Category: Pop (Page 41 of 216)

Tracey Thorn: Love and Its Opposite

June 2, 2010 /


RIYL: Everything But The Girl, Beth Orton, Amy Rigby

TraceyThornThough it’s a bit jarring to consider, it has been 11 years since the last proper Everything but the Girl studio album (1999’s Temperamental), and singer Tracey Thorn’s solo output in that period has been relatively sparse. Love and Its Opposite, her first new disc in three years, is worth the wait—an extraordinary adult pop record, full of meditations on middle age, its disappointments, and tiny victories.

The somber piano ballad “Oh, the Divorces!” opens the record, with Thorn employing her distinctive, languid voice to emanate empathy as she imagines the sad scenes leading toward a relationship’s downfall and aftermath. She ponders the reticence to wed in the first place, in “Long White Dress,” casting the wedding gown as love’s “opposite,” while quietly celebrating those who demur. Fear of loneliness, however, sends the protagonist to the “Singles Bar,” where life as a cougar ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. “Can you guess my age in this light?” she asks. “Who will be taking me home tonight?” This triptych forms the foundation of the record, delivering a melancholy take on aging, romance, and sexuality.

Elsewhere, Thorn’s wit pokes through on the up-tempo “Hormones,” and she floats on the danceable groove of “Why Does the Wind?” making one miss Everything But The Girl just a little bit. In all, however, Love and Its Opposite argues convincingly for Thorn’s continued viability as an artist, solo or otherwise, and as a chronicler of the everyday. (Merge 2010)

Tracey Thorn Myspace Page
Click to buy Love and Its Opposite from Amazon

Alternative, CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Pop

Me, Myself, and iPod 5/26/10: Legendary Scottish band, ahoy!

May 26, 2010 /

esd ipod

The Trashcan Sinatras – People
I love the Trashcan Sinatras. I’m not sure when they went from the Trash Can Sinatras to the Trashcan Sinatras, but oh well, but I’m guessing someone at SPINart fucked it up when putting the artwork for Weightlifting together. Anyway, they’re a fabulous bunch of guys, and God love them for sticking with it after all these years of relative obscurity. This is the first single from their new album In the Music, and it’s another smoove slice of literate jangle pop. If you like this, you should know that the rest of the album is even better.

Kathryn Calder – Slip Away
The newest member of the New Pornographers (she’s lead singer Carl Newman’s niece, and she joined during the sessions for Twin Cinema), Calder is picking a curious time to release a solo album, since she’s tied up with touring with the New Porns for the summer. But one listen to this track from the album Are You My Mother?, due out in August, shows that perhaps Carl and Dan should bring her to the writing table, because I’ll take this over anything on the last New Pornographers album any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Donn T – Look At
Two words: Female Kenna. If that doesn’t immediate ring a couple bells, then I have one word for you: Kenna.

See Green – I Can Change
Well, that didn’t take long. Courtenay Green, who’s fast becoming a regular in these parts, covered “I Can Change” from LCD Soundsystem’s new album This Is Happening. Man, is James Murphy the new Neil Young, where his songs sound infinitely better when covered by other people?

La Roux – Bulletproof (Hyper Crush remix)
Armed with a bass line that will set off car alarms, this mix of La Roux’s “Bulletproof” is totally ADD madness, but it’s cool. And I still haven’t grown tired of that Macintosh voice program.

Clubfeet – Teenage Suicide
If you’re anything like me, you saw that title and immediately sang the words ‘Don’t do it’ in your head, since that was the name of the hit song the DJ played in the movie “Heathers.” Well sure enough, immediately after the breathy male lead sings “Teenage suicide,” two girls shout, “Don’t do it!” Bonus points for reading my mind.

Shadow Shadow – Is This Tempest in the Shape of a Bell
Gotta give some love to the guitar pop set. Man, this would have been huge in 1975.

Alternative, Artists, CD Reviews, Dance, Downloads, Hipster, Me Myself and iPod, Pop, Power Pop, Rock, Steal This Song

Carole King and James Taylor: Live at the Troubadour

May 25, 2010 /


RIYL: Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell, Crosby, Stills & Nash

Like a charity softball game that trots out a pair of aging power hitters for a leisurely stroll around the bases between innings, Live at the Troubadour presents a couple of Hall of Famers revisiting past glories one more goddamn time, sharing a warm nostalgia bath with an audience glad for nothing more than evidence that their heroes – and, by extension, the audience members themselves – are still alive. If you could put this CD/DVD package on one of those old-fashioned sailor’s maps of the world, it’d fall under the heading “beyond this place lie geezers.”

That’s the cynical point of view about a project like this, anyway. And it’s easy to be cynical about Live at the Troubadour — both James Taylor and Carole King have released live CDs and/or DVDs in the last few years, and Taylor has been dog-paddling through a happy period of creative loafing since releasing October Road way back in 2002. Who needs to hear another version of “You’ve Got a Friend,” “It’s Too Late,” “I Feel the Earth Move,” or, God help us, “Sweet Baby James”? No one, probably, and if you skip the DVD part of the program and head straight to the audio portion of this live set, no one will blame you for falling asleep halfway through. As Taylor quips before breaking out “You’ve Got a Friend,” he’s been performing this song every night for most of his life; everything here has been done, and done, and done again. And better, too – King’s vocals remain as warm and honey-coated as ever, but you can hear the first signs of fraying in her upper register. As a live album, Live at the Troubadour is hardly definitive.

But its real appeal doesn’t lie on the CD. Playing one’s hits in an intimate acoustic setting has become part of the creative death spiral of the heritage rock act, but to watch Taylor and King return to their old haunt is to remember not only why “unplugged” became a fad in the first place, but to be struck all over again by the sheer quality of both performers’ early work. You can still hear the sound of barrel-scraping if that’s what you’re listening for, but there’s something undeniably appealing about watching two old friends rifle through their songbooks’ back pages, and you can tell that Taylor and King aren’t just doing it for the applause — they’re doing it for themselves, and for each other. Die hard fans will be thrilled with Live at the Troubadour, and if it’s something less than essential for the rest of us, it’s hard to quibble with songcraft this elegantly (and joyously) displayed. (Hear Music 2010)

James Taylor MySpace page

Adult Contemporary, CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Folk, Pop

The Trashcan Sinatras: In the Music

May 20, 2010 /


RIYL: Aztec Camera, Prefab Sprout, Magnetic Fields

By all rights, the Trashcan Sinatras should have broken up years ago. Only one of their five albums was met with good timing, and that was their 1990 debut Cake. From there, they have suffered a relentless tide of apathy, both from the public (their album I’ve Seen Everything landed while grunge was in full swing) and even label bosses (Go! Discs didn’t bother releasing 1996’s A Happy Pocket in the States). But Kilmarnock’s finest have soldiered on, staring down bankruptcy and the inevitable pressures of family life to do what they love. And for that, they have attracted one of the most loyal fan bases any band has ever known. As our Popdose colleague John Hughes once wryly observed, there is no such thing as a casual fan of the Trashcan Sinatras.

Trashcan_Sinatras_03

Even their most recent album, In the Music, has its share of melodrama. The album was originally supposed to come out last fall, but the distribution deal fell through just as they were embarking on their first US tour in five years. But the album is finally out, and in fact its release snuck up on us, which doesn’t bode well for the promotional efforts being done on its behalf. (Seriously, we get close to 50 music press releases a day, but no one’s working the Trashcan Sinatras?) Looks like, as guitarist Paul Livingston pointed out in an interview last summer, that they’ll be selling their records to the same people once again.

Pity, because they’ve just made another gem. In the Music is similar in tone to the band’s 2004 album Weightlifting, in that both are quite mannered in comparison to their earlier work (which in itself was not exactly raucous to begin with). Fans of the “How Can I Apply…” mode of the band’s work will find much to love here, particularly “Easy on the Eye” and “Oranges & Apples,” the band’s tribute to Syd Barrett and their first song to top the seven-minute mark. They even got Carly Simon to sing on the ballad “Should I Pray.” The most rocking moment here is “Prisons,” which is chock full of the vintage Trashcans jangly guitar riffs, and “Morning Star” sports the most widescreen chorus the band’s written in years.

If the album is missing anything – besides promotional support, that is – it’s a few shifts in tempo. Yes, it’s all gorgeous, but anyone longing for a “Bloodrush” or “Welcome Back,” or even another “Hayfever,” will be left wanting. In other words, as much as the band wants people outside of their existing fan base to buy their albums, In the Music is probably not going to do the trick. It’s perfectly lovely, but it’s also preaching to the converted. Still, better that than not preaching at all. (Lo-Five Records 2010)

Trashcan Sinatras MySpace page
Click to buy In the Music from Amazon

Adult Contemporary, Artists, CD Reviews, Pop

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