When the Cure completed its last album, 2000’s Bloodflowers, bandleader Robert Smith knew it lacked focus. Eager to give the troubled project some cachet, he said the record was the final installment of a trilogy. Of course, it helped that he chose a pair of the British band’s best-loved works…
“I was driving through the Redwood Forest in Mendocino, California, and saw a ray of sun peeking through the trees. It was then that I saw my name in three syllables: ‘Ma-Ri-Jah. ‘” ‘The tie-dyed dreadlocked Marijah was raised an Afro-Italian-American Rasta girl in a New Jersey ghetto, beating imaginary…
The cover shot of this CD includes the image of Ms. Knowles wearing a bejeweled variation of the beads people hang across open doorways. Sure, it’s capable of inspiring impure thoughts among impressionable youths. That’s fine. But “Naughty Girl” is an awfully blunt attempt to raise heartbeats and so on,…
You’re a legend in the hip-hop world. Tired of the crap diluting the market, you want your latest joint to show the youngsters how it’s done. Why would you do something like Politics of the Business? Especially when you’re Prince Paul and have already covered this terrain so brilliantly? On…
In 1988, Metallica made an album called …And Justice for All, and it was extraordinary, filled with layered lead-guitar harmonies, whipsaw chord changes, near-orchestral structures, and focused ferocity. It was quite simply one of the greatest metal albums ever made. The songs, ambition, and talent could not be obscured. St…
Concept albums can be a dicey proposition for a young group. But once an act has established itself as a top-of-the-heap, bluegrass-influenced jam band and has already released a few true-to-its-roots platters — not to mention live shows that draw a gaggle of free-spirited granola-munching souls — well, what the…
Jazz lizards paid scant attention to Thelonious Monk’s 1960s Columbia releases. Where once Monk was revered as a revolutionary, fickle LBJ-era critics and enthusiasts had moved on to the pointy-headed and pompous sounds of Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor, and others. The irony, of course, was that most of the “space…
Fox may be fair and balanced, all right, but they don’t make it a priority to report the passing of underground celebrities like Wesley Willis. And during a week without e-mail, one is pretty much cut off from the network of journos and music freaks who’d feel obligated to pass…
Sometimes you just need to get away from Fort Lauderdale: the horrendous traffic, lobotomized drivers, the uppity horror of Las Olas, the tourist nightmare of Fort Lauderdale Beach, the tube-topohilia of downtown. It can all be too much. Let’s see… since we can’t go any farther east, let’s make a…
Raised in the Jamaican countryside on a diet of Scripture and regular church visits, Jepther McClymont, better-known as Luciano, evolved into an intensely spiritual reggae singer. His father, a strict Adventist, made his son’s first guitar from scratch. “I started singing in the church choir when I was about 6…
When Beres Hammond last performed in South Florida, many ladies left the show overwhelmed. Wet panties were common, and men were excited to take their aroused women home. It was just another day for Hammond, who has a knack for writing chart-topping love ballads, inspirational ditties, and the occasional dancehall…
Another late-night shooting in downtown Fort Lauderdale, only with a twist. Not a racially motivated act, conjectured the cops. This time, it’s a white gangbanger packin’ heat who caps the ass of a black Himmarshee partygoer. It all happened in front of the Friday-night bar crawlers filling the streets, no…
The Jerks Win Again is the perfect title for the seventh LP by these Pittsburgh purveyors of regular-guy rock. Guitarist/bandleader Karl Hendricks has always had a penchant for scathing observations about how the system screws the little guy. And the wry ironies of his lyrics, which sometimes fall just short…
Chris Brann, the mastermind behind Ananda Project, is on a mission to produce at least four full-length albums this year. So far, he’s managed two: under his P’taah moniker, Staring at the Sun, and his most recent release as Ananda Project, Morning Light. Having previously worked in the guises of…
Chingy’s debut album, Jackpot, rides into record stores on the strength of “Right Thurr,” an insanely catchy single full of chest-swelling keyboard melodies. It sounds like the inside of a strip club full of Neptunes-inspired snare effects and lewd drum patterns that twirl and clap like dancers spinning on a…
Pay close enough attention and you’ll smell Jamaican influences in pretty much every club space imaginable. The twin spliffs of dub and dancehall have been sparked again — remember to thank Jah for the light — and a wide range of stoners has lined up. Hip-hop kids smoke ’em to…
Rick James had the Mary Jane Girls. Prince had Vanity 6. But if Luther Campbell had put together a girl group, it might sound like Brooklyn’s booty bass lovin’ Fannypack. Chances are you’ve already heard their saucy ode to the female frontal wedgie, “Cameltoe” (“Fix yourself girl/You got a cameltoe!”),…
More than three years after fusing bossa nova with funk, hip-hop, and acid jazz, Rio de Janeiro’s jazz-pop sensation Bossacucanova has developed a niche for itself. The trio, composed of Alexandre Moreira, Marcelinho DaLua, and Márcio Menescal, is inspired by the classic Brazilian sound. In fact, Menescal’s father is the…
That which is too silly to be said is instead sung, claimed Voltaire. Which may explain why Chris Carrabba, the compact Boca Ratonian who leads Dashboard Confessional, is well on the way to achieving god-like status. A Mark, a Mission, a Brand, a Scar, Dashboard Confessional’s follow-up to 2001’s The…
It’s a testament to the natural-born arena-bred talents of Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn that no matter how many well-worn formal elements, humdrum lyrical bromides, or suspect views on gender roles they soil their music with, they nearly always end up producing some of Nashville’s highest-quality work. The duo’s latest,…
There is an austerity to the Lifesavas that some will find off-putting or atypical of underground hip-hop acts. One skit on their debut album, Spirit in Stone, “Thuggity Skit,” clumsily parodies monosyllabic Southern rappers. On “Livin’ Time/Life: Movement I/Livin’ Lude,” Vursatyl proclaims, “We pro-life and we’re pro-longevity/Procreation/Produce/Provoca- tive/And pro-prosperity,” while…
Hip-hop albums are an often-precarious exercise. Most are disappointing. The best-case scenario is a couple of hot tracks pumped onto a disc with 15 other songs and a few skits, intros, outros, and promos; those are the cuts that seem to get the most play. Los Angeles wordsmith Aceyalone, prominent…
