Untitled Album Four
You’d think with all the positive thinking, Seal would be able to come up with at least a title for his fourth album, simply called Seal IV. But alas, Seal’s thinking is still limited to “moving on” and “loving forever”. Upbeat and optimistic, pop music’s Quasimodo of love ballads and inspirational dance diddies delivers again once more to the world of adult contemporary music. Pessimists and nay-sayers may be turned off by all the love, but any fan of innocuous, radio-friendly soul may want to check the album out. Read more…
By Brian Small Posted in Reviews
Who the Heck is Alison Goldfrapp?
With undulating drum ticks and thrusting rhythms zipping along side analog synth ornamentation, Goldfrapp’s latest, Black Cherry is in serious danger of going completely unnoticed. The genre of avante-pop, as it stands, is sorely obscured by current trends in pop-emo and pop-punk. Is there room on the radio for electronic lullabies like “Forever” or damn-near disco tracks like “Train”? Read more…
By Brian Small Posted in Reviews
Elvis Costello Records Album from Coma
Elvis Costello’s latest, North, with its cinematic swells and lush lounge arrangements, will be a real hit at the bingo pre-party at the old folks home. North is sopping wet with sleepy jazz rhythms, piano-heavy ballads, and never climaxes with anything beyond moderate toe tapper “Impatience.” Good music to fall asleep to in your Lay-Z-Boy while the game blares on mute, but nothing for fans of classics like “Accidents Will Happen” or “Every Day I Write the Book.” Read more…
By Brian Small Posted in Reviews
Hilary Duff Having Alien’s Baby!
There are about fifty thousand girls that could be Hilary Duff. She’s cute, she’s friendly, and a tablespoon of her spit is worth about four grand in cash. With TV, movie deals, promos, and magazines wrapped around her finger, what should obviously come next but to recklessly pile her name onto an overflowing trash heap of teen girl pop stars who don’t write their own songs and hide high notes behind electronically produced hooks? Read more…
By Brian Small Posted in Reviews
On The Chain Gang
The Raveonettes rock American style with a juicy pop-garage sound on their 03’ release, Chain Gang of Love. Working with all the elements of recent indi formulas, they’re a hot chick/creepy guy two-piece set up, they’re Scandinavian, they sing about making out, and they have cool hair. Their sound is total throwback music, but diverse. Chain Gang of Love evokes anything from The Strokes to Sonic Youth to the Go-go’s to the Monkees.
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By Brian Small Posted in Reviews
Let’s Hear it for Art!
Open the CD/DVD case to Fischerspooner’s May 03’ Capitol release, #1 and study closely the credits. Where most bands credit a vocalist, two guitarists, a bass player and a drummer, Fischerspooner lists a dramaturge, a wig master, filmmakers, choreographers, actors, and M.A.C. cosmetics. A band, yes, on a fundamental level: they make music. But if the art movement we are currently building is the mastering of multi-media and mass production, Fischerspooner is it. Above the basic fact that they are a band that makes good music, they are an art conglomo that rivals in production Cirque du Soleil. Radio is not their format and music is only about an eighth of their medium.
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By Brian Small Posted in Reviews
Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah and one more… YEAH!
They’re the high-school dance band you always wished would make it. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ raw, garage sound and overtones of punk bleakness in notable release, Fever to Tell, is an indi sound straight out of Wichita, via Ohio and New York. The album is the perfect appetizer to any garage-gourmand with a hankering for a White Stripes entree and Strokes dessert. Read more…
By Brian Small Posted in Reviews
Danger! Danger!
Diana Ross left her Supremes and became a dynamic force on her own. Beyonce Knowles struts out on her own, without Destiny’s Child, on her solo debut, Dangerously In Love, and you want to forget she was even involved with such a childish endeavor. The girl group didn’t have a chance with such strong pop femme fatales reinventing themselves into oblivion, and Beyonce’s offering deserves a window seat in the back of the school bus of pop music, where the cool, bad kids sit. Read more…
By Brian Small Posted in Reviews
Oh Three, Oh Sure!
0304 falls late on the adolescent Britany dance pop diva movement, and by all rights, Jewel’s spontaneous mid-career genre shift should be blown off as an attempt to leap on a giant pink bandwagon powered by NutraSweet and naval piercings. But whatever your opinion on her past music, Jewel is smart. Lyrically, her tongue is planted in her cheek and her Alaskan folk tinged take on urban music inexplicably works. The new voluptuous hair and vinyl hot pants aside, Jewel is as opinionated and honest as on previous albums. It’s just a matter of this record being written “4 U” instead of “for you”. Read more…
By Brian Small Posted in Reviews
Who’se a Widdle Boo-boo?
With peers like Christina Aguilara and Lance Bass, thank God in indie-pop heaven for Ben Kweller. All at once folky, poppy, ass-rockin’, sardonic, and brilliant as hell, his March release on Ato Records, Sha Sha, makes you wanna dance, make out, and find the little fella who refers to himself as BK and pinch his cheeks. But don’t be fooled, this adorable tyke has talent. Read more…
By Brian Small Posted in Reviews
