I’ve never quite figured out what qualifies a CD for the explicit lyrics sticker. Case in point: Modest Mouse’s excellent Good News for People Who Love Bad News, whose “Black Cadillac” repeatedly drops the f-bomb in its shout-along chorus, managed to avoid the sticker. Meanwhile, Bloc Party’s recent Silent Alarm gets the sticker […]
Psst… Some random person on the street pulled me aside and let me listen to the still unreleased Fiona Apple CD Extraordinary Machine. And I have to say: it’s fantastic. The ominous violins and cellos of opener “Not About Love” draw you in and the rest of the tracks never really let up. […]
Rolling Stone’s David Fricke recently gave Bruce Springsteen’s upcoming Devils & Dust CD a whopping 4.5 stars. Gasp. I have not heard the CD, but given what I’ve read about it this seems a bit generous. (Maybe they were just turned on by “Reno” in which the Boss explicitly recounts an […]
For years the tremendously talented Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband were the best band on the newgrass scene. They had the best songs, the best arrangements, and hands-down the best live show. Unfortunately, not many people outside of the mountain West (particularly Utah) knew of them. So when I heard that they […]
Wire magazine put LCD Soundystem front-man
(err, only-man) James Murphy on their year-end cover. Impressive for an artist who released only a few singles in 2004. Were they predicting the upcoming year of the LCD? After enduring the hype for 2 months as we awaited the U.S. release, I gave in.
Quite simply, […]
If you visit many music websites you’ve seen their red, white, and grey banner ads promising 50 or 100 free MP3’s from EMusic. It’s no joke. And, franky, I think it’s the best internet music deal going. If these folks would have been going strong years ago during Napster’s prime (or […]
I was trolling through the 2005 music entries on MetaCritic the other day, and it dawned on me: I’ve only bought 2 new CDs this year. It feels like I’ve been constantly overwhelmed with new music in the past 4 months, but amazingly, only 2 of those CDs were released in 2005. That […]
Caught the Fiery Furnaces at the Fox Theater in Boulder on 4/22/05. I’m a huge fan of this eclectic brother-sister duo - even naming last year’s masterful Blueberry Boat my #2 album of the year. They play eclectic bluesy rock/pop with nonsensical lyrics and complex song and narrative structures. It sounds complex, […]