This Ohio band’s second release of 2014 bursts with thick guitar riffs, gutsy solos, hummable melodies and the occasional head-scratching lyric. (Example: “Step on my head and press it down/Chew on my bread, it’s on the ground,” from the start-stop grinder “Blankets on the Sun.”) Since rising from the ashes of…… Source: RollingStone Link: Fireball of […]
Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward’s She and Him have always been fundamentally rooted in musical nostalgia for sunny Sixties pop. For their fifth album – a covers record composed largely of pre-rock standards popularized by singers like Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald – the duo shift focus to the Forties…… Source: RollingStone Link: Classics
Mary J. Blige’s 2011 album My Life II didn’t exactly recapture the mojo of her classic 1994 original. So, after a Christmas album and a soundtrack, the R&B royal headed to London to record this proper follow-up – a smart move, considering that Brits from Amy Winehouse to Adele to…… Source: RollingStone Link: The London […]
AC/DC ringmaster Brian Johnson may be approaching 70, but that won’t stop him from yowling like a young lech: “Mistress, mistress, all night long/Keep on comin’ hot and strong,” he shouts on “Rock the House,” a bluesy cut from the Aussie power-chord monsters’ latest LP. This is a band that…… Source: RollingStone Link: Rock or […]
It’s easy to forget just how quickly Led Zeppelin went from sharply juxtaposing blues thump with delicate folk on their debut to blending the two sounds seamlessly at once. After releasing three masterfully multidimensional LPs in 1969 and 1970, the group began its middle period relatively early, in 1971, with the…… Source: RollingStone Link: Led Zeppelin […]
It’s easy to forget just how quickly Led Zeppelin went from sharply juxtaposing blues thump with delicate folk on their debut to blending the two sounds seamlessly at once. After releasing three masterfully multidimensional LPs in 1969 and 1970, the group began its middle period relatively early, in 1971, with the…… Source: RollingStone Link: Led Zeppelin […]
When Lou Reed talks about “the sorrows of the contemporary world, which I know we all know so well” during a 1969 live performance included in this magnificent six-CD repackaging of the Velvet Underground’s pivotal third album, he could be introducing virtually any song on the record. Recorded after the departure…… Source: RollingStone Link: The Velvet […]
An English-born singer-songwriter living in Brooklyn, Cariad Harmon plays warm, stately folk that can evoke a late-Sixties coffee shop. But the life she sings about on her second record is no decorous idyll. “New York, you take all my money and piss it up the wall,” she complains on “Wicked Town,” sounding…… Source: RollingStone Link: Cariad Harmon
The reason to make an album of girl-group covers, as Bette Midler has here, is also the biggest challenge: Everyone loves “Be My Baby,” so you’d better nail it. The good news is that Midler has a voice that’s rich enough to reanimate any pop standard – see her showstopping…… Source: RollingStone Link: It's the […]
It makes sense that Paul McCartney would inspire one of the most impressive tribute-album lineups ever assembled. This 42-song blowout has everything from Willie Nelson doing a raggedly loving “Yesterday” to Billy Joel crushing “Maybe I’m Amazed.” There are plenty of surprises, too. Did you know you wanted to hear…… Source: RollingStone Link: The Art […]