I do got...
Sometimes the best way to see and hear things refreshed is to get out of your comfort zone for s minute. It might sound trite, but it's true; if you take a chance and get out from under the potentially stifling veil of what you know, you may be lucky enough to discover a whole new, vivid and exciting unknown to revel in. That's the chance I took when I put Boats' third album, “A Fairway Full Of Miners”, on...
After their first listen to Masked Intruder's self-titled debut, everyone will find themselves asking breathlessly, “Who were those masked men?” Masked Intruder is, very simply, a perfect and instantly gratifying reminder of all that was great about the “songs about girls” craze which overtook punk rock in the 1990s; strains of the instantly memorable, heart-on-their-sleeves lyric sheets that Chad Price and Bill Stevenson were writing for ALL merge perfectly with some snotty, nasal and heart-wrenching vocal melodies...