I straight hated Lady Gaga when she first came out, but then I saw her for her artistic and vocal ability on Saturday Night Live (the first time she was on it) and fell in love with her. I currently have a love/hate relationship with her. Lady Gaga is just shy of a musical role model for artists in my eyes. She does deliver on the vocal ability that we have come to expect from her. She even delivers on...

Oh Canada. In all honesty, your music is hit or miss in a hard way. I’m talking full frontal lobe penetration from an M4 Carbine Assault Rifle with a Rail Adapter System and a hollow-point bullets. Classified’s album, Handshakes and Middle Fingers, feels like a medley of some amazing artists that have hailed from the awe-inspiring American music industry. This is Classified's (aka Luke Boyd) fourteenth album and he has brought his skill, fast rapping and amazing beats this time...

I have tried to listen to Gimme Some by Peter Bjorn & John at least fifteen times and I always seem to stall at the same place. I have had the worst time making it past the third track. The album is far from terrible, but certainly a few steps away from the top. And when I say a few steps, I mean they got wasted at the top of the stairs, got into an argument and fell down a...

If they're lucky enough to become successful, every band reaches a point when their lives and the events in them become surreal, because they begin considering things to do with their band that previously seemed so far out of reach, they weren't even worth contemplating. At that point, the group in question has a choice to make: the band's members can either recoil and retreat to a level at which they're more comfortable operating...

It's never easy to know how to feel when hard times hit. On one hand, the first instinct that most people have is to recoil and guarantee that basic needs are met first but, if even that proves to be a difficult endeavor, people just start hoping for relief; looking for the light at the end of the tunnel. This is the sort of turmoil that was on Jason Isbell's mind when writing for Here We Rest began because, according...

Heya junky,Awright, s'here we go again wit' another installment o' The SWAG Report. Ain't it fun? You addicts git yer fix, an' I get ta torture ya by babblin' a little in advance – everybody wins! This week though, I think yer makin' out better than yours truly, cause I'm pre-coffee this mornin' an' crabby, but I ain't got nothin' betta ta do at this ungodly hour o' the mornin'. At least you junkies are gettin' somethin' though – this...

Add together a punk-rock attitude, electro-pop drums, guitars that span noise-rock to pop and song titles that seem to be completely comprised of inside jokes. What comes out of this strange concoction? Seems there could be about a million possibilities, most equaling pure crap but, luckily for us listeners, what The Death Set has spat forth out of that jumble is a one-in-a-million, fantastic little nugget entitled “Michel Poiccard.” To understand this album, something else has to first be understood....

A 2011 Stevie Nicks record is a frustrating prospect. Past glories like “Dreams,” “Gypsy” and “Edge of Seventeen” have inhabited a space between the fantasy of longing and the reality of loneliness cherished by fans for decades. Even the titles betray any subtlety Nicks wants to bring to her songwriting. She speaks for the high school sophomore who just got cut from the field hockey team or caught her best friend making out with her crush outside the mall; not...

So Beautiful or So What is the epitome of aging gracefully. The CD deals with the big questions which come with the passage of time – “where have I come from,” “where am I going,” “what does it all mean?” – without expressing bitterness, despair or smugness. Not only does Simon approach these questions with a level temperament, he demonstrates that gaining wisdom is far different from having the answers. The music which accompanies these ruminations is similarly graceful. A...

Upon starting this review, I realized that I had never seen a Roy Orbison record that wasn't some sort of compilation. For every other artist of Orbison's stature, I could quickly name a career defining record; Elvis' self-titled debut, Cash's At Folsom Prison, Dylan's Blonde On Blonde, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers' Damn The Torpedoes… but for Orbison I came up blank and realized that I generally knew very little about him – outside of the voice, the glasses and...