Beck – Everybody’s Gotta Learn SometimeStarting with Midnight Vultures, I started losing interest in Beck and the last of his albums that I bought and spent any time with was 2008’s Modern Guilt. So, although most of these songs have been released previously, they are (or at least Beck’s versions are) new to me. Some of them work pretty well… Read more »
Ari Lennox – VacancyHer voice is good, but the music seems synthetic. I mean, I know it is synthetic, but it shouldn’t feel so mechanical. It’s clear she wants to show off her soul chops, but that effort is undercut by soulless backing.Listen: NoBuy: No Megadeth – MegadethOf speedmetal’s Big Four, only Megadeth continued to release records that I ever… Read more »
A$AP Rocky – Don’t Be DumbRight off the bat, the songs seem mediocre, but the production and arrangements seem fantastic. The lyrics to “PLAYA” aren’t stupid, but they are weak from a rhyme perspective. Over the course of the album, I waffle on the lyrics, find the music to be mundane, and the production very good.Listen: Maybe just a few… Read more »
Better late than never. A third of the way into 2023 may seem pretty late in the game to post about the best of 2022, but life is busy and I got lazy (lazier than usual) about my comments. Well, here is is … finally. Ismatic Guru – “I Didn’t Like It” (from Ismatic Guru II EP): This is just… Read more »
Bob: I’m not quite through my first listen, but I checked allmusic’s review since I knew they rated this higher than For You. “Expanding the urban R&B and funk approach of his debut, Prince is a considerably more accomplished record than his first effort, featuring the first signs of his adventurous, sexy signature sound.” Did allmusic and I even listen… Read more »
Bob: After one listen, I think this album is a solid 3-3.5 star record taken on its own. There is some good disco stuff and it foreshadows electro a bit. More importantly, it hints at where Prince will go in a few years. He’s clearly not there yet, but the ideas seem to be forming on a few tracks. Chuck:… Read more »
Cover records are a tricky business at best and yet I find myself drawn to them. I’m never sure if it is for the train wreck or the diamond in the rough. In this case, it was mostly just nondescript rehashings. For the most part, what is good on this record is what was good in the original recordings. Where… Read more »
I’m getting old…but not as old as the Scorpions. Klaus Meine and Rudolph Schenker have been at it for over and 50 years and Mathias Jabs has been with them for over 40. With the core of the band from their prime intact, Rock Believer is their 19th studio album. If they put a question mark after the opening track,… Read more »
For many of the last 17 years, I have created an end of year comp that I call Missed Hits. The idea was to share music that hit me and that I expected many people had missed. Despite spending a lot of time discovering and writing about music in early 2021, I kind of expected this task to be more… Read more »
One of the worst things that can happen at a show is for the songs on the stage to reproduce the songs from the studio, yet live records fall into this trap more often than not. Crowd noise is cleaned up and artificially returned between songs. Rather than reproducing the best show, tracks are culled from multiple shows. Part of… Read more »