History repeats itself with the latest set by the Jayhawks, a band built on the Everly-cum-Burrito Brothers vocal harmonies of Mark Olsen and Gary Louris that, when Olsen departed in the Nineties, went from baroque country rock into rangier pop-rock territory. After his one-off return for 2011’s Mockingbird Time, its Louris’ show again… Source: RollingStone Link: Paging Mr. […]
Rita Wilson is best known as an actress and producer (as well as the wife of Tom Hanks), but her 2012 debut as a singer, AM/FM, was a strong set of classic pop and country covers that showed off her Broadway-steeped vocal chops. Wilson’s second album, recorded in Los Angeles and Nashville with… Source: RollingStone Link: Rita Wilson
A lot has happened in the nearly 16 months since Reflection, the giddy, explosive debut from these five X Factor vets. Justin Bieber and OMI triumphed with the perpetually chilled feel of so-called “tropical house,” Rihanna and Drake brought Billboard chart-toppers closer to dancehall music, Fetty Wap turned hip-hop into a melodic taffy-pull and Missy… Source: RollingStone Link: 7/27
Blake Shelton’s tenth studio album is his first since divorcing country music queen Miranda Lambert and subsequently taking up with his fellow coach from The Voice, Gwen Stefani, who duets here on the simmering “Go Ahead and Break My Heart.” It can be tempting to hear Shelton’s new breakup songs – the… Source: RollingStone Link: If I'm […]
The Monkees’ first album in nearly 20 years is also their best since the Sixties – to be precise, since the Head soundtrack in 1968. (Sorry, Instant Replay diehards.) It’s a labor of love – not just for the three surviving lads, but for all the Monkeemaniacs pitching in, headed by producer Adam Schlesinger (from Ivy and Fountains of Wayne), who contributes the gem… Source: RollingStone Link: Good Times!
Pop costume-changer Ariana Grande has had seven Top 10 hits and we’re still no closer to figuring out who she wants to be. Is Grande still the retro-minded melodicist of “Bang Bang”? Is she still the house diva pulsing along with Zedd on “Break Free”? Still the hip-hop party rocker… Source: RollingStone Link: Dangerous Woman
This five-plus hour, 59 track Grateful Dead tribute album is a monument of living history – an image of their golden road branching out endlessly. Curated by Brooklyn indie-rock luminaries the National, it conspicuously slights the Dead’s jam-band progeny to stake out more interesting claims and find richer connections – like 67… Source: RollingStone Link: Day of […]
Michigan shoegazers Pity Sex have outgrown the high melodrama of their emo-tinged 2012 EP Dark World. Their latest finishes a turn towards dispassionate Nineties alt rock nostalgia that began with their soupy 2013 debut, Feast of Love. The band has never sounded so desolate, or more distinctly themselves. Comparisons to My Bloody Valentine abound, Pity… Source: RollingStone Link: White […]
“It’s an American dream” coos the transgender artist formerly known as Antony, on “Execution,” a spangled pop jam about state-sanctioned murder delivered over silvery percussive stabs and synth builds. It may leave you uncertain whether to dance or collapse in tears, which is the operative dichotomy of an extraordinary record… Source: RollingStone Link: Hopelessness
The winkingly named genre “tropical house” was the sound of dance music in the summer 2015 – a languid pool party fantasia of vaguely Caribbean percussion, chirpy digital panpipes and a permanent license to chill. But while the Felix Jaehn remix to Omi’s “Cheerleader” and Justin Bieber’s “What Do You… Source: RollingStone Link: Cloud Nine