If C&W had a soul Jason Isbell would be the biggest thing in Nashville. Keith Urban is a judge on American Idol. Blake Shelton is on The Voice. Taylor Swift, Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood and the rest of these prancing pinup models are the stars of the moment. Meanwhile, down in Alabama, Jason Isbell has produced as good a set
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For a very long time I have ended the year with my annual best CDs list. I listen to a lot of music and have always enjoyed being able to pimp the great stuff to my readers. The tradition ends here, though. Over the course of the last couple of years I have worked to unclutter my life, to clear
Read moreA wonderful recent discovery. They might remind you of Death Cab for Cutie, and there are moments where I might compare them to The Shins, Ben Folds Five or Jets Overhead, even. Thoughtful, literate Chamber Pop from my new city.
Read moreMandela is dead.
Read moreCourtesy of Upworthy and WGBH we get this audio of the moment when the audience learns that Kennedy has been assassinated.
Read moreWhat do Rammstein, The Dixie Chicks, Rick Springfield, The Beatles, U2, Uriah Heep, Toots & the Maytals, Talk Talk, Shiny Toy Guns, Primus, APC, the band that eventually turned into (shudder) Maroon 5, and a bunch of other bands, many of which you never heard of (445 in all) have in common?
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Solo and with Velvet Underground, Reed changed the rock landscape forever When the iconic Velvet Underground & Nico album was released in 1967 I was all of six years old, so VU was never a part of my lived experience. I never became a fan of their music, exactly, although my inner rock historian grew into a deep respect for their place
Read morePeriodically I like to surf through YouTube for interesting song mashups, which are as pure a postmodern art form as exists. Today was one of those days, so here, for your listening pleasure, are some things that go together like peanut butter and basketball. Up first, Ozzy vs. a-ha. Folks, this just ain’t right.
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Dear Sinéad, Let me begin with a compliment. Your letter to Miley Cyrus the other day was spot on in its articulation of the corporate music machine dynamic and the way it uses people, especially, pretty women, to its own amoral ends. Your employ of words like “prostitute” and “pimp” was as accurate and appropriate as it was provocative.
Read moreJJ Cale is dead at 74. Many years ago I worked as creative and production director at a radio station. Cale, on tour, was scheduled to play a local venue and that venue, one of our clients, wanted to run a series of spots promoting the appearance. Simple enough. These kinds of ads were fairly boilerplate – you developed maybe
Read moreFaye Hunter, founding member of the highly influential Let’s Active, is dead of suicide at 59. Thx to John Cavanaugh and Jeffrey Dean Foster.
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WikiPedia’s List of Hobbies page is a long one – over 170 entries. Included are some you’d expect: cooking, birdwatching, knitting, stamp collecting, all manner of sporting activities, etc. There are also some you may not have thought of. For example: Chainmail making Conlanging (artificial language construction – think Esperanto and Klingon) Locksport (the sport or recreation that aims to
Read moreMayer Hawthorne’s new CD, Where Does This Door Go, is set to drop next Tuesday. Thanks to NPR, I’ve been streaming it for a few days now. If you recall, I loved his last disc: How Do You Do made my Platinum list for 2011. Okay, well, that may be overstating the case a tad, but as fun, can’t-get-that-song-out-of-my-ears ’60s
Read moreBlues and Soul legend Bobby “Blue” Bland is dead at 83. S&R says goodbye with a couple of his classics… …and a most worthy tribute from Storyville.
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Once upon a time the term “Pop” simply referred to popular music, and little effort was devoted to differentiating between styles. R&B, Rock & Roll, standards (Ol’ Blue Eyes and his ilk), Soul, whatever – it was all lumped together on AM radio and while you probably liked some things more than others, it was a mass media world and you
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lullaby pit 