But don’t take my word for it. Go check out the rundown of it over at Yahoo! yourself. Actually, the most entertaining bit of it all is not the story on the video, but the comments made between the diehard fans and…everyone else. Good times.
Category: Artists (Page 144 of 262)
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.
Only time will tell. But, the former dude-turned-rapper-turned-guy-out-of-a-job has been granted temporary full custody of Sean preston and Jayden James. But let Dorian Traube (some professor of social work at So Cal Uni) lay it out for ya:
“Lately, he’s really kind of stepped up as a father. We don’t hear much about how he parents his other kids. But with his children with Britney, he’s gone to great lengths to keep them out of the public eye and he’s gone to great lengths to keep the grandparents involved.”
Undoubtedly a good idea, because as we all know, once Brit-Brit has them in her nicotine-stained clutches, it’s every kid for himself. Let’s hope Federline can actually do a better job and at least be good at something for the first time in his life.
Guest contributor: Una Persson
Sometimes, as a reviewer, your eyes are bigger than your stomach ears. Here’s how the process usually works, a veritable peek behind the curtain, if you will:
1. Our esteemed editor emails out lists of recently arrived CDs to be reviewed to the writers-at-large
2. The writers respond back with their requests, claims, pleas and bribes of what they want to review
3. Our esteemed editor lets you know if what you asked for has already been claimed; If you don’t hear anything, you assume you got what you asked for. (Ed. note: this is not entirely accurate, but I appreciate you giving me the benefit of the doubt.)
4. When the copy of the CD arrives, you listen to it (in heavy rotation if it’s good, not more than once or twice if its pure crap), write the review and send it in
5. Once every few weeks, our esteemed editor sends an email with all the CDs that didn’t get claimed, with pleas – sometimes demands! – for someone, anyone to take on some of these so-called “orphans.”
6. Go to Step 2
7. Rinse, repeat
It’s a wonderful system, in fact. The “bidding” has just enough uncertainty to make it interesting, and it’s a fairly democratic way to ensure the same people don’t review the same kind of material week after week, month after month.
The only problem I have is when my orphans pile starts stacking up, and I just can’t muster up the enthusiasm I once had to write “full” reviews of a stack of CDs that, by default, got placed in my personal B-list of new albums. The A-list CDs get my undue attention, of course…and this installment of this irregular column is my mea culpa for these mostly worthy B-listers…
Chet Atkins & Les Paul: Chester & Lester (RCA)
In 1976, these two guitar legends sat down in a studio to record this straightforward country instrumental session, which finds the fretboard icons laying back, stretching out and having an all-around good time as they flex their respective guitar muscles. Les Paul, of course, pioneered the use of both the electric guitar and multi-track recordings. Atkins is a fingerpicking virtuoso. Having ‘em both together on one CD is worth the price of admission alone.
Brown Shoe: Vanity (No Alternative)
My Morning Jacket-lite, with a shoegazer twist.
Charlie Hunter Trio: Mistico (Fantasy)
Guitar-based jazz fusion with plenty of groove- and jam-band elements to keep the kids happy. Fans should eat this up. If you’re not familiar with Charlie Hunter’s 8-string guitar playing eclecticism (though he’s playing “only” a 7-string on this outing), or if you only know him through his collaborations with Norah Jones and Mos Def, among others, I couldn’t think of a better place to get to know him better than on this CD.
Oakley Hall: I’ll Follow You (Merge)
Not quite Americana, not quite ork-pop, Oakley Hall is kind of like a southern-tinged Arcade Fire. I like it.
Super Guitar Trio: Live in Montreux 1989 (Eagle Vision)
Anyone who loves or remembers “Friday Night in San Francisco,” the acoustic guitar fusion album that showcased the awesome talents of Al DiMeola, John McLaughlin and Paco DeLucia, should run right out and buy this DVD. It’s an updating of that classic album from 1980, this time out featuring DiMeola flanked by Larry Coryell and Biréli Lagrene in a blistering showcase of guitar mastery. All three are virtuosos (but, if anyone’s keeping score, this one was all Lagrene’s).
Fjord Rowboat: Saved the Compliments for Morning (Independent)
Nu-gaze.
Terence Blanchard: A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina) (Blue Note)
Seeing as Terence Blanchard is film director Spike Lee’s go-to guy for music (“Mo’ Better Blues,” “Malcom X,” “Inside Man”), it’s no surprise Lee tapped Blanchard for “When the Levee Broke,” the four-hour award-winning HBO documentary that aired in 2006. Blanchard, after all, is a native of New Orleans, and an accomplished trumpeter-composer in his own right. Four of the tracks from the documentary were given new arrangements for this gorgeous, emotionally expansive album, which also features nine new tracks inspired by New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina.
Coco: Play Drum + Bass (K Records)
Picture the Black Keys (guitar and drums garage blues). Substitute a bass for the guitar (though the bass manages to sound like anything but on most tunes), and a female vocalist. Oh, and take away half the talent. That’s Coco.
Radiohead’s releasing their new album as a digital download through their site, and they’re letting the buyers determine what they’re willing to pay.
You know, I’m not even really that big a Radiohead fan, but I’m very seriously considering going online and buying a copy at a reasonable price – y’know, $11.99 or something – just to show my support for the mere idea of such a huge band going out of their way to avoid the major labels.
Anyone else…?
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