Patty Larkin has spent part of the past 20 years honing her chops while turning out one absorbing album after another. It’s no surprise, then, that she’s reached the point where she’s truly doing the solo thing in the studio. Larkin wrote all the tunes on this disc, produced it and played all the […]
Robert Plant is reluctant to label the 13 songs he recorded with bluegrass superstar Alison Krauss for “Raising Sand” as duets. To the once and future Led Zeppelin frontman, their collaboration requires more than harmonizing, although they do that with subtlety and organic ease. Each track, including second single “Please Read the Letter,” is […]
New years are a time for renewal, right? So perhaps the dawn of 2008 is ripe to at last forgive and forget Janet Jackson’s past indiscretions. Granted, singles from previous album “20 Y.O.” weren’t exactly radio-friendly, but in Island Def Jam bow “Feedback,” she gives us the goods for a meaningful return to pop and […]
The latest single from Miranda Lambert’s excellent “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” album is an explosive number about domestic violence. The protagonist in this song decides to take drastic measures to end a desperate situation as Lambert sings in the chorus: “I’m going home, gonna load my shotgun/ Wait by the door and light a cigarette/ He wants […]
Most pop music fans think they know Ringo Starr. And musically, it’s probably true. The fun-loving Beatle, now 67, is still full of nostalgia for the good ol’ days, and his humble appreciation for life and simple tunes is abundant on “Liverpool 8.” You’re not getting anything groundbreaking on a Ringo album. The titular […]
After releasing a pair of albums as frontman of quirky New Zealand pop/ rock act Betchadupa, Liam Finn steps out on his own with this self-produced solo debut. Here, he comes closer to the work of home-studio eccentrics like Beck than to the classically minded pop of his father, Crowded House frontman Neil. That’s not […]
Few acts have morphed more often than Mark Oliver Everett’s Eels. From the group’s earliest work with the Dust Brothers more than a decade ago through to recent acoustic singer/ songwriter forays, the Eels are ever changing. All of which makes “Useless Trinkets: B-Side, Soundtracks, Rarities and Unreleased 1996-2006″ an eclectic and difficult, but […]
While his by turns mournful and bombastic collaborations with Miles Davis, John Lee Hooker and Luciano Pavarotti might be this Italian star’s most obvious tickets to an American audience, they’re hardly the catchiest cuts on this economically culled, two-decade-spanning sampler. Where he really excels is with studio-pumped and gruffly passionate sort of middle-aged-lothario dance-rock–exemplified […]
Marvin Gaye’s most misunderstood album was a bittersweet venting about his divorce from wife Anna, the sister of Motown founder Berry Gordy. The 1978 record settled scores and ended his contract, humiliated his ex, was widely ignored by the public and buried, some say, by the label. Listened to with a bright new digital […]
Ringtones have become a major part of the mobile music industry these days. Ringtones are the sound or melody made by a telephone to indicate or alert the mobile owner of an incoming call. I personally like Rock Ringtones and Hip Hop ringtones because I like to hear R&B and Hip Hop songs.
There are […]
Even while the Wu-Tang Clan was most active, Ghostface Killah was quietly establishing himself as one of the wickedest, least predictable MCs of this era. This is his third album in 18 months. But if there’s a bottom to Ghost’s lyrical well, he’s nowhere near it on “The Big Doe Rehab,” which is jammed […]
This collection of Thursday material well-serves its likely purposes of keeping the band top of mind in the fourth quarter while giving screamo fans a new favorite thing for Christmas. Three new songs and nine previously unreleased ones, plus a documentary/concert DVD, make “Kill the House Lights” worth exploring. Instead of throwing in anything […]
Full-length pairups between R&B and rap/ hip-hop artists are nothing new. (See R. Kelly and Jay-Z’s “Unfinished Business.”) On this outing, teen heartthrobs and tour mates Bow Wow and Omarion team for an album that builds on their 2005 hit merger “Let Me Hold You.” The result doesn’t disappoint. One of the strongest tracks […]
At first slice, the musical tale of a murderous barber doesn’t seem like appropriate Hollywood fodder. But if you think of it as Tim Burton’s answer to the stage-to-film adaptation craze that gave us John Travolta in drag, it makes some kind of sense. Helena Bonham Carter as the meat-pie-making Mrs. Lovett sings more […]
