Headphone Bleed

Future of the Left, Polymers Are Forever [Boston Phoenix]

2012-01-17T21:06:00.002-05:00

Since we last heard from Future of the Left, Cardiff's greatest non-furry export lost founding member Kelson Mathias and gained two new ones.

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Alex Chilton, Free Again: The "1970" Sessions [Boston Phoenix]

2012-01-13T08:54:00.002-05:00

Post–Box Tops and pre-Big Star, Alex Chilton was an 18-year-old Memphis boy on his way to his dual identity: former #1 pop hitmaker, perpetual underground hero.

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The Smashing Pumpkins, Gish/Siamese Dream [Boston Phoenix]

2011-11-30T20:38:00.004-05:00

Billy Corgan's zeitgeist whine, so omnipresent via high-charting Siamese Dream tracks "Today" and "Disarm," was the true sound of the alterna-'90s.

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The Who, Quadrophenia: The Director's Cut [Boston Phoenix]

2011-11-24T20:45:00.003-05:00

Pete Townshend's working demos for the Who have long been sought in bootleg circles, often for the simple reason that the songwriter's vulnerable vocals offer relief from the barbaric yawp of lead singer Roger Daltrey.

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R.E.M., Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage: 1982-2011 [Boston Phoenix]

2011-11-18T08:01:00.003-05:00

Now R.E.M. have died two deaths: first, when drummer and founding member Bill Berry split for the comforts of country life in 1997, and then nail-in-the-coffin style, when the Athens, Georgia, band announced its official break-up two months ago.

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Kurt Vile, So Outta Reach [Boston Phoenix]

2011-11-18T07:58:00.002-05:00

This six-song, 30-minute companion EP serves as a victory lap for long-haired Philadelphian Kurt Vile, whose vacillating and absorbing Smoke Ring for My Halo is certainly one of the year's best albums.

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Various Artists, Phil Spector Presents the Philles Album Collection [Boston Phoenix]

2011-11-08T08:58:00.003-05:00

Before finding infamy as a perm-'fro courtroom crazy, the guy who held the Ramones at gunpoint, or the dude who dared helm murky post-Beatles waters, Phil Spector was synonymous with '60s-pop Wall of Sound production.

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Tom Waits, Bad as Me [Boston Phoenix]

2011-10-27T21:47:00.003-04:00

"Roll my vertebrae out like dice/Let my skull be a home for the mice/Let me bleach like the bones on a beach/I'll be hard like a pit from a peach," Tom Waits growls and spits, cheeky and sibilant, on "Satisfied," the ideological linchpin of his latest studio album.

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Boom Bip, Zig Zaj [Boston Phoenix]

2011-10-08T07:35:00.002-04:00

Cincinnati-via-Los Angeles producer/DJ Bryan Hollon, a/k/a Boom Bip, hit throwback gold in 2008 as one half of Neon Neon, an '80s pop concept project with Super Furry Animal Gruff Rhys. Boom Bip's latest solo effort often touches on similar way-back-machine tropes...

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Wilco, The Whole Love [Boston Phoenix]

2011-09-29T08:26:00.002-04:00

Wilco's evolution from Uncle Tupelo detritus to post-Americana thinking-man's jam band goes two steps back on their eighth studio album, and that's a good thing.

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St. Vincent, Strange Mercy [Boston Phoenix]

2011-09-18T15:58:00.003-04:00

The pretty/ugly dichotomy at the heart of Annie Clark's St. Vincent moniker is in full tug-of-war on her third and most challenging full-length.

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Grace Jones, Hurricane [Boston Phoenix]

2011-09-12T13:55:00.002-04:00

There was a time when Grace Jones qualified as an '80s casualty; her last album came out in '89, and despite hits like "Nightclubbing" and "Pull Up to the Bumper," her reputation is more passé cultural enigma than pop star.

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Patti Smith, Outside Society [Boston Phoenix]

2011-08-13T06:55:00.002-04:00

Punk-rock-poet-priestess, Mapplethorpian-anti-pin-up-queen, rabble-rousing-riot-grrl-archetype: Patti Smith is your go-to rock icon when it comes to underbelly doppelgangers of Pat Benatar or Stevie Nicks.

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They Might Be Giants, Join Us [Boston Phoenix]

2011-08-04T07:28:00.002-04:00

I don't formally speak for all TMBG fans, but I think I speak for most TMBG fans when I say that every post-John Henry studio release has been greeted with crossed fingers and a mantra: "Pre-John Henry caliber."

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Various Artists, True Soul: Deep Sounds from Left of Stax [Boston Phoenix]

2011-07-15T21:28:00.003-04:00

Soul hounds love deep, obscure shit — the deeper it is, the more obscure it is, the funkier it is, the more Southern it is, the better.

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Tedeschi Trucks Band, Revelator [Boston Phoenix]

2011-06-20T12:51:00.002-04:00

If you like your summer soundtrack replete with the familial, genre-stir-fried Good Life incarnate, then this CD is right in your friggin' wheelhouse.

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Friendly Fires, Pala [Boston Globe]

2011-06-20T12:49:00.002-04:00

Like its Aussie contemporary Cut Copy, the British dance-rock band Friendly Fires is making the indie world safe again for old-school populism, one surging anthem at a time.

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Thurston Moore, Demolished Thoughts [Boston Globe]

2011-05-24T10:43:00.002-04:00

In case you missed the memo, this is the year in which middle-age Western Mass. noisemakers unplug and chill out.

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Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Expanded Collectors Editions [Boston Phoenix]

2011-05-13T22:02:00.002-04:00

The four classic albums that Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds released between 1994 and 2001 served as a crucial transition.

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Beastie Boys, Hot Sauce Committee Part Two [Boston Globe]

2011-05-03T08:21:00.002-04:00

Rapping about how well you rap is both stubbornly old school and totally meta. It’s also a form of hip-hop Darwinism, as the Beastie Boys, now in their mid-40s and still one step ahead of trash-talking competitors, demonstrate to the fullest on their eighth studio album.

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Paul Simon, So Beautiful or So What [Boston Globe]

2011-04-24T22:32:00.002-04:00

Paul Simon’s studio albums occur at an infrequency that qualifies them as genuine events, yet they have become, post-“Graceland," increasingly uneventful events.

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Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, Here We Rest [Boston Phoenix]

2011-04-24T22:29:00.002-04:00

Jason Isbell's stint as the Drive-By Truckers' third axman/singer-songwriter was brief but revelatory: dude was a veritable outta-nowhere sensation who sounded as if he'd been road-tripping in bands of that caliber for decades.

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The Mountain Goats, All Eternals Deck [Boston Globe]

2011-04-05T23:19:00.000-04:00

The venerable semi-autobiographically confessional indie band moves to Merge, the Grammy-winning Indie Label That Could for its 13th album, and gets a little less semi-autobiographically confessional.

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Various Artists, Those Shocking, Shaking Days: Indonesian Hard, Psychedelic, Progressive Rock and Funk 1970-1978 [Boston Phoenix]

2011-03-22T16:04:00.002-04:00

I know what you're thinking: Is Those Shocking, Shaking Days: Indonesian Hard, Psychedelic, Progressive Rock and Funk 1970-1978 really as mind-bendingly, earth-shatteringly, consciousness-alteringly awesome as its title would suggest? Abso-fucking-lutely.

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Kurt Vile, Smoke Ring for My Halo [Boston Globe]

2011-03-09T08:41:00.004-05:00

Philadelphian Kurt Vile plays guitar like Leo Kottke dreams: a tangle of arpeggios and fingerpicks, quick flourishes and darts up the neck, hazy and unfinished and dreamlike.

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Drive-By Truckers, Go-Go Boots [Boston Phoenix]

2011-03-05T22:35:00.002-05:00

I've argued that Drive-By Truckers — the definitive post-Southern-rock Southern-rock band — haven't been the same since parting ways with Jason Isbell, and their previous two releases serve as spotty Exhibits A and B. This ninth studio album finds long-timers Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley regaining their focus with their best set of narratives since 2006's A Blessing and a Curse.

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Gruff Rhys, Hotel Shampoo [Boston Phoenix]

2011-02-26T19:23:00.002-05:00

Gruff Rhys has gone into extracurricular overdrive. In the past five years, he's released more solo albums and side projects than he has discs with his long-time band Super Furry Animals.

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Cut Copy, Zonoscope [Boston Globe]

2011-02-09T20:43:00.002-05:00

Album number three by the Australian electro-pop band, with its tsunami choruses and windswept high drama, is most certainly meant to be the Big One.

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The Jayhawks, Hollywood Town Hall + Tomorrow the Green Grass [Boston Phoenix]

2011-01-20T22:11:00.003-05:00

The reedy voices of Mark Olson and Gary Louris are why the Jayhawks stood out from the '90s alt-country crowd - two inextricably linked stalks of lonesome beauty, they remain impossible to discern from each other, impossible to peel apart.

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Gorillaz, The Fall [Boston Globe]

2011-01-12T22:00:00.002-05:00

If you’re a member of Gorillaz’s Sub-Division fan club, you likely spent Christmas Eve downloading “The Fall,’’ their surprise new full-length (the rest of us have settled with streaming it at the band’s website or, ahem, finding it elsewhere).

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Oxford American's 12th Annnual Southern Music Issue

2010-12-06T21:06:00.002-05:00

This is no doubt a biased opinion, seeing as though my writing does appear here, but the Oxford American's Southern Music Issue is hands-down the best annual publication your magazine-buying money can buy. This year's focus is the great state of Alabama. Contributing writers include Greil Marcus, Amanda Petrusich, Franklin Bruno, Hayden Childs, Alex V. Cook, Kim Cooper, and many more. Online-only contributor Q&As can be found here. The issue can be found in your local bookstore, or order online here.

Elvis Costello, National Ransom [Boston Phoenix]

2010-11-01T22:10:00.003-04:00

Back in the late '70s and early '80s, Elvis Costello would plot his cosmic knowledge of music history into his own songs, as if they were booty for like-minded music geeks.

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John Lennon, Signature Box [Boston Phoenix]

2010-10-19T21:51:00.003-04:00

Part absurdist wit, part domestic romantic, and part quasi-revolutionary, John Lennon had a restless, albeit brief, post-Beatles career.

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Bob Dylan, The Bootleg Series Vol. 9: The Witmark Demos 1962-1964 [Boston Globe]

2010-10-19T21:45:00.002-04:00

These days he’s known as a crotchety, pencil-mustached icon, but in 1962 Bob Dylan was a little Midwestern fish in a big New York pond.

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Grinderman, Grinderman 2 [Boston Globe]

2010-09-27T21:18:00.002-04:00

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ side project takes its name from a John Lee Hooker song and its pent-up libido from the eruptive Chess sides of the 1950s. But Grinderman ain’t yer father’s blues.

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Miles Davis, The Genius of Miles Davis [Boston Globe]

2010-09-06T12:28:00.002-04:00

As recorded music becomes increasingly digitized and intangible, CD box sets have evolved into a more specialized and elite product. Case in point: “The Genius of Miles Davis," a whopper of a set that collects all eight of Columbia/Legacy’s Grammy Award-winning Miles Davis box sets.

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Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan, Hawk [Boston Globe]

2010-08-23T09:19:00.002-04:00

The opposites-attract logic behind the pairing of sweet-voiced Isobel Campbell (ex-Belle & Sebastian) and gruff-voiced Mark Lanegan (ex-Screaming Trees) is a no-brainer delight, now three albums strong.

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The Black Crowes, Croweology [Boston Globe]

2010-08-09T17:04:00.003-04:00

On the cusp of their second indefinite hiatus (oh, the tenuous fraternity!), the Black Crowes reflect on 20 years of music with a two-CD set of newly recorded, mostly acoustic renditions of songs from their back catalog.

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Mystery Jets, Serotonin [Boston Globe]

2010-07-19T21:53:00.001-04:00

The Eel Pie Island band Mystery Jets may be a little too British to get much love here in the States — too much post-prog panache, not enough gritty harrumph.

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R.E.M., Fables of the Reconstruction: 25th Anniversary Edition [Boston Globe]

2010-07-12T12:11:00.002-04:00

In 1985, shortly after they begat a new definition of American modern rock and shortly before they evolved into a stadium colossus, R.E.M. released “Fables of the Reconstruction,’’ a futurist folk record of sorts.

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Sun Kil Moon, Admiral Fell Promises [Boston Phoenix]

2010-07-09T12:39:00.002-04:00

I'm convinced that Mark Kozelek is actually a hypnotist posing as a musician.

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Pernice Brothers, Goodbye, Killer [Boston Phoenix]

2010-06-18T06:32:00.001-04:00

In the four years since the previous Pernice Brothers album, Joe Pernice has published a terrific debut novel (It Feels So Good When I Stop), released an accompanying soundtrack, and had his name catapulted into Twitter infamy by his acerbic foil (and manager), Joyce Linehan.

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The Black Keys, Brothers [Boston Phoenix]

2010-06-01T23:30:00.003-04:00

I’m not a big believer in the idea that bands absorb some ghostly qi in a particular space — if that were the case, Nickelback would be busy rigging up multiple pianos at Abbey Road.

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Ketman, Ketman a Go Go [Boston Phoenix]

2010-05-20T07:09:00.003-04:00

The winking disconnect between Ketman’s promotional art (swingin’ young people from a half-century ago enjoying the pleasures of their hi-fi system; Twiggy types with black bars across their eyes) and Ketman’s music (lean, pugilistic rock with 1980s American punk in its rear-view mirror) is now a little less disconnect-y.

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The New Pornographers, Together [Boston Phoenix]

2010-05-06T11:50:00.004-04:00

Once a group of Canadian unknowns masquerading as a supergroup, the New Pornographers are no longer entirely Canadian or unknown, and neither are they the same cavalier bunch who redefined left-field power pop for the Naughts.

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Jakob Dylan, Women + Country [Boston Phoenix]

2010-04-21T14:01:00.003-04:00

“Boring” is the sort of adjective used by music snobs (hi there!) to describe the Wallflowers, the band who brought Jakob Dylan’s hoarse and unexcitable voice into the mainstream.

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The Unthanks, Here's the Tender Coming [Boston Phoenix]

2010-04-15T23:11:00.002-04:00

Rachel and Becky Unthank appear to have stepped out of another time and place — some tech-deprived airy north-country lea where songs are sung about bonny lads and people with names like Annachie, Patience, and Lucky Gilchrist.

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Untied States, Instant Everything, Constant Nothing [Boston Phoenix]

2010-04-08T08:42:00.005-04:00

Atlanta’s Untied States have arguably the most un-Google-able name in contemporary rock. Which may be the least of their problems, since they’re also on a Paris-based label and routinely bear the “art-rock” tag.

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Iggy & the Stooges, Raw Power (Legacy Edition) [Boston Phoenix]

2010-03-23T19:38:00.003-04:00

We can argue all you want about proto-this and seminal that, but when Raw Power is on the stereo, it’s hard to deny that it’s the greatest rock record ever.
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Gorillaz, Plastic Beach [Boston Phoenix]

2010-03-17T07:51:00.002-04:00

Although this is their first album without an indie-chic producer, the fake band with fake cartoon characters known as Gorillaz stay the course as a very real post-Blur conduit for Damon Albarn's quasi-apocalyptic, '80s-daydreaming, neon-pop habit.

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Spring Arts Preview 2010 [Boston Metro]

2010-03-16T08:08:00.004-04:00

Musicals about cats and sexy Republican senators? We've got those and lots more!

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Broken Bells, Broken Bells [Boston Phoenix]

2010-03-09T20:38:00.002-05:00

Danger Mouse (né Brian Burton) had a pretty good run through the '00s, a decade that saw him go from a mash-up nobody to producer du jour for a motley assortment of artists.

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Jimi Hendrix, Valleys of Neptune [Boston Phoenix]

2010-03-03T12:46:00.003-05:00

The Imaginary Hendrix Vault boasts so many hypothetical treasures.

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Field Music, Field Music (Measure) [Boston Phoenix]

2010-02-17T06:57:00.002-05:00

It takes some serious balls to release a double album in an age when Peter Gabriel would rather go bald than wear a fox pelt on his head.
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Fela Kuti reissues [Boston Phoenix]

2010-02-09T19:28:00.002-05:00

Amiri Baraka put it best in his poem "In the Funk World": "If Elvis Presley is King/Who is James Brown, God?" So, by that logic, is Fela Anikulapo Kuti higher than or equal to God?

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Basia Bulat, Heart of My Own [Boston Phoenix]

2010-01-27T17:36:00.002-05:00

Like a Laurel Canyon Billie Holiday or a pixilated Tracy Chapman, Bulat sports a voice rich with vibrato, hearty oomph, and dignified lonesomeness.

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Pazz & Jop [Village Voice]

2010-01-20T18:53:00.003-05:00

I don't believe in singles. I just believe in me.

Spoon, Transference [Boston Phoenix]

2010-01-13T19:07:00.002-05:00

Any year now, Spoon will release an album consisting of one 35-minute unfailing groove anchored by bass and peppered with erratic guitar-chord grunts and Britt Daniel's wordless exclamations ("Awright!") — an idealized endgame that distills the band's reductive technique to its purest state.
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Various Artists, Casual Victim Pile: Austin 2010 [Boston Phoenix]

2010-01-06T21:13:00.002-05:00

The notion that regional musical flavors exist independently in American cities is quickly becoming an archaic truism, seeing as how the world really is a stage these days, at least in the digital sense.
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Listomania! 2009 [Boston Phoenix]

2009-12-22T07:56:00.003-05:00

Yay! Happy No More 2009! Wait...that sounds negative. Happy Another Year Further Away From 2008! There, that's better.
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Charlotte Hatherley, New Worlds [Boston Phoenix]

2009-12-16T18:44:00.002-05:00

Charlotte Hatherley is to the 1990s as the Black Crowes are to the 1960s: not a revivalist, mind you, but a sympathizer — a careerist.
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Elvis Presley, Elvis 75: Good Rockin' Tonight [Boston Phoenix]

2009-12-09T09:18:00.003-05:00

There's a plethora of Elvis Presley albums on the market, most of them compilations and box sets, each focusing on certain hits, eras, and/or styles.
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Real Estate, Real Estate [Boston Phoenix]

2009-11-25T19:39:00.002-05:00

Real Estate’s buzzed-about debut speaks the language of the season, its slow sunset of sound flush with twinkling Stratocasters, drum kits that trot off into the distance, and anemic vocals that, as with Grizzly Bear or Beach House, magnify the fragility of it all.
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AC/DC, Backtracks [Boston Phoenix]

2009-11-11T07:30:00.003-05:00

How easy is it to admire AC/DC? First, “tenderness” is not in their vocab: they just might be the only working rock band ideologically opposed to ballads.
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Punk & Soul: The Way Maine Should Be

2009-11-05T22:38:00.002-05:00

Morrissey, Swords [Boston Phoenix]

2009-11-03T19:10:00.002-05:00

Morrissey — begrudging patron saint of all that is emotionally desolate and otherwise comfortably bummed — is but a mere mortal, as his recent collapse on stage proves.
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David Bowie, Space Oddity: 40th Anniversary Edition [Boston Phoenix]

2009-10-27T21:16:00.003-04:00

David Bowie’s 1969 album Man of Music/Man of Words was retitled a few years after its debut, most likely because it was quickly becoming known as Space Oddity and Those Other Eight Songs We Could Care Less About.
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Spiral Stairs, The Real Feel [Boston Phoenix]

2009-10-21T15:04:00.001-04:00

As his former band prepare to stage their much-ballyhooed reunion next year, Scott Kannberg is breaking his five-year recording silence with what is arguably his least cryptic post-Pavement release.
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Flight of the Conchords, I Told You I Was Freaky [Boston Phoenix]

2009-10-14T16:51:00.002-04:00

The New Zealand “folk-comedy” duo Flight of the Conchords transcended folk and comedy on their debut LP, a soundtrack to the absurdist HBO show of the same name, with genre parodies that were great songs in their own right.
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The Flaming Lips, Embryonic [Boston Phoenix]

2009-10-06T11:50:00.002-04:00

If new albums by Super Furry Animals, 50 Foot Wave, and the Flaming Lips are any indication, 2009 is smack in the middle of a new psychedelic age.
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Kurt Vile, Childish Prodigy [Boston Phoenix]

2009-09-28T18:58:00.002-04:00

Kurt Vile's punny name, as well as the title of his latest full-length album, bespeaks low-art subversion — surely the classical archetypes are running for the hills.
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The Stone Roses, The Stone Roses (Legacy Edition) [Boston Phoenix]

2009-09-15T20:28:00.004-04:00

The Stone Roses' 1989 debut LP has been deified by such dubious tastemakers as the NME and Oasis's Noel Gallagher — and the rest of us really like it too.
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Better all the time [Boston Phoenix]

2009-09-09T06:55:00.002-04:00

In 2006, Apple/EMI released the Beatles-soundtracked Cirque du Soleil companion piece Love, which mashed together songs from the band's repertoire in stunning remastered sound.
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Various Artists, Ze 30: Ze Records 1979-2009 [Boston Phoenix]

2009-08-19T15:10:00.003-04:00

Impromptu dance parties have begun to interrupt the domesticity of my household, and my family would like to thank Strut for supplying the soundtrack.
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Choo Choo La Rouge, Black Clouds [Boston Phoenix]

2009-08-10T18:48:00.002-04:00

Choo Choo La Rouge have an affiliation with Boston, but their plaid-shirt-and-jeans rock reaches across the map to warmer climes, maybe to laid-back spots like Athens or Austin.
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Elvis Presley, From Elvis in Memphis [Boston Phoenix]

2009-07-28T19:11:00.004-04:00

Elvis Presley temporarily avoided the obvious (and, one could argue, tragic) destiny of a washed-up parody with The '68 Comeback Special, a TV show that lifted the retaining wall of nodding yes men and lucrative movie contracts to reveal a mythic force continuing to pulse.
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Those Darlins, Those Darlins [Boston Phoenix]

2009-07-15T13:43:00.002-04:00

If summer finally decides to arrive this year, it'll have a heckuva soundtrack waiting for it.
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Future of the Left, Travels with Myself and Another [Boston Phoenix]

2009-07-01T19:31:00.003-04:00

There's a fine line between stupid and clever, as Spinal Tap once quipped, and don't these Future of the Left guys just know it.
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Jarvis Cocker, Further Complications [Boston Phoenix]

2009-05-12T17:58:00.001-04:00

For his second solo album, the former Pulp frontman lays waste to his typically polished sound with the help of de-prettier Steve Albini.
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He's their rock: Superdrag redeem themselves [Boston Phoenix]

2009-04-03T09:17:00.001-04:00

The pantheon of Where Are They Nows is populated with fallen and faded demigods, yes, but could've-beens, almost-weres, and also-rans crowd the wings.
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Super Furry Animals, Dark Days/Light Years [Boston Phoenix]

2009-03-31T17:05:00.005-04:00

What better way to say hwyl! to this ponderous decade than with a hulking slab of psych jams from one of its most consistent and chameleonic bands?
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Micachu & the Shapes, Jewellery [Boston Phoenix]

2009-03-23T18:50:00.004-04:00

The brief and ebullient debut by 21-year old Mica Levy et al. is so tic-ridden and childlike, and so packed with dissonant non-chords and chirping calls of hand-clapped rhythm, you'd think a pack of kids had picked out the instruments and written the arrangements.
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Isaac Hayes, Black Moses / Juicy Fruit (Disco Freak) [PopMatters]

2009-03-20T07:37:00.004-04:00

In 1969, Isaac Hayes went from being one-half of Stax Records’ own Holland-Dozier-Holland (Hayes and David Porter were responsible for many of the label’s iconic early hits, like “Hold On, I’m Coming”, “When Something Is Wrong with My Baby”, and “B-A-B-Y") to the bald, beautiful, and tender face of the Memphis label’s post-Otis Redding (and post-Atlantic) second phase.
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The Soundtrack of Our Lives, Communion [PopMatters]

2009-03-18T07:42:00.003-04:00

Like many of their contemporary Swedish brethren, the Soundtrack of Our Lives are old-school dudes.
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Listening to the Muses [Metro NY]

2009-03-12T07:42:00.005-04:00

Kristin Hersh moved her teenaged band, Throwing Muses, to Boston in the mid-1980s not to pursue glitzy urban notoriety, but because they recognized the homegrown solidarity of the city’s music scene.
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Solo contender: A.C. Newman adjusts to the limelight [Boston Phoenix]

2009-03-11T07:41:00.005-04:00

When Carl Newman walks down a New York City sidewalk and seizes some sudden flicker of inspiration by humming bits of melody into his Blackberry, he tends to feel less like a songwriter at work and more like a character out of some fictional satire.
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Boston Spring Arts Preview [Metro Boston]

2009-03-05T20:44:00.006-05:00

Elvis Perkins in Dearland, Elvis Perkins in Dearland [Boston Phoenix]

2009-03-03T18:34:00.007-05:00

Elvis Perkins is the third Elvis on my iPod, and he's also the least controversial of the lot: he doesn't shake his pelvis or appropriate the unsung musical styles of others, and he certainly hasn't engaged in an epithet-laced bar fight at a Holiday Inn.
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Neko Case, Middle Cyclone [Boston Phoenix]

2009-02-24T20:57:00.005-05:00

It's hard to resist the obvious thing here — you know, with a title like that — and not speak in metaphors of inclement weather, just as it was tough to avoid summoning wildlife when discussing Case's previous album, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood.
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Bee Gees, Odessa [Deluxe Edition] [PopMatters, 20 February 2009]

2009-02-20T08:00:00.003-05:00

In 1969, after releasing three psych-pop albums in little more than a year's time (the best of which, Bee Gees' 1st, is like Revolver at a tea party: awesome), the Bee Gees went whole hog into melodramatic chamber rock with Odessa, a 17-track double album steeped in gaudy melody and lush orchestration.
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N.A.S.A., The Spirit of Apollo (Boston Phoenix, 19 February 2009)

2009-02-18T19:57:00.003-05:00

I could fill up all of my allotted space by simply listing the plethora of cameos, not to mention incongruous match-ups, stuffed within this Benetton ad of a debut by Squeak E. Clean and DJ Zegan, a/k/a N.A.S.A. (North America South America).
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Morrissey, Years of Refusal (Boston Phoenix, 12 February 2009)

2009-02-09T17:14:00.003-05:00

"Could this be an arm around my waist?" asks Morrissey on the final track of his ninth post-Smiths solo album, adding, "Surely the hand contains a knife."
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Franz Ferdinand, Tonight: Franz Ferdinand (Boston Phoenix, 29 January 2009)

2009-01-27T13:39:00.004-05:00

On their third full-length, Franz Ferdinand continue to kick out that post-punk/disco thrust that made past singles "Take Me Out" and "Do You Want To" such loosened-skinny-tie pleasures.
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Calling Out Around the World: Motown Turns 50 (PopMatters, 26-30 January 2009)

2009-01-26T18:50:00.003-05:00

I co-edited this week-long feature on the 50th anniversary of Motown over at PopMatters. Today we highlight our favorite 25 singles, and the rest of the week will feature essays by a bunch of our contributors on a variety of Motown-tastic topics. In the singles section, I wrote blurbs on Marvin Gaye's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," Smokey Robinson & the Miracles' "I Second That Emotion," and the Temptations' "I Can't Get Next to You."

Various Artists, Titan: It's All Pop! & Eccentric Soul: The Young Disciples (PopMatters, 23 January 2009)

2009-01-23T09:12:00.004-05:00

The Chicago-based reissue label Numero Group has made its name hunting down and compiling long-defunct and always-obscure R&B sides from decades past -- Detroit’s Big Mack label, Chicago’s Bandit label, and Columbus, Ohio’s Capsoul are but a few of the treasures unearthed in Numero’s ongoing “Eccentric Soul” series.
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Mark Olson & Gary Louris, Ready for the Flood (Boston Phoenix, 22 January 2009)

2009-01-20T21:58:00.004-05:00

Some of us sat idly by while the Stooges, the Pixies, the Police, and the New Kids were busy plotting their improbable reunions, our arms crossed, feigning indifference.
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The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century (PopMatters, 20 January 2009)

2009-01-20T09:30:00.003-05:00

Alex Ross' tome, winner of the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism (and now available on paperback), offers a history of the 20th Century as seen through the prism of the modern-day composer.
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Rokia Traoré, Tchamantché (PopMatters, 14 January 2009)

2009-01-14T09:21:00.002-05:00

It's a new dawn, a new day, I'm feeling good, etc. I wanted to tell you all about this new Rokia Traoré record, Tchamantché, back in the fall of last year when it was originally scheduled for release, but was made to wait when the release date was pushed back to the first quarter of 2009.
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Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers: Runnin' Down a Dream (PopMatters, 13 January 2009)

2009-01-13T07:37:00.004-05:00

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers are back-pocket stuff. They're always there, always on the radio, always playing that song you've heard a thousand times before even if you could never pinpoint the exact moment you first heard it, always plying their trade in a world of prettied-up pose.
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2008 Listravaganza! [Boston Phoenix, 24 December 2008]

2008-12-24T12:51:00.010-05:00

More year-end list-making madness...
My Top 10 Albums list for the Phoenix (which should more or less be my Top 10 list for everywhere/anywhere else, even though I'm just now getting around to some crucial stuff that I had yet to hear, and even though I'll unknowingly revise the order of said list if asked to recite it by memory in three, four months...alas, that's how it always goes...)

1. Neon Neon | Stainless Style [Lex]
2. My Morning Jacket | Evil Urges [ATO]
3. Erykah Badu | New Amerykah Pt. 1: 4th World War [Universal Motown]
4. The Major Labels | Aquavia [self-released]
5. Flight of the Conchords | S/T [Sub Pop]
6. The Duke Spirit | Neptune [Shangri-La]
7. Elbow | The Seldom Seen Kid [Fiction/Geffen]
8. Ketman | El Toro [Lifted and Gifted]
9. Apes & Androids | Blood Moon [self-released]
10. Q-Tip | The Renaissance [Universal Motown]

[UPDATE: Here's another list, this one a bit more irreverent.]