With Confessions on a Dance Floor, Madonna makes progress in returning to form after the preachy, pale American Life, but this seamless, beat-filled ode to dance clubs isn’t enough to restore her pop relevance. These are the sounds of 1998, halfway between the Chemical Brothers and Stardust, and on “Sorry,”…
How strange — in a musical climate that gives a new Neil Diamond CD all the promotion in the world, the newly released soul-throwback I Believe to My Soul is already collecting dust. Maybe it’s just that this music doesn’t yell, “Look at me, I’m important!” but these 13 grooveful…
The current round of ’80s dance-punk redux has been going on long enough that it’s only a matter of time before some bandwagon-jumping latecomers become the chart-topping equivalent of Creed for the skinny-tie set. Happily, 24-year-old Brit Tom Vek shows there’s still some life to be breathed into the genre…
First, a couple of basic axioms: Sun Kil Moon’s Mark Kozelek is underrated; Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock is overrated. That said, Sun Kil Moon’s Tiny Cities, an album of Modest Mouse covers, just doesn’t add up. While Kozelek has previously paid tribute on disc to AC/DC and John Denver, the…
Samantha Jones ought to be a familiar name if you’ve ever dug the Central Florida music scene. From her stints in punk/indie bands like Crustaceans and Bitchin’ to her most recent bass/vocal work with Hot Water Music’s Chuck Ragan and Chris Wollard’s alt-country-punk side project, Rumbleseat, Jones likes to keep…
Detroit is notorious for spawning some of the world’s definitive wonders: Motown, Devil’s Night, Madonna, Eminem, and, lately, minimalist techno. But ADULT., the nervous trio of Nicola Kuperus, Adam Lee Miller, and newly inducted Sam Consiglio, may be among the most chilling and thrilling of them all. Tingling spines since…
“For me, funk is a feeling. It’s a great feeling that makes you want to get up and get down!” So says DJ Nickodemus, and the man should know. Seven years ago, he launched Turntables on the Hudson, an ongoing series of epic danceathons at offbeat Manhattan locations, spinning the…
And now for something completely different. NASCAR! Yeah, I said it, and you read it. Legions of those left-turn-lovin’ rowdies inundated South Florida last weekend for the final beer bash — I mean competition — of the season, held at the Homestead Speedway. Normally, that fact wouldn’t register a blip…
For every hundred bedroom guitar heroes, there’s a Bryce Avary, the kind of driven kid who doesn’t just dream it. Avary recorded an EP at 18, setting the stage for his terrific self-recorded ad -produced debut, Calendar Days, as the Rocket Summer. Channeling the pop impulses of Weezer and Saves…
First, a couple of facts: (1) Cyndi Lauper was 30 years old when her solo album made its way onto turntables across the land, and (2) contrary to popular belief, Lauper can sing — you know you love “Time After Time” and “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” A far…
As if it weren’t hot enough in hurr already, now we’ve got Nelly playing a Budweiser-sponsored freebie at Revolution in Fort Lauderdale. Basically, this whole concert/promotion/publicity stunt is a shameless marketing ploy for pop consumables: cheap beer, swizzy radio (winning tickets on 99 Jamz is the only way to get…
Up-and-comer Hook Shop Records held its label debut party early in the week of August’s VMAs inside a sleek hotel lobby in Miami Beach. The night went from ho-hum to slam-bang as reggae riddim masters Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare made the scene and dancehall blasted from a makeshift PA…
We just want you to know how much we love you,” VHS or Beta frontman Craig Pfunder says. He cups his hand over his eyes to block the glaring spotlight and slowly scans the paltry crowd at Atlanta venue Vinyl. “We bought up all the tickets for tonight’s show and…
So you’re wondering how the world’s most iconoclastic thinkers feel about America’s full-court press toward globalization. And like any savvy rabble-rouser, you’re also looking for a few good tunes by globe-spanning artists. Do yourself a favor and pick up Another World Is Possible, an absorbing compilation by the politically minded…
While the Experience might be Jimi Hendrix’s better-known backing crew, few would disagree that the Band of Gypsies was the better-playing. And while Hendrix provided the Gypsies’ six-string pyrotechnics, the heart of the group was Buddy Miles and his supremely in-the-cut drums. Miles wrote and sang the classic “Them Changes”…
Of course, it’s the producer who gets the performer into these pages; does this look like People magazine to you, huh? Fact is, anybody other than Rick Rubin produces this thing and it’s forgotten day before yesterday. But the expectation outweighs the result, so here we are some three decades…
This year has already featured its share of mediocre G-Unit-related product, so it was hard to expect the soundtrack to 50 Cent’s rags-to-riches film to be any different. But this collection of short, punchy songs is 50’s most consistent project since his debut, giving small nods to the maturity he…
The members of the band formerly known only as Dios deserved to be pissed when metal singer Ronnie James Dio’s lawsuit forced them to add the parenthetical Malos to their name. But Dio may have done the band a favor. Dios, which translates as Gods, was the perfect name for…
Born on hip-hop and driven delirious by dancehall’s sub-bass and garage’s ADD beats, U.K. grime is new enough to have more energy than it does discipline — which makes it both exhilarating and barely listenable. Vertically Challenged, the first stateside offering from 18-year-old London MC Lady Sovereign, suffers from a…
Any music writer will tell you 1979 was a great year for punk and new wave. By that standard, brainy and tenacious Ted Leo is a music critic´s wet dream. He sings like Joe Jackson (only with a better falsetto), has the lyrical eye of Paul Weller (only from an…
Damn right, he´s got the blues. At one time, he was the youngest member of that great fraternity of old-school Chicago bluesmen (Muddy Water, Otis Rush, Magic Sam, etc.), but Buddy Guy is now keeper of the flame as the Windy City´s unofficial king of the blues. A juke-joint prodigy…
Laying down what they call ¨the new disco,¨ Radio 4 is one of several bands teaching the indie kids to dance again. They call it ¨the new disco,¨ first heard on Gotham, the NYC-based band´s 2002 breakthrough album. Like Franz Ferdinand, the Faint, Bloc Party, and others, Radio 4 employs…
