Some albums defy the usual judgments of good or bad—they’re just wrong. I’m thinking of Liz Phair’s major label records (with the exception of the chorus of “Extraordinary”); or Sonny Bono’s post-divorce nervous breakdown Inner Views; M.C. Hammer’s gangsta record; Kiss’ The Elder; Aretha Franklin’s La Diva; or the most recent Chris Cornell solo misstep. They’re each so conceptually incongruent with the strengths of the artist, there’s no way in hell the actual performance could be anything but an oxygen-sucking, dust-kicking disaster.
The cloud o’ doom has descended upon one Michael Bolton, who really should be doing the Vegas thing right about now, but who apparently has the need to prove his relevance in whatever passes for the pop marketplace these days. Thus, the lady-slayin’, soul-crapping loverman has brought in the arguable talents of Ne-Yo, Lady Gaga, and others to introduce his creamy Boltony goodness to the kiddies in their Black Eyed Peas t-shirts, TiVo-ing Glee so they can line up to see the new Fame movie. Predictably, he stumbles, like a Jonas uncle who tippled a little too much Jesus juice at the family prayer picnic.
Again, I say, Bolton shouldn’t be doing this. He hasn’t had so much as a single gold record in 11 years, and had seemed to be quite content releasing cover albums that only about 100,000 or so people around the world really cared to hear. Fine—he’s a niche artist now, an indie, if you want to stretch the term a bit. He’s 56 and has enough hits behind him to put on a killer Celine Dion-like thing four or five nights a week at Harrah’s or Caesars Palace, and no one would begrudge him. He could put in ten or 12 years, make a nice living, develop a little blackjack habit, then retire. Right? Right?
Wrong. Aw hell … (more…)
Any good label manager would tell you: don’t name your album something a reviewer could turn into a catchy, snarky counterpoint. But as we know far too well, most of the labels are hanging by a thread, the management inside reduced to bean counters versus quality controllers and, heck, if Hollywood keeps naming their movies in blindly self-insulting ways, why can’t the record industry follow suit?
, opens itself up to opening paragraphs such as this, begging the question, “Boom or Bust?” What really matters is if the band has spent the decade-long downtime productively or not, and luckily for you, the Popdose staff has gone through the work of sussing it out so you don’t have to. Strap on your steel dragon-face boots, smear on your kabuki greasepaint and shake off your love gun. It’s time to rock and roll.
fans). After listening to Sonic Boom, I can still say I cannot name a single Kiss studio album that’s great from start to finish.
Wouldn’t it be cool to be Cheap Trick’s Robin “The Voice” Zander? I mean, the guy’s, like, 85 years old and looks the same as he did on the cover of 
In 
