Trends may change and empires may crumble, but at least one thing always seems to stay the same: Bon goddamn Jovi can’t take a dump without it coming out platinum.
During the great hair metal die-off of the early ’90s, Bon Jovi didn’t exactly seem like the first band that should have seen its career fade into an unpleasant, acid-washed memory — they were huger than huge at their peak, and unlike a lot of their peers, they were always more of a straight-ahead commercial rock band than a metal band toning down its act for the Top 40 — but neither did they seem like they had any real long-term commercial viability. When was the last time you watched the video for “Bad Medicine”? It featured dialogue, enough quick cuts to make you throw up before the one-minute mark, trendy saturated colors, and Sam Kinison. The ’80s should have clamped down on Bon Jovi like a bear trap:
But Bon Jovi didn’t tank in the ’90s. No, you know what they did? They released an album in 1992, just as grunge was building momentum and their name recognition was enough to sell two million copies of Keep the Faith. Then they smartly hid out for the rest of the decade, releasing a greatest-hits compilation (1994’s quadruple-platinum Cross Road) and one studio album (1995’s platinum These Days) before re-emerging in the broken musical landscape of the 21st century with 2000’s double-platinum Crush. (more…)
It’s rather pointless to review an AC/DC box set—you either love the band and have the thing already ordered or on your Christmas list, or you’re not going to bother. Since I am nothing if not a sucker for lost causes, I therefore direct this review to the uninitiated—those who might not “get” how a hard rock band can parlay a single, simple equation (4/4 rhythm + cool riff + screaming vocals x songs about sex) into a 35-year career. Please let me explain. Also, since the band is the collective king of the double-entendre, and such wordplay may be a bit confusing, I shall translate the song titles contained herein, so the uninitiated may better grasp of the meat of the music.
AC/DC songs live and die by the riff—that distinctive, distorted, wicked cool Angus Young guitar figure, roughly the aural equivalent of a he-wolf stalking his mate while thinking about all the other mates he’s going to do later on that night, after he and the other he-wolves have a few beers. Young got better at coming up with these riffs over the years, which leaves lacking some of the previously unreleased Bon Scott-era material collected here on Disc 1.
“Poster I Use for Masturbation” (i.e., “Stick Around”), for example, is built around a snoozer; only Scott’s leering vocal keeps the thing interesting. “Leave Me Alone So I Can Masturbate” (”R.I.P. [Rock in Peace]“) bears no riff whatsoever, unless you count the basic I-IV-V blues chords that chug behind the singer. (more…)
For the follow up to her fine 2007 album Lullagoodbye, Taylor Mills has once against enlisted the help of her Brian Wilson Band colleague Scott Bennett, as well as her husband, drummer Todd Sucherman. Bennett, who was a key collaborator on Wilson’s most recent album That Lucky Old Sun, is responsible for eight of the songs on Under the Surface (Aqua Pulse Records). He and Sucherman produced the album and played all the instruments, save for the flugelhorn and trumpet parts on “I Wanna Stay Home,” and “If We Let Go” which were played by Probyn Gregory, another member of the Wilson Band.
As a songwriter, Bennett often mines the same territory that Bruce Springsteen did on Tunnel of Love, albeit from a pop perspective. His lovers are committed, but at the same time frightened, and unsure of what the future might bring. In Taylor Mills he has found the perfect foil for this material. Mills has a big voice, full of yearning, but she never feels the need to resort to the sort of “vocalizing” that many of the popular divas of the day traffic in. She sings the songs as if the message is more important than any glare that the spotlight might cast on her. It’s a very endearing quality for a singer to possess.
There is nothing overwrought about Under the Surface. In keeping with the effectively direct vocals, everyone involved keeps it simple and to the point. Though nice production touches abound, nothing sounds fussed over. Listen to “Just a Second” to get what I’m talking about. (more…)
Though he doesn’t get much love here at Popdose, Lou Reed has earned a spot in many of rock and roll’s hardest hearts. A whole generation of New York musicians grew up with him, the glam-rock movement idolized him, and punk may likely have never happened without his influence. Whatever he does or doesn’t do now, his legend is assured, and for a man whose songwriting formula never deviates too far from standard three-chord rock, he’s covered a lot of ground. With this in mind, it’s inevitable that a couple of his albums should fall through the cracks, which is why Iconoclassic’s reissues of the previously-out-of-print Legendary Hearts and New Sensations are such a welcome reminder of his continued relevance as an artist.
Listening to it now, Legendary Hearts sounds like something of a minor revelation. Though it often lives in the shadow of its predecessor (1982’s The Blue Mask), the tightness of the backing band and the consistency of the material still mark this as one of Lou’s more solid offerings. Lyrically, the whole album is focused on relationships, a subject Lou tackles in a characteristically un-romantic fashion. Nevertheless, the protagonists of the songs are always sympathetic and believable, from the stressed-out breadwinner of “Don’t Talk Me About Work” (the most new-wavey song Lou ever wrote) to the recovering alcoholics of “The Last Shot” and “Bottoming Out.” Probably the most moving song here is “Home of the Brave,” where an audibly impassioned Lou pays open-hearted tribute to “the life that’s not saved.” (more…)
Just when you start to think that Rhino is the only company that knows how to do the box set thing, along comes ABKCO Records with their entry in the definitive statement sweepstakes. In this case the statement in question is in regard to the classic live Rolling Stones album Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out from 1969.
Exactly how do you build a big fancy box set out of a single disc live album from 40 years ago? Well you start by remastering the original tracks. Then you dig up five previously unreleased tracks from the Madison Square Garden shows that didn’t make the original cut, and make them your second audio disc. The sets by the show’s stellar opening acts, B.B. King, and Ike and Tina Turner, have never been released before, so you make those Disc Three.
You’ll need a DVD, so grab that footage from the Maysles brothers (who also made the tour documentary Gimme Shelter), which includes full-length versions of the five newly released Stones tracks, and some behind the scenes stuff. The songs are great, but the opportunity to see Mr. Watts interact with the donkey with whom he’d eventually share the album’s cover is priceless, and the footage of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin backstage at the Garden is touching. Less than a year later they would both be gone. Watching the Stones and the Dead in a parking lot in San Francisco waiting for the helicopters that would take them to Altamont is simply chilling. Finally, you’ll need a book, and ABKCO have filled their 56-pager with an essay from tour photographer Ethan Russell, and the original Rolling Stone album review by the great Lester Bangs. In between all the words, publish some interesting photos, including one of the album’s original cover. (more…)
I am certain that when Frank Sinatra was a child, he must have gazed at the Manhattan skyline just across the Hudson River. If you’ve ever been to Hoboken, you know that the big city appears to be so close that you can almost reach out and touch the buildings. It’s a place where a young man can dream big dreams. When Sinatra was old enough, he made his escape. For him, and for countless others, “The Apple,” as he called it, became the center of the world.
The esteemed reissue masters at Rhino have chosen to commemorate this love affair between a singer and a city with a new five-disc package called, appropriately, Sinatra: New York. Four of the discs are audio CDs featuring Sinatra concerts from a variety of New York City venues. The earliest performance, on Disc One, was recorded at Manhattan Center in 1955 at an event celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Tommy Dorsey band, a group which Sinatra had famously been part of in the 1940s. Sinatra does three songs with Dorsey and the band for the occasion. The remainder of the disc was recorded at the United Nations in September, 1963. It was U.N. Staff Day, and Sinatra performed accompanied only by pianist Skitch Henderson. Among the songs that day were “I Have Dreamed,” and “My Heart Stood Still,” from the Concert Sinatra album which had been released earlier that year.
Frank Sinatra was only 55 years old when he called it quits in 1971. Somewhat predictably, he returned two years later with Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back, and a year after that he went on tour to benefit Variety Clubs International, a children’s charity. One of the stops on that tour was at Carnegie Hall on April 8, 1974. There, Sinatra not only sang classics like “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” and “Come Fly With Me,” but dug into his then-new album for splendid versions of “There Used To Be A Ballpark” and “You Will Be My Music.” I was reminded again of Sinatra’s wonderful practice of naming the songwriters of each song that he sang. It was an endearing gesture of respect from the singer to the artists who provided his material. (more…)
It’s hard for me to believe that the band’s older fans couldn’t find it in their hearts to forgive Katatonia. They’ve been far away from their black metal roots for a long time, have reached personal best levels with Last Fair Deal Gone Down and The Great Cold Distance, and have done it again with their latest, Night Is the New Day. The word from the studio sessions was that this would be an extension of The Great Cold Distance — that the band was no longer going to worry about being slavishly loyal to their genre, but focused on delivering what they felt was their best work, and this latest offering delivers on that promise.
Guitarists Frederik Norrman and Anders Nystrom can still hit that hard, satisfying crunch when they need to, as on the opening assault “Forsaker,” yet that is something of a red herring. From folky acoustic passages in the unabashedly melodic “Idle Blood” to all manner of pedal manipulations, the album verges at times on art rock; at heart, it’s still “heavy,” but it’s more about using the arsenal when most effective instead of blasting all the guns at once. (more…)
It’s got to be a pain in the ass being Rivers Cuomo. On the one hand, he’s a talented songwriter and solid vocalist who happens to front the only band in the last 20 years that’s made half a go out of turning power pop into a steady career; on the other, he’s been dogged by ridiculous expectations for just about as long as anyone has known his name. Weezer’s 1994 debut was a fine album, offering a sweet burst of tuneful humor during a time when it was fashionable to be neither tuneful nor humorous, but to hear people talk about it now — or 1996’s Pinkerton, an album everyone hated when it came out — you’d think Cuomo spent his first few years as a recording artist as Lennon, McCartney, and Dylan rolled into one.
Cuomo didn’t help himself by quickly cultivating a reputation for being a mercurial weirdo, which a surprising number of people seem to equate with artistic genius — although that whole “genius” label hasn’t stopped embittered fans from picking each post-Pinkerton record apart while bellyaching about sellout moves like “Keep Fishin’” or “Beverly Hills.” If you count yourself among this crowd, everything you need to know about this album is summed up in its ridiculous, Rainn Wilson-provided title, but just in case you need to read the words, here’s a two-sentence review:
Nope, this one doesn’t sound like Pinkerton either. You bitches can go back in your holes, ’cause it’s going to be a long, long winter. (more…)
Stop right there, George Jones and Willie Nelson fans. If you think of fiddles and pedal steel when you think of country, you still get angry when you think about Shania Twain, and you think “Rascal Flatts” sounds like a venereal disease, then Carrie Underwood is not for you.
If, on the other hand, you like a little country in your pop — or a lot of pop in your country — Underwood’s third release, Play On, is going to latch itself onto your eardrums like a musical version of Ridley Scott’s Alien. Underwood might be a vegetarian, but her music is as genetically modified as country comes, and Play On is her broadest bid for cross-platform dominance yet, a 21st-century version of Come On Over that boasts the efforts of some of the most successful song doctors in the business. Mike Elizondo, Max Martin, Kara KioGuardi, Marti Frederiksen, and Chantal Kreviazuk are just a few of the ringers brought in to co-write here, and Mark Bright’s tastefully airbrushed production is perfect for an album whose liner notes include such maddeningly specific credits as “mono piano lick.” (more…)
Jon Spencer’s the reigning court jester of blues, a smart-aleck white guy who is part clown, part serious musician, part genius, and 100% fan of raunchy electric blues. His joyous, lo-fi music is sometimes so over the top that it’s hard to take seriously. It’s hard to tell if the weird, sometimes creepy words that come out of his mouth are one big put-on, or not. And either way you go on that, is it legit, or just glorified porn featuring smokin’-great guitars?
That’s the difference between Spencer and his peers working the same rock-n-blues space (Presidents of the United States of America, Amazing Royal Crowns, and the Reverend Horton Heat come to mind): Their lovable, campy acts leave no doubt, and don’t quite sink to Spencer’s depths of raunch.
Maybe it’s Spencer’s hard-edged attitude that leaves us unsure of how to parse the music he made with bands such as Boss Hog, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and now Heavy Trash, a collaboration with Matt Verta-Rey. The group’s third album, Midnight Soul Serenade, recently hit record stores. (Sample the songs here.)
But there’s no denying that the guy:
Is popular.
Has done many good deeds by lending his name to projects (i.e., R.L. Burnside’s A Ass Pocket of Whiskey) and helped bring national reknown to otherwise obscure black artists who might have gone to their graves with their talents unrecognized in the greater blues world.
It’s rather pointless to review an AC/DC box set—you either love the band and have the thing already ordered or on your Christmas list, or you’re not going to bother. Since I am nothing if not a sucker for lost causes, I therefore direct this review to the uninitiated—those who might not “get” how a hard rock band can parlay a single, simple equation (4/4 rhythm + cool riff + screaming vocals x songs about sex) into a 35-year career. Please let me explain. Also, since the band is the collective king of the double-entendre, and such wordplay may be a bit confusing, I shall translate the song titles contained herein, so the uninitiated may better grasp of the meat of the music.
Listening to it now, Legendary Hearts sounds like something of a minor revelation. Though it often lives in the shadow of its predecessor (1982’s 
It’s hard for me to believe that the band’s older fans couldn’t find it in their hearts to forgive Katatonia. They’ve been far away from their black metal roots for a long time, have reached personal best levels with 
and 
, and have done it again with their latest, 
. The word from the studio sessions was that this would be an extension of ![51YBpp6r3wL._SCLZZZZZZZ_[1]](http://popdose.com/wp-content/uploads/51YBpp6r3wL._SCLZZZZZZZ_1.jpg "51YBpp6r3wL._SCLZZZZZZZ_[1]")
![51r7GrNs-wL._SCLZZZZZZZ_[1]](http://popdose.com/wp-content/uploads/51r7GrNs-wL._SCLZZZZZZZ_1.jpg "51r7GrNs-wL._SCLZZZZZZZ_[1]")
