It really says something about the enduring appeal of an artist’s sound when his 30th anniversary announcement is surprising not only because of how far he’s come, but because it seems like he’s been around much, much longer. Such is the case with Stanley “Buckwheat” Dural, Jr., leader of the venerable Louisiana combo Buckwheat Zydeco; his music is tied in so tightly with its rich traditional roots – but constantly brimming with infectious, life-affirming energy – that it’s never sounded anything but timeless. To celebrate his three decades in the trenches, Dural has enlisted a drool-worthy array of special guests for Lay Your Burden Down, including Warren Haynes, Sonny Landreth, JJ Grey, and Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews – not to mention Steve Berlin behind the boards (and sitting in with the horn section). With all that talent in the studio, it’d be a shame if Burden was weighed down with pedestrian material; thankfully, the album shines on that front, too – it kicks off with a cracking cover of “When the Levee Breaks” and keeps on strutting through a combination of solid originals and equally inspired covers (including Bruce Springsteen’s “Back in Your Arms” and Captain Beefheart’s “Too Much Time”). Typically stellar stuff from Buckwheat Zydeco, in other words. May Buckwheat’s accordion ring for another three decades. (Alligator 2009)

Buckwheat Zydeco MySpace page

Jon Stewart is a huge Springsteen fan, so naturally he treated Bruce a little better than how he treated Jim Cramer.

Bruce also performed a solid acoustic version of “Working on a Dream.”

With American Idiot in 2004, Green Day released one of the best rock albums of the past 20 years. I immediately went from casual fan to huge fan with that record. The music was incredibly powerful, but the lyrics were even more impressive. Green Day was willing to make a rebellious political statement at a time when most of the country was in a collective stupor, consumed by the “war on terror.” They didn’t hold back, and the result was stunning. Bullz-Eye’s David Medsker summed it up in his review of the record.

Green Day’s biggest conceit was that they were what they seemed, a group of snot nosed punks who would rather beat off in front of the TV than take a stand on anything of importance. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. No band writes tunes as sharp as “Longview,” “Geek Stink Breath” and “Hitchin’ a Ride” without some synapses firing. And with their newest, American Idiot, the cat’s out of the bag; they wrote a concept album, which actually brings the band full circle. With songs that both rocked and popped, they were more of a mod band and a punk band, and American Idiot pays heartfelt tribute to their mod forefathers the Who while eviscerating the current pop culture climate at the same time. It’s heady stuff, to be sure; they’ll certainly never get away with acting like slackers again. The world knows better now.

Many fans have been waiting for their follow-up effort, and 21st Century Breakdown arrives in stores in May. Rolling Stone scored an “early listen” to six tracks from the record. We weren’t so lucky, but we bring you their impressions.

As previously reported, the 16-track album is broken into three acts — Heroes and Cons, Charlatans and Saints, and Horseshoes and Handgrenades — and Dirnt told AP magazine that the songs “speak to each other the way the songs on [Bruce Springsteen’s] Born to Run speak to each other. I don’t know if you’d call it a ‘concept album,’ but there’s a thread that connects everything.” The songs are defiant, but also defiantly hopeful, referencing the unsettled political climate as well as more personal and generational turmoils. Its blend of claustrophobia and freedom is well illustrated by the album’s cover art, which depicts a tight shot of a young couple kissing against a graffiti-covered wall.

Defiant. I love it. Can’t wait.

Bruce Springsteen has written a journal on his web site about his Super Bowl experience.

Since the inception of our band it was our ambition to play for everyone. We’ve achieved a lot but we haven’t achieved that. Our audience remains tribal…that is predominantly white. On occasion, the Inaugural Concert, during a political campaign, touring through Africa in ‘88, particularly in Cleveland with President Obama, I looked out and sang “Promised Land” to the audience I intended it for, young people, old people, black, white, brown, cutting across religious and class lines. That’s who I’m singing to today. Today we play for everyone. I pull myself upright with the mike stand back into the world, this world, my world, the one with everybody in it and the stadium, the crowd, my band, my best friends, my wife come rushing into view and it’s “teardrops on the city…”

I know I’m biased as a big Springsteen fan, but I felt he really delivered an exceptional performance for the Super Bowl. The song selection was excellent, and he delivered a 12-minute party that most people enjoyed. Even Howard Stern, who loves to criticize Bruce, argued that is was a fantastic performance.

EW.com’s PopWatch summarizes the Bonnaroo headliners, but you can see the full lineup here.

You’ve got your classic-rock powerhouses (Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Elvis Costello), your reunited jam-band institution (Phish), your ’90s-survivor cult act (Nine Inch Nails), your rap elders (Snoop Dogg, the Beastie Boys), your old soul legend (Al Green), your new funk goddess (Erykah Badu), your country icons (Merle Haggard, Lucinda Williams) — and, of course, dozens of your top-tier indie rockers (Animal Collective, the Decemberists, TV on the Radio, Grizzly Bear)

The article didn’t even mention Wilco or David Byrne. That’s a nice lineup.

The festival runs from June 11th to the 14th. Tickets go on sale this Saturday.

Every music lover has been there – in front of the television or a set of speakers, listening for the first time to the work of a critically revered artist whose songs are supposed to change the way you look at the world…only to come away wondering what all the hype was about. For the iconoclastic among us, these moments are opportunities to prove what independent thinkers we are; for everyone else – a group that often appears to include virtually every name-brand music critic on the planet – they’re opportunities to turn off your ears, nod your head, and smile. What kind of self-respecting music writer doesn’t love the music of Bruce Springsteen? U2? Elvis Costello? A total hack, right?

Maybe. Or maybe we tend to forget that one of the most wonderful things about art is the utterly objective way we respond to it. One establishment’s treasure can be one lonely listener’s source of constant befuddlement, consternation or outright rage – and with that in mind, your Bullz-Eye Music staff put its heads together and drew up a list of all the bands and artists we’re supposed to love…but don’t. Each of the writers who contributed to this piece is speaking solely for himself, and you’re sure to disagree with some of the names mentioned here – and, of course, that’s sort of the point. But enough of our introductory babble – let’s break down some critical idols!

The Doors
“…don’t even think about describing their sound as “timeless”; you’ll be hard pressed to find music as trapped in time as these peyote-fueled dirges, and no one summed up the life and legacy of Jim Morrison – whose death was as brilliant a career move as you’ll ever see – better than Denis Leary: ‘I’m drunk, I’m nobody. I’m drunk, I’m famous. I’m drunk, I’m fucking dead.’”

Bruce Springsteen
“Perhaps Jello Biafra put it best when he referred to Bruce Springsteen as ‘Bob Dylan for jocks.’ But I can sum up what I dislike about the majority of the Boss in one word: Glockenspiel.”

Pink Floyd
“If you’re 14 and discovering pot, Pink Floyd’s a must. Hell, Dark Side of the Moon is practically a gateway drug in and of itself. If you’re out of high school and still into ‘em, you’ve got a problem.”

Conor Oberst
“…his songs are duller than a steak knife in a prison cafeteria. I’ve tried repeatedly to ‘get’ Oberst’s work, but each time, I come away further convinced that his music is an elaborate prank hatched by the editors of Pitchfork.”

To read the rest of the bands Bullz-Eye doesn’t get, click here.

Bruce sings an accoustic version of The Rising in Cleveland.

The Barenaked Ladies thought they were being funny when, on their 1992 debut, Gordon, they sang these lines: “Maybe it’s a lack of inspiration that makes me stoop, or maybe it’s a lack of remuneration – I can’t recoup – but if you want it, folks, you got it: it’s all right here in my box set.” While the song, “Box Set,” might keep BNL from releasing a multi-disc career-spanning collection (mostly because they would never, ever hear the end of it), plenty of other artists have dipped into the vaults and put together compilations which mix their best-known material with heretofore-unheard tracks. In some cases, however, artists dispense of previously-released material altogether, cull together all the rarities they can find, and make it an affair strictly for the fans. All told, there are so many such releases in existence that we here at Bullz-Eye didn’t even try to do a formal “Best Ever Box Sets” list. Instead, the writers put together lists of their personal favorites, and we separated out the various-artists collections into their own separate list, just to make it a little less confusing. The musical genres are decidedly across the board, but with the holidays coming up, if you’ve got a friend or family member who’s a full-fledged music geek, we might just have a few ideas for you to consider as gifts.

Here’s an example…

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Live/1975-1985 (Columbia) “Ladies and gentlemen…Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band,” the calm voice of a faceless PA announcer breathes, as the opening piano notes of “Thunder Road” begin the incredible retrospective journey that is Live/1975-85. From intimate clubs like The Roxy in 1975, where Springsteen plays “Thunder Road” solo on a piano, to Meadowlands Arena in 1981 for a full-on band assault of “Cadillac Ranch” and “Candy’s Room” to the mega Born In The U.S.A. tour in 1985 and nearly every hit finding the LA Coliseum stage that year, Jon Landau mastered a beauty here. The Boss tells stories (“Growin’ Up”), opens his diary (“Because the Night”), and simply rocks out with the force of 100 men (“Born to Run”), all to wild applause of fans from coast to coast over a decade of non-stop touring. It’s a box set like no other: all live, all real, and with all albums (up to the release date) well represented. Covers of Tom Waits’ “Jersey Girl” and Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” are impeccably-done, if unexpected, nuggets that sound as fresh as any original. This was the perfect Christmas gift for a pimply-faced kid in working class America back in 1986 who would have otherwise had to work two weeks for enough money to buy a 3-album set, and it remains indispensable in 2007. – Red Rocker

…and here’s the rest of the piece.

Did we miss any of your favorites?

The new Springsteen record is out, and it’s underwhelming. While I wonder sometimes what’s wrong with me–a lot of my Bullz-Eye colleagues love this record–it sounds as if The Boss is more like The Middle Manager: 30 years ago, in songs like “Rosalita” and “Born To Run,” Springsteen and the band would gather steam like a double-tractor-trailer huffing through the Berkshires on I-90 up the mountain, cresting at the top with a cathartic pause, and just over the top, Rosie, the record company just gave me a big adva-a-a-ance! Ooooaahhhh! The highway’s jammed with broken heroes on a last-chance power drive!

Those songs rushed downhill after their orgasmic middles, barely holding the road banging through joyous, precarious musical curves at unsafe speeds. But Bruce and Clarence always got us home safely.

Nowadays, Springsteen’s music sounds nice, the chords are pleasant, the sax still wails, but he hasn’t slammed it into overdrive for a couple decades.

His new songs contain stories, still, but mundane as your next door neighbor couple’s arguments (”Think about the future, baby, none of this has happened yet”) and not life-altering, on the edge stuff like leaving your wife and kids in Baltimore, jack, or “Mister State Trooper,” that was intense.

Don’t get me wrong, this aging “Springsteen 2.0″ is still better than anything John Cafferty, Bonnie Jovie, Southside Johnny or the Brooklyn-born Eddie Money ever put out, even in their heyday. He knows songcraft. And he knows his limitations and works within them to create good tuneage.

Maybe I’m just an old fart who’s living back in 1984, looking for an adrenaline shot that doesn’t exist. At any rate, it sent me on a MySpace Music hunt for a younger Jersey throwback, one that might be picking up the torch for us Springsteen fans who want a little more of the rough-and-tumble back.

It’s still elusive.

In the meanwhile, however, the search did turn up a freaking great band to check out called Wiser Time (pictured below).

These Black Crowes clones (they’re named after a Crowes song) pack some serious electric-slide punch into their original songs, and in the typical New Jersey rock style, do not aspire to bookish heights of rock intelligence. Amen, brother, we could all use a little less heavy thinking and a little more git-ar distortion. With a side order of slide.