Recently in Nate Cavalieri Category

cheat_sheet_top_header_560x62.jpg 20111129-classical-young-guns-560x225.jpg The past year has seen a crop of excellent releases from the most talked-about rising stars in classical music, a varied set of neo-traditionalists who breathe life into the genre though fiery performances, scandalous outfits and bold programming choices. Astonishingly, none of them are older than 30.

The pianist who might get the most headlines is Lang Lang, whose well-styled programmatic flair has made him classical music's poster child. Using the same bold media-embracing panache of Lang Lang, plenty of other oversized talents have made waves through style and scandal: take the skirt length of Yuja Wang, who gets mentioned as classical music's Lady Gaga, or the Vogue spread by hunky violinist Charlie Siem. Perhaps less hyped but no less revered are gimmick-free recordings from violinists Alina Ibragimova, Arabella Steinbacher, Julia Fischer and Ray Chen.

This Cheat Sheet looks at some of the brightest young names in the classical world, many of whom have the talent and marketing smarts to expand the genre's audiences.

Alice Sara Ott
Beethoven
After critically successful recordings of Chopin and Liszt, 23-year-old German-Japanese pianist Alice Sara Ott releases her first Beethoven set with a bold agenda: demonstrating the two distinct personalities of the composer using a pair of C-major sonatas, the Op. 2 No. 3 and the Op. 53 "Waldstein." The prior of these — light, mercurial and joyous — was dedicated to Haydn, and the latter — brooding and pensive — was written near the end of his life, when his hearing was failing. Ott capably bridges this divide with clean, confident playing, restraint in her pedaling and plenty of power.


20111122-HOLIDAY-SG-charlie-brown-xmas-560x225.jpg With breezy, swinging panache, Vince Guaraldi pulled off something nearly impossible with his 1965 score to A Charlie Brown Christmas: he issued a record that instantly expanded the overstuffed Christmas canon. The formula was unusual, to say the least. The pianist's lightly swinging trio brought a fresh, sophisticated air to dreary holiday standards like "O Tannenbaum," captured several cute (if somewhat tuneless) kids' sing-alongs, and turned out a few nimble originals—"Skating," "Christmas Time Is Here," "Linus & Lucy"—that became standards in their own right.

Getting under the surface of A Charlie Brown Christmas requires a musical trip back to the genre-bending, transformational West Coast jazz scene of the 1950s. Guaraldi grew up in San Francisco and found himself returning to the city after serving in the Korean War. In college, he was fascinated by boogie-woogie piano players like Meade "Lux" Lewis, Albert Ammons and Jimmy Yancey, and eventually took an interest in straight-ahead jazz. He sat in at San Francisco clubs like the Blackhawk, and eventually landed a gig adding to the shimmering, Latin-influenced grooves of Cal Tjader.

Guaraldi's first major recordings were with Tjader's outfit in 1951, and he'd keep that association going throughout his career, eventually playing on about a dozen of the bandleader's records. Guaraldi cut his first solo sessions in 1955, and eventually shaped a career that ranged far beyond his dalliances with Charlie Brown and Snoopy. His melodic, grounded playing simultaneously imbibed Dave Brubeck's trained compositional sensibility and swinging elements of piano greats like Oscar Peterson and Art Tatum. More than anything, he had a fierce ear for melody as both a composer and an improviser.

A Deep-Cut Crooner Christmas

20111122-HOLIDAY-SG-crooner-xmas-560x225.jpg Although we love last century's Christmas classics, sometimes the unrelenting spins of Nat King Cole's "Christmas Song" are enough to drive a person batty. This playlist rummages around in Santa's sack for the lesser-known gems by your favorite classic crooners, and finds Bing, Dino, Rosemary Clooney and the like singing would-be holiday standards about snowmen, donkeys and snowy white magic. Have fun.

Listen now: Crooners' Christmas Rarities


Cheat Sheet: Wynton Marsalis

cheat_sheet_top_header_560x62.jpg 20111115-wynton-marsalis-CS-560x225.jpg To get your head around trumpeter, virtuoso and jazz godhead Wynton Marsalis, you have to understand his oversized musical personalities. He's both the aggressive improvisational badass who spurred the Young Lions movement and the cocksure young interpreter of baroque trumpet concertos. He's at once the curmudgeonly jazz educator, the neotraditional cultural gatekeeper and the most celebrated black composer in contemporary American music. He's jazz's greatest ambassador and its narrow-minded mouthpiece. But above all, he's an unquestionably brilliant overachiever and an omnivorous musical searcher. Marsalis turned 50 this year, giving us a chance to revisit his highlights and listen from every angle.

Listen along with my accompanying playlist: Celebrating Wynton Marsalis' Jazz


Classical Roundup: Fall 2011

20111115-classical-RU-560x225.jpg This Classical Roundup has a decidedly American bent: Leonard Bernstein and Hilary Hahn bring life to Ives, Mikhail Simonyan plays Barber, and Leonard Pennario rolls though Gottschalk. To round things out, and for a touch of international diversity, Matt Haimovitz takes on Arcade Fire (they're Canadian!) and The Anonymous 4 offer law-breaking 13th-century French songs. All that and more are waiting below. Enjoy.

For a sampling of every album mentioned below, go straight to our Classical Roundup: Fall 2011 playlist.


1. Hilary Hahn
Charles Ives: Four Sonatas
Fierce and dexterous, austere and blithe, Hilary Hahn's range makes her the perfect interpreter of Charles Ives' distinctly American violin sonatas, and this collaboration with pianist Valentina Lisitsa hits the mark. Ives' fundamental mood swings are handled brilliantly by the duo, which skates between savagely difficult technical passages and sentimental folk melodies (listen for the shattered rearrangement of "Turkey in the Straw" in the second movement of the second sonata).


Jazz Roundup: November 2011

20111108-jazz-RU-560x225.jpg There are all sorts of milestones in this month's Jazz Roundup. The biggest deal comes from Wynton Marsalis, whose 50th birthday was celebrated with a pair of records that show the trumpeter's paramount cultural clout. How many other musicians' labels issue a birthday retrospective? How many people get to jam with Clapton to celebrate half a century? There's also the final take from iconic vocalist Etta James and the realization of Christian McBride's long dream to lead a big band. Those three are joined by James Carter's organ trio and some torch-y vocals from L.A. pretty boy Michael Feinstein.

For highlights, check out my Jazz Roundup: November 2011 playlist.


1. James Carter Organ Trio
At the Crossroads
Although label troubles hindered James Carter's rise through the late '90s, the Detroit saxophonist has slowly put things back together. His second record of 2011, this gritty homage to the then-and-now of jazz in the Motor City, opens with a blistering take on "Oh Gee" and explores blues roots in a funky, gutsy, post-bop landscape. Although there are notable guest appearances — including that of guitarist Bruce Edwards — the standout track is from the hand of drummer Leonard King, Jr., who complements Carter's shrieking, virtuosic choruses on "Lettuce Toss Yo' Salad." [Nate Cavalieri]


20110927-WILCO-SG-ext-review-560x225.jpg There's an interview floating around in which Nels Cline, the experimental guitarist and composer who has found refuge in Wilco's enduring current lineup, paints a picture of a band at the peak of its powers. "We can make a dozen different records if you stuck us in the studio tomorrow and gave us one week," he says. He lists them: a noise record or a pop record or a folk record. All in one week.

Given the fact that the band's current roster — Cline, singer Jeff Tweedy, drummer Glenn Kotche, bassist John Stirratt, multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone and keyboardist Mikael Jorgensen — is probably the most progressive and multifaceted lineup in the band's history (if not the entirety of American rock), there's little doubt they could. But if The Whole Love, Wilco's eighth record, the record they did make, sounds like a band that could go in a dozen different directions on a whim, it's notable for moving so conscientiously and uniformly together, making it one of the most engaging Wilco records in the better part of a decade.

Case in point: "Art of Almost." The sprawling opener sounds more like Radiohead's Amnesiac than the no-brand Americana of Wilco's 1995 debut, A.M.. Just as the band is fading off into a pixilated oblivion of digital blips and square-wave guitar distortion that kind of resembles Summerteeth with smarter noise and more effusive hooks, Kotche suddenly seems to raise one hand up in the air and start twirling his drumstick, charging ahead into a dead-simple, double-time rock 'n' roll backbeat. What does Nels Cline do with this? He goes off, tearing around the edges in a fuzzy post-rock freakout. This is not a band making a noise record or a pop record or a folk record: in one song, they're making all of the above.

That song's experimental edge is a bit of an outlier on The Whole Love, most of which is less toothy and more straightforward. Much of the record recalls the essential best of the band: a weave of dollar-bin sounds (the cheapie organ riff recalling ? and the Mysterians on "I Might," the retooled vaudeville jive of "Capitol City," even a bit of E.L.O. on "Dawned on Me") and Tweedy's usual songbook of ambiguous confessions, suggestive images and self-aware rocker clichés. There's a wholeness that has only surfaced on a few of Wilco's most remarkable records, like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and Summerteeth. But there's a clear-eyed elegance to the record that is new for the band, too. After drug records and post-drug records and breakthrough records and "return to their roots" records, The Whole Love is older and wiser, promising a late-career greatness. So if the The Whole Love isn't wholly folk, or pop, or noise, it sounds instead like something we haven't heard in a long time: a fully articulated Wilco record.
senior_year-banner-560x60.jpg 20110920-jazz-live-1967-560x225.jpg When you listen to jazz sessions from 1967, the genre's wild transformation is immediately evident. Jazz heads at the time had their work cut out for them trying to keep up: Coltrane, whose death from liver cancer shocked audiences in the summer of that year, had pushed things into an apocalyptic, free jazz frenzy, while other icons of the past decade were splintering into a modern, far-out free-for-all that wove together ideas begged, borrowed and stolen from bop, atonal modernism, and rhythmic and sonic elements from Latin America, Asia and Africa.

This powerful, fragmented, exploratory energy is all over the recently issued recordings of Miles Davis' gigs in Europe with the so-called "second great quartet," which included Herbie Hancock,Wayne Shorter and Tony Williams. They're all young, headstrong and virtuosic -- putting their performance to tape must've been like trying to bottle a hurricane.

The other recordings of that period -- from Coltrane's last recorded live session and Expression to the inspired Strayhorn/Ellington collaborations of the Far East Suite and Wayne Shorter's aptly named Schizophrenia -- are not for the faint of heart. But this challenging music offers big rewards, and helped make 1967 a year of particularly amazing sounds.

Click here to listen to the playlist: Senior Year, 1967: Jazz From the Far-Out Edge of the World



R.E.M. RIP

20110920-r.e.m.-quits-560x225.png There are certain bands you choose, and certain bands that choose you. It seems like the latter catch you when it matters -- when the time, place and circumstances are just right. For me, R.E.M. was that band, right about the moment when Reckoning was playing on a tape deck in a crappy, prefab, carpeted apartment near the campus of Central Michigan University. The tape deck belonged to Jason, an art major with kinda longish "Andre-from-the-Real-World" hair that he was always pushing out of his face. He was dating my sister. He taught me how to play several chords on the guitar.

I'd argue that no matter who the 13-year-old was at the center of that story, they'd have little choice but to fall in love with R.E.M. And when I say "in love," I'm not fooling: my then-girlfriend and I followed the band on the Monster tour, enduring set after set from Luscious Jackson on muggy Midwestern summer evenings. Michael Stipe's fractured whine narrated my early high school years.

Like every intense, hormone-soaked infatuation, it didn't last. Part of it was that R.E.M. were one of those bands cursed by drawing the largest audience for their lousiest songs. ("Shiny Happy People"? Seriously?) Another part was that somewhere along the road (I'd argue it was not long after they started letting Luscious Jackson join them on the road), they started to seem essentially, irrevocably outdated, like those middle-aged dads clinging to their Converse All Stars. I think the band knew this. This was the era that Mike Mills started wearing those Rhinestone-studded Nudie Suits, for goodness sake. The last ten years have seen a clutch of R.E.M. records, each one promising that the band was releasing, at last, a relevant "rock" record. But relevant? That was Murmur, or Reckoning, hell even Green. Want to hear a rock band? Dig into their 1984 live set recently released as a bonus to Reckoning.

So, when the band announced that they'd decided to call it quits after three decades, it was something of a relief. It was the "now we can remember grandpa laughing, not with tubes coming out his nose" kind of thing. In that spirit -- to remember the best years, and cull the best of the worst -- we've cobbled together a playlist tribute to R.E.M., It's the End of the World As We Know It: An R.E.M. Retrospective. It goes out to you, Jason.

Jazz Roundup: September 2011

20110913-jazz-RU-560x225.jpg If players on the progressive edge of contemporary jazz often push boundaries and end up pushing away all but the smallest, most esoteric audiences, there's a lesson to be learned from avant-garde veteran Steve Coleman. Late in his career on the edge, Coleman is delivering his most beguiling and listenable records, deeply rooted in cyclical patterns and inspired by West African spiritual traditions. "Tea for Two" it is not, but Coleman's challenging Mancy of Sound has been in constant rotation for me, and every listen seems to uncover another layer.

When it's time to dial into something a bit more soothing, there's a lot to choose from lately: the surefooted, straightforward, self-titled debut from vibraphonist Warren Wolf, a fantastic solo set from the late pianist Sir Roland Hanna, and saxophonist Phil Woods in a session with his longtime pianist. The month's notable releases are rounded out by Chicago's Deep Blue Organ trio doing a set of Stevie Wonder, and guitarist John Basile, er, playing with himself. When your ears are ready for a challenge again, cue up the eccentric release from Brazilian guitarist Lucas Santtana.

Steve Coleman
The Mancy of Sound
Saxophonist Steve Coleman has long pushed against traditional boundaries with musical experiments as listenable as they are ambitious. With the mesmerizing Mancy, the composer finds inspiration in both the cycles of nature and the spiritual traditions of West Africa's Yoruba people. Sound heady? Believe it. But as Coleman and his band dig into these cyclical, repetitious instrumental patterns (many complemented by Jen Shyu's vocalizations), the album's weaving lines are disarming, lyrical and wholly mesmerizing. It's among 2011's most ambitious releases, and most successful.


Wardell_Quezergue_560x225.jpg What does it take to raise the dead? Maybe it's just Tami Lynn's care package to the biggest bad-ass of all New Orleans femme protagonists, Mojo Hannah: "a few strands of your hair and a five dollar bill." But the real magic in this track, and a million other essential slices of gritty, strutting New Orleans R&B from the '60s and '70s, came from the hand of the composer, producer and arranger with the nearly unpronounceable name, Wardell Quezergue, who died Tuesday of complications from congestive heart failure. He was 81.

If Dr. John is New Orleans' ambassador, Ignatius Reilly its clown and Professor Longhair forever its king, Quezergue was the genius council behind closed doors, earning the nickname "Creole Beethoven." His omnipresent jukebox-soul hits speak for themselves: Professor Longhair's "Big Chief," King Floyd's "Groove Me" and Jean Knight's "Mr. Big Stuff" among them. His early tracks as a producer include iconic oldies like the Dixie Cups' "Chapel of Love" and Phil Phillips' "Sea of Love"; his mid-'70s peak period boasted one sweltering R&B horn arrangement after the next (for the real shit, go straight for Dorothy Moore's '76 groover Misty Blue). When you listen to all of them together, it's certainly not the tossed-off one-liners that stick to your psyche, but rather Quezergue's forceful grooves, the kind of heavy voodoo that makes New Orleans sound like New Orleans. Tami endows Mojo Hanna with the power to "make a dead man jump and shout" -- we wish it was that easy. With great respect and fondness, try a taste of some of Quezerque's steller moments in our playlist, RIP Wardell Quezergue: The Creole Beethoven.

September 11, 2001 Scrapbook

20110906-9-11-560x225.jpg We all reacted to the horrible events of September 11, 2001, in our own ways — wherever we were, whatever we were doing, whichever CD or radio station or fizzy pop single we first reached for to help us cope. Here, Rhapsody's editors offer their own musical perspectives, from saber-rattling country to hopeful worship music, from pop-punk bromides to plaintive protest songs, from the momentary tentativeness of comedy to the fieriness of hip-hop to the transcendence of jazz. As Sonny Rollins put it, "Maybe music can help. I don't know, but we have to try something." Here's what we tried.

Sifting Through the Ashes in New York City

I was in Park Slope, Brooklyn, that morning, about to board the subway for work in Lower Manhattan, when my roommate told me I should turn the TV on. After the second plane hit, I went up to the roof of our apartment building and watched the smoke. Cars were dusted with ashes as far south as where I lived. I spent the day switching between staring at TV news and trying to drown out the hell in my head (and the fear that the Army might call me back up) with desolate ambient doomsday metal: Neurosis, My Dying Bride, Amorphis droning about mushroom clouds.

cheat_sheet_top_header_560x62.jpg 20110823-latin-jazz-soul-560x225.jpg We admit that the title of this Cheat Sheet we've compiled ("we" being Latin editor Rachel Devitt and Jazz editor Nate Cavalieri) is a bit unwieldy, a bit amorphous, a bit hard to pin down. But so is the movement we're talking about. And that's what it was: a movement. The Latin music scene that set New York (and, eventually, the world) on fire in the mid-20th century grew out of several styles: jazz, soul, and what would come to be known as salsa, of course — but also earlier Latin dance sounds like mambo, cha-cha-cha, and boogaloo. Leading the charge were musicians who immigrated to New York from Puerto Rico and Cuba, and began innovatively interweaving traditional Caribbean music with mainland pop, interlacing jazz improvisation and composition with Latin dance structures and infusing American soul with Afro-Latin rhythms.

Finally, it's also about the movement of bodies: this is music made for dancing! Here, we'll trace the rise of what's often called the New York sound, from its roots in 1950s jazz and mambo through its coalescing in N.Y.C. clubs and on the Fania label in the '60s, all the way to its culmination in the unstoppable wave of '70s salsa.

Various Artists
Fania Records 1964-1980: The Original Latin Sound of New York
If a zeitgeist could be boiled down to one album, this is what it would sound like: boogaloo, jazz, mambo, salsa and soul, all of it laced through with the hip-twitching traditional rhythms of Cuba and Puerto Rico. This is the definitive introduction to the heady brew that intoxicated New York and the world in the mid-20th century, from the label that defined the movement, thanks to its glittering, star-studded roster: Willie Colón saunters on "The Hustler," Hector Lavoe crowns himself "El Cantante," the Fania All-Stars tear up the Cheetah, and Celia Cruz, the Queen of Salsa, is positively regal on "Quimbara." — Rachel Devitt


Classical Roundup: August 2011

20110816-classical-RU-560x225.jpg Although notable new classical releases include a collection from American wunderkind composer Nico Muhly and a lovely early opera from Elizabeth Kenny, the 200th birthday of a 19th-century piano virtuoso, composer and alleged lady-killer has been dominating recent classical programming. Franz Liszt's dabbling in the dark side is the focal point of a grandstanding recording from Georgian prodigy Khatia Buniatishvili, but it's Nelson Freire's passionate program that frames the composer most eloquently. A lesser anniversary is also celebrated with Murray Perahia's presentation of Bach concerti (Perahia caused quite a flutter by recording these on a modern grand piano — not the harpsichord — a decade ago). Other notable releases include the Beethoven debut of Argentine pianist Ingrid Fliter and a set of Baroque works for cello by Lynn Harrell. Too stuffy for you? Cue up the accessible classical crossover upstarts 2Cello as they dabble with Guns N' Roses.

Nelson Freire
Liszt: Harmonies du soir
Nelson Freire might be the greatest — or at least most lauded — living Liszt ambassador, and this imaginative program brilliantly celebrates the composer's 200th birthday. There's a fiery authority to these performances, from the brisk, lyrical adrenaline of the opening Waldesrauschen No. 1 to the highly dramatic Valse Oubliée. Still, everything gets a thorough and critical examination, evident in the elastic tempos and aggressive lower registers of the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 3. Brilliant, bombastic and inspired, this demands awe for both the material and its interpreter.

Jazz Roundup, July 2011

20110719-jazz-RU-560x225.jpgThis summer's new jazz releases seem to be on an equatorial vacation, with Cuban rhythms, breezy bossa nova and a sunny Malian compilation defining the season. The most thrilling trip comes from David Sanchez, Christian Scott and Stefon Harris, who went to Cuba to record their collaborative, sweltering 90 Miles project. A pair of releases from Eliane Elias and Carmen Cuesta rest in the shady shadow of Antonio Carlos Jobim, while vocalist Madeleine Peyroux offers dusky originals with her heaviest band to date. The set is rounded out by listenable, experimental releases from Pat Metheny (on acoustic baritone guitar) and the original lineup of The Flecktones, along with a pair of never-before-heard recordings of two bop favorites in peak form, Freddie Hubbard and Bill Evans.

For more, listen to my mix_play_18x14.gifJazz Roundup, July 2011 playlist.

1. David Sanchez
Ninety Miles
The trio of talented instrumentalists here — vibraphone player Stefon Harris, saxophonist David Sanchez and trumpeter Christian Scott — is certainly accomplished in their own right, but combined, they reveal an especially vibrant energy. Recorded in Havana, the album includes renowned Cuban pianists Rember Duharte and Harold López-Nussa alongside a battery of local percussionists. The fusion helps Ninety Miles emerge as the younger, modern, bright-eyed cousin to Buena Vista Social Club, a portrait that captures the potential of Cuba's falling borders.

R.I.P. Jay Bennett

jay_bennett5.jpgI saw Jay Bennett perform just one time apart from his seven-year stint with Wilco at a Detroit dive called the Lager House, in the shadow of the abandoned Tigers Stadium. For me, a huge fan of Bennett's contributions to Wilco and his first solo record, The Palace at 4am, the performance was hugely deflating -- a drunken mess of bluesy, distorted bar-band rock that seemed completely incongruous with the subtle genius who made Wilco records come to life. Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy's greatest talent has always been the ability to surround himself with the right musicians, and Bennett's holistic, high-minded approach as the multi-instrumentalist yielded both artists' best work. But that was hardly the Bennett that showed up that night in Detroit; the blown-out versions of tunes from The Palace at 4am grew more defiant as the room grew emptier, ensuring that Bennett would capture onlythe most determined of Wilco's audience who had turned up. Foolishly, I left early.

When Bennett was found dead last weekend, the news murmured through the Sasquatch Music Festival in central Washington State. The cause of death is still unknown, but the circumstances of a public quarrel with his old band followed the news closely. Recently, Bennett had filed a lawsuit against Tweedy for breach of contract and unpaid artist's royalties, stemming in part from his role in a 2002 documentary about Wilco, in which he was unflatteringly portrayed. Even though he was on a recording tear at his studio, Pieholden Studios (named for a Wilco song), and enrolled in post-graduate classes at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (an institution where he'd already earned numerous degrees), his health wasn't good; he was also about to have hip-replacement surgery and the timing of the surgery was linked to the lawsuit in message boards.

But as Wilco fans return to Bennett's recordings, it's clear that his legacy won't be darkened by the clouds that hung over his late life. His legacy is that of a selfless, brilliant musician better at playing other people's songs than his own (many of his songs turn out overly crowded with ideas). He was the brains behind the decade's brainiest band, and an arranger who could transform Jeff Tweedy's occasionally obtuse treatises on yuppie discontent into sparkling, profoundly universal statements. It was this ability -- to see into the guts of a song and infuse it with just the right sound -- that made the musical settings for songs written by Woody Guthrie on the Mermaid Avenue recordings pitch-perfect. In celebration of his stunning career, we revisit some of Bennett's greatest musical moments.


Dylan: All Together Now

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Bob Dylan's Together Through Life is a spirited ramble though American roots, blues and sunbaked southwestern soul. To celebrate its release, we put together a kit of favorite Dylan features on Rhapsody: a playlist of Dylan covers, a feature about his great narratives, a guide though his seminal albums and our review of the new one. LIfe's been good to him so far.

Play!

BROWSE: Read Rhapsody's review of Together Through Life.
EXPLORE: See our play-by-play of Dylan's great narrative songs.







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DROP IN: Hear Together... and more at Dylan's home on Rhapsody.
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PLAY: Hear a playlist Dylan covers by African Americans.







Radio ROCK THE RADIO: Listen Bob Dylan artist radio. It totally rules.
DEPECHE MODE REMIX PLAYLIST
LEARN: Dig into Uncle Bob's catalog with our Dylan Album Guide.

Rhapsody Reviews: U2

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U2
No Line on the Horizon

In the last decade, it seems like U2 has been content to simply get bigger instead of better, consoling themselves after the ambitious Pop disaster by repainting aching portraits like "One" again and again with an increasingly larger brush. By the time the Dubliners released How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb in 2004, their attempt to recapture their big-hearted history was weighed down with moments of near-parody: the larger-than-life rock band that poses in the empty air plane hanger, addresses the United Nations, and hocks strident jams like "Beautiful Day" for ESPN B-roll and custom mp3 players. Fans who greeted the rebellious and ambitious Boy some two and a half decades earlier were painfully avoiding the soap-boxing businessman he'd grown into.

And though No Line On The Horizon is neither a bold return to those salad days nor a bold departure for the band, the wealth of great moments make it U2's most lived-in record in a decade. Yeah, there are times when Bono is still addressing his minions in painful cliches and cheesy one-liners ("Stand up for your love!" he demands on the aptly-named "Stand Up Comedy"; "I was born to sing for you," he confesses on, ahem, "Magnificent."). And there are touches of electro-glippity gloppity that probably seemed like a good idea while the band was holed up in a recording studio in Fez, Morocco, and lots of chest pounding grandeur. But there's also something the band has been out of for a long time: subtlety. It sneaks up in a pair of six-minute supertankers, "Unknown Caller" and "Moment of Surrender," and creeps in amongst the surly sing-speak politicizing of "Breathe." The first two have an organic, dramatic arch that shows that these guys can be rousing without being unctuous. The last one, the LP's most biting, reminds us of something we'd nearly forgotten: that U2, at their core, are still a great rock 'n' roll band.


Visit the U2 Survival Guide, a one-stop destination for U2 playlists, radio stations, exclusive galleries and more.
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Rhapsody Reviews: Text about music -- remember that?

Willie Nelson, Asleep at the Wheel
Willie and the Wheel
Willie's penchant for collaboration has defined his late career; he's joined up with everyone from alt country pouter Ryan Adams [hear it here] to late-night comedian Stephen Colbert. Even though he's backed here by veteran traditional country outfit Asleep at the Wheel, this seems as much of a partnership with recently deceased Atlantic Records boss and iconic producer Jerry Wexler, who had the concept for the record shelved for years and produced it just before his death. Similar to Willie's 2006 release You Don't Know Me: The Songs of Cindy Walker, he sings the genre of his youth with obvious revelry, and here the band's virtuosity (indisputable from the very start with the noodling Dixie horns of "Hesitation Blues") feels every bit as affectionate. For that, thank Ray Benson, longstanding front man of Asleep at the Wheel, whose arrangements help make "Sweet Jennie Lee" and "Oh! You Pretty Woman" particularly swinging standouts.

Rhapsody Reviews: Lonely Road

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Rhapsody Reviews: Text about music -- remember that?

The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
Lonely Road
It's all of 12 seconds before Red Jumpsuit commence their full-blown shred, announcing the chops-heavy, melodic rock that dominates their sophomore release with Duke Kitchens' lightening speed finger-tapping. While most of the record feels like an anticipated progression from Don't You Fake It, the songs that lie beneath the ripping are better in every way -- they're hookier and thematically more developed, more concise, more dynamic, more ... everything. When they weave in a half-speed breakdown, as on "Pen & Paper" or "Represent," it suggests that they are the most capable mainstream act to look to the '90s underground for inspiration (sorry, Fall Out Boy). But it's not all emo 2.0 posturing either; "Believe" is a swinging rock ballad lush with strings and cooing vocal back-ups that goes out on a limb with its soul inspiration -- and nails it. The verse of "Pleads and Postcards" is structured over a stadium-size riff nipped from AC/DC. If this pile of influences sounds all over the map, it most certainly is, but the album's feel is still consistent (thanks in large part to vocalist Ronnie Winter, who is not afraid to show off the technical ability of his pipes), resulting in a record that shows a band that delivers on its huge potential.

Q&A: Adele

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Brit neo-soul singer Adele blindsided everyone, including herself, when she picked up four Grammy nominations in 2008 in such illustrious categories as Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Best New Artist. We caught up with the singer after a sound check in St. Paul, Minn., to chat about some of her favorite music, Sarah Palin and life on the road. [Hate the written word with a tireless vengeance? Hear the audio of this interview here.]

Rhapsody: You recently were on Saturday Night Live with Sarah Palin; did you get to meet her?
Adele: I didn't want to really. I felt like a traitor. I had a big Obama badge on my shirt and she kinda came up to my boob and saw the photo and I felt really bad. She was really nice afterward. She came up and said hello. Her daughters bought her my album a couple months before. She seemed really nice, but I'm an Obama fan to the day I die.

Rhapsody: You've toured as a supporting act with a number of great artists, but this time around you're headlining. Tell me about choosing someone to play with you?
Adele: I picked a British singer named James Morrison, who I love. I love his voice so much. He's supporting me on all the dates. He didn't do the first three because he just had a baby who is like 14 weeks old, so he joined us yesterday in Chicago. I think his voice is absolutely amazing.

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Rhapsody Reviews: Text about music -- remember that?


Bruce Springsteen
Working on a Dream
Somewhere between stumping for Barack Obama, picking up a Golden Globe for the theme to The Wrestler and playing dates on two continents, Springsteen put together Working on a Dream, his 16th studio album and one that feels like the sunnier companion of 2007's dark Magic. (Little wonder why: The Boss began tracking with producer Brendan O'Brien in the weeks immediately following the wrap of Magic.) But if his 2007 effort could be read as a dusty, bleak assessment of George W. Bush's America, the tone here is a nearly sanguine vantage that reflects the changing of the guard. He falls head-over-heels in love with the "Queen of the Supermarket," spews plenty of "I love you's" over "Kingdom of Days" and literally whistles while he works through the determined title track. It can get a little thick ("Let your love shine down" is but one of the hackneyed one-liners muddling "Surprise, Surprise"), but the record's late-coming introspection, including the brooding "Life Itself," prevents it from getting filed next to rare clunkers like Tunnel of Love.
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Rhapsody Reviews: Text about music -- remember that?


Mark Olson & Gary Louris
Ready For the Flood

At one time or another there were a dozen-odd musicians who called themselves Jayhawks, but to listen to the early, defining dispatches from the band -- a self-titled 1985 collection that barely saw daylight; another, Blue Earth, which was little more than gussied-up demos -- it's clear that the essence of that band was the partnership of singer-songwriters Mark Olson and Gary Louris. On those early, hasty recordings, the reedy, telepathic harmonies nimbly tumble between melody and harmony so intimately that you lose track of which is which. The Jayhawks -- what the diehards consider the real Jayhawks -- is the sound of that partnership, which goes down to the bones. Even if their testaments to false love and small town funerals were sung by young men who fancied themselves old and wise (the most depressing commonality of the No Depression movement they fathered), the authenticity in their partnership was the genuine article; it kicked up the dust of Gram Parsons to stir what would become the other flannel shirt movement of the '90s: alt country.

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About halfway down the half page of scrawl I took home from last night’s performance of the McCoy Tyner trio with Marc Ribot is a note that made perfect sense at the time. It says, “This is the difference between what is and what should be.” In the clear light of the morning, the stoner epiphany of that sentence seems exactly like the kind of thing you write down during a drug experience -- something so urgent, that life’s needle comes scratching off the record and you have to write it down immediately, fearing that your square, sober self will let the newly discovered answer to life’s mystery slip away. When you wake up the next day, head pounding and tongue thick, it’s happened again: the sagacious wisdom has melted into a bit of nonsense like “this is the difference between what is and what should be.”

He Said/She Said: R.I.P. TRL

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Rachel: So, MTV's Total Request Live is set to end its 10-year run, airing its final episode this Friday and a good-bye bash on November 16. In honor of the long-running request show, Rhapsody's Rock editor, Nate Cavalieri, and our Pop editor (that would be yours truly, Rachel Devitt) decided to have a little conversation about its legacy, which I, poptimist that I am, think is fairly significant. Nate is a bit more cynical, however. And off we go.

OK, yes, one of TRL's most significant "gifts" to the world has been Carson Daly (seriously, can we regift that one?), but I also think the show has carved out -- and deserves -- a special place in music history. It's been host to lots of important pop cultural events: the beginnings of the boy band phenomenon; Mariah's popsicle-laden meltdown/striptease; the first official report of Britney Spears's split from K-Fed. For a good chunk of its run, TRL was an important barometer of popular culture. Not to mention it's been one of the only places you can actually see, uh, music videos on the music video network (even if they aren't full clips).

Nate: Rachel, if I wake up on Christmas morning to find a wobbling refrigerator box that stinks of Axe body spray, I'm re-regifting Carson right back to you. I'll go along for the ride that TRL deserves a special place in the annals of pop culture, but, at the risk of coming off like a curmudgeonly fishing buddy of Walter Matthau, the cancellation of the show was a mercy killing after so many years of TRL hobbling along like a crippled old nag. Sure, it made waves during its short and juicy peak, but, like the cast of twits that dominated its charts – the thrill was quickly gone. Its place in the pop-culture scrap heap is somewhere near the Star Trek franchise – enormously popular, increasingly wretched and ultimately unwatchable. As for it being the only place on MTV to see actual music videos, sure, maybe if the video was number one. But if it wasn't number one, they only played part of it! I know but slogging through an entire three-minute video is rough, but, sigh, I want the M back in MTV!


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A few years ago, I interviewed the Dodos, a San Francisco duo who was, at that time, trying to keep their heads during the disorienting situation that befalls a band who's being vigorously courted by record labels. We parked on the sidewalk of a café in the Mission District as the singer, Meric Long, spoke about the most bewildering gig he'd ever played, a few weeks prior, in the board room of a Manhattan skyscraper, to an audience of record industry decision-makers. For a musician of Long's pedigree -- a vet of San Francisco's indie songwriter scene who pens unapologetically nervy, decidedly un-commercial songs -- his obvious discomfort about the situation was evident then, and even more so when they issued their first LP on a reputable small independent label, French Kiss. The situation with the Dodos office gig was on the brain yesterday, sitting in a conference room on the 48th floor of a building near the chaotic center of Times Square (where Rhapsody's New York office makes its home) when Ryan Star strode in, guitar in hand, dressed in faded black, buttressed by a small trio of nervous, doting label operatives.  

R.I.P. Levi Stubbs (1936-2007)

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Fans of any '60s icon share a similar gripe: the legacy of too many great artists is inextricably tied to too few of their songs in heavy rotation on oldies stations. These select tracks get played and played out, and eventually even the lifelong Beatles fan reaches for the dial during the third daily course of "Yellow Submarine." Today, I cued up the Four Tops after reading about the passing of the band's leader, Levi Stubbs, who died in his sleep in his Detroit home at the age of 72, and was reminded about how this predicament is particularly hard on the stable of artists from '60s Motown: The Jackson 5 is relegated to "I'll Be There"; Stevie Wonder, a Motown artist with as deep and wide-ranging catalog of any, is on three times an afternoon with "For Once in My Life." For the Four Tops, the heavy-rotation hits come between 1964's "Baby, I Need Your Loving" and their final Top 10 in 1973, "Ain't No Woman (Like the One I've Got)." Of the handful of stuff between these bookends, some, like The Big Chill-approved "It's the Same Old Song," represent Motown's streamlined mainstream operation. Others, like "Reach Out, I'll Be There," speak to the group's power in the studio. But it's the outlying, oddly successful hit "Bernadette," a tune that is among their most popular and their most enduring, that best demonstrates Stubbs' power as a performer. It's the rare example of a heavy-rotation hit that lives up to its responsibilities. 

Jay Reatard: Viva Memphis

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SpaceballYou can have your Dirty South and maybe even your DC Hardcore -- but when it comes to most rank and file rock 'n' roll, American regionalist associations are pretty dicey. There's Seattle of the '90s or Detroit of the '00s, and sh*t, even sniveling Omaha. Yet, when it comes to similarities in the way things actually sound? It rarely comes out in the wash (heard Screaming Trees and Alice in Chains lately?). It was on the brain a lot last week when the long-withheld digital release of Kid Rock went live in Rhapsody. Even if his late career more resembles the beer-bloated aggrandizing of Southern rockers like .38 Special than the MC5, Kid Rock makes much of his Michigan roots.

In scenes with, well, a scene, the glue always seems to be influential figureheads -- something that might be more embodied these days by hip-hop producers. In that way, the recent collection of singles by Memphis garage-rock riser Jay Reatard firmly proves the exception of Memphis' rock legacy. It’s a record that's not only sonically, stylistically concordant with the city's vibrant underground rock scene, but one that shows the long-lasting influence of the people who built it.

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this post.]

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It’s Friday at rush hour, and the show has only begun on the N Judah train line. Regular commuters clutch their briefcases, terrified, as a crowd of rowdy interlopers -- many in cowboy shirts, many in no shirts at all -- pack the car. The route is headed toward Golden Gate Park, where the eighth annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival commenced this afternoon, and two of the car's more enthusiastic riders are stone-giddy about the opening day headliner: "Robert f*ck*ng Plant, man," one says to the other in the blown-mind inflection that's the universal dialect of the three-day event. San Francisco might host a slew other open-air music festivals, but Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, a multi-stage festival of roots rock, country and bluegrass (paid for by San Francisco venture capitalist Warren Hellman) is probably the one that most accurately reflects the eccentricities of its host city. Starting with Robert f*ck*ng Plant.

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At a glance, last night's performance by Argentinean/Swede folk phenom Jose Gonzalez wasn't much to see: the final set of a two-day, sold-out stand at Yoshi's in Oakland, CA, mostly featured Gonzalez at center stage, hunched over a nylon-string guitar. Sitting between a heavy red curtain and a curious mix of the jazz club's typical chardonnay-and-maki crowd and reverent doe-eyed fans, he was occasionally buttressed by singer Yukimi Nagamo and percussionist Erik Bodin. There was almost no banter ("This song," he said in the honeyed shush of a yoga instructor, "is about tribalism") and few frills beyond those inherent in Gonzalez's faux-traditional Brazilian finger-picking and melancholic evocation of Joao Gilberto. Even the setlist -- drawn from his similarly elegant, bare pair of albums and scattered with new material -- didn't raise eyebrows, save for a forceful cover of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" that was trotted out for an encore. But, Gonzalez demonstrated that he's one of the most commanding songwriters of recent years by achieving the difficult task of what architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe called "an interesting plainness." The set also made it plainly apparent, and never more serenely unobjectionable, that Gonzalez, is also someone who thrives in an industry that's seen the death of the album-based career. He could be the poster child of its passing.

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It seems like everyone has one of those records, the album that caught them in crosshairs, at just the right moment. Usually the providence of 15-year-olds, it's some piece of music that connects in a nervy, serendipitous, oversized way to become not only a favorite, but a bellwether for life itself -- from personal style and social appointment. In a recent interview with Brian Wilson we talked about his, the Ronettes' "Be My Baby," a tune that he listened to obsessively as a youth and claims changed his life. For me, the moment came standing in (now defunct) Blue Moon Records, Traverse City, Michigan, with the Jayhawks' Hollywood Town Hall on the earphones. Taking in the sleeve -- black and white photos of a band that oozed nerd-tough, corduroy-sheathed Midwesterness, liner notes by Joe Henry (brilliant in themselves, you can read them on a similarly obsessed fan's Myspace profile here) -- I was no longer doomed to the fate of a rudderless, pimple-crusted teenager at the insufferable whims of the program director at Z-93 "Rock of Mid-Michigan."  I was born again. All I needed was that record and a new (used) corduroy jacket.

by Nate Cavalieri

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An interview with Brian Wilson is best likened to a rickety thrill ride at the county fair: approached with some apprehension, experienced in a jarring haste and over in a blink. I recently had the chance to dial up Wilson and chat about the record he released this week, That Lucky Old Sun, a portrait of the southern California of Wilsons' youth. For the devoted, it's a sight better than most of the elder Beach Boy's late-day fare thanks to the heavy hand of arranger Van Dyke Parks and the carefully calibrated sentimentalism of Scott Bennett's lyrics.

by Nate Cavalieri

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Some information about Beach Boy Dennis Wilson's lost and lone solo album Pacific Ocean Blue popped up in January in Rolling Stone, and for a brief moment, there was even a video of one of the record's tracks, "River Song," floating around YouTube. Even so, we didn't really understand the full-bore, imminent radness of the re-release until hearing a couple of tracks on Buddyhead (they were swiftly removed). The post justly gushes about the reissue and features an interview with the record's producer Gregg Jakobson. In any case, the anticipation is reaching a fever pitch, and we have the re-release date of June 17 circled and underlined in big, bold marker on our calender.

Kill the oppressive boredom of the days between now and then by observing hirsute MTV personality Mark Goodman interview Brian and Carl backstage at Live Aid in 1985, or listening to Shuggie Otis' once-lost now-rescued classic Inspiration Information.

by Nate Cavalieri

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Sneaking a listen from the earphones of Gary Lucas is exciting -- among his many accomplishments, the man was the former guitarist in Captain Beefheart's Magic Band and a collaborator of Jeff Buckley. We recently solicited a playlist from Lucas, which turned out to be an eclectic genre-hopping romp though acid jazz, folk singers and Afropop. You can listen to the playlist here, but equally illuminating was Lucas' track-by-track commentary, which we've included after the jump.

by Nate Cavalieri

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According to a report by Reuters, the results of a survey taken by Jacobs Media found that "if you are male and a Led Zeppelin fan, chances are you may be leaning toward voting Republican in the U.S. presidential election." Certainly curious inbox fodder for those about to rock, but a close look finds that summary to be a bit misleading, and the fine print analysis to be downright alarming.

by Nate Cavalieri

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(Or: Big Mac Attack: Michael McDonald @ NYC's Blue Note)

The day after the release of Michael McDonald's Soul Speak, the silver-haired Doobie brought selections of his latest album of covers to a two-night stand at New York City's Blue Note, performing a set that left your correspondents in a state of flustered, disoriented awe. Here, we recap the evening, note by sweet, soul-stirring note.

7:40: Squeeze into packed Blue Note. Electricity, scent of Elizabeth Taylor's "White Diamonds" in the air. Audience members find their seats, occasionally vocalizing their excitement in McDonaldesque falsetto "OOOOOHs."  At our shared table, a woman orders chardonnay and expresses disappointment in Rudy Giuliani's failed presidential bid.

by Nate Cavalieri

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Electioneering08_thumbAfter so much feverish lead-up -- IM squabbles concerning the details of John McCain's heroism, will.i.am duets with Obama circulating YouTube, and "I don't usually send emails like this" messages from otherwise politically indifferent friends -- it was two relatively trivial events of Super Tuesday that left an odd taste on Back-to-Usual Wednesday. Don't laugh: the release of Jack Johnson's Static Through the Silence and Sheryl Crow's Detours.

Best of 2007: Rock

by Nate Cavalieri

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The more we reflect on the year in rock, the more it feels like a long afternoon spent at the multiplex. There were well-anticipated (if only occasionally) satisfying blockbusters, nubile starlets debuting in breakthrough roles, and a sprinkling of art-house crossovers. Like sequels to our favorite flicks, the parade of marquee reunions offered both spine-tingling and unsightly results. The year's other rock-related stories, like Phil Spector's trial, Van Halen's roller coaster and the lumbering maneuvers of the record industry, were chock-full of surprise endings. Here are the top 10 memorable rock'n'roll moments of 2007.

by Nate Cavalieri

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After hearing the news about songwriter Dan Fogelberg, who lost his battle with cancer yesterday, it seemed appropriate to cue up his essential hit, "Leader of the Band." Fogelberg wrote it about being the "living legacy" of his father, a community bandleader in Peoria, Illinois, and put it square in the middle of what would ultimately be his career-defining album, 1981's The Innocent Age.             

by Nate Cavalieri

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In the past year, I've discovered there are only two albums in my collection that appease the fairly random (and fairly opinionated) assortment of characters who tend to wind up at my house for a makeshift get-togethers. The first ain't no hen's tooth: Michael Jackson's Thriller. Bored to tears? Sorry, but some 25 years after its release, that album's mix of pleasures is still palpable – whether as an ironic cultural book replete with white linen suits, Vincent Price and tiger cubs, or as a genuine double-sided testament to the peak of titans of the era's pop music: Quincy Jones, and MJ. (Macca and Eddie Van are hardly slouching either, actually.) If thinking about Thriller doesn't suit you, fine, just move the coffee table and dance.

by Nate Cavalieri

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A mere fraction of Rhapsody's West Coast cadre made the trek to CMJ this year, and while I used the opportunity to stay home, catch up on some knitting, and chuckle ruefully about missing the inebriated, usually unsuccessful quest to see bands with names like Dragons of Zynth or Jay Retard, I did feel a stab of jealousy about those lucky witnesses to the Friday night show at The Delancy. After a warm-up set by multi-instrumentalist Cale Parks (who has made some pretty amazing records as a member of Aloha and on his own as a solo artist) one of my favorite Chicago bands, The Narrator, played until the wheels came off. Reading the review in Stereogum (here) or the wasted post-show interview with bassist James Barron (here) makes me think that the show alone might have been worth the the trip.

by Nate Cavalieri

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The only thing that brightens the grim 12-hour flight (coach, middle seat of five) from London to San Francisco other than United Airline's discerning cinematic programming (Tell It To Me, Live Free Or Die Hard, Knocked Up and, last and least, License To Wed - a film nearly as vapid as my conversation with star Mandy Moore, posted here on Rhapsody) is the transatlantic 32-hour day. Compelled - nay obligated! - to scratch off something from the "if there was only more time in the day" list, I spent those four bonus hours as any card-carrying rockist would - soothing frayed nerves with a handful of Solpadeine Max and the recently reissued and expanded Traveling Wilburys catalogue. 

Monster Mash

by Nate Cavalieri

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Even though the category for "Monster Single of the Year" has some infectious tunes, we can't help but feel as if a few favorites from last year got left out in the cold. We saw one such monster first hand when Peter, Bjorn and John played Rhapsody's SXSW party and "Young Folks" made folks squeal like children on a pony ride. (See and hear the performance for yourself right here.) But, given the stiff competition (go Avril! She is, like, so whatever!), it's small wonder PB&J were overlooked. If the most competitive VMA category seems abridged, here are a few neglected monsters from the past year.

MONSTER SINGLE: Kelis, "Bossy"
BREED: Here-comes-trouble Monster
SECOND COUSINS WITH:Madonna, "Material Girl"; Lil' Kim, "Magic Stick"
We had a feeling that Kelis was sex-on-wheels with "Milkshake," but this single, co-written by Too $hort, inspires cold sweats. Plus, it's the sassy answer to 50 Cent's "Piggy Bank." Icy!

by Nate Cavalieri

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Even though Carrie Underwood's 2006 debut went platinum six-times over (for selling roughly a ba-jillion records) the American Idol star and recently-announced CMA Nominee is still an odd duck in the "Best New Artist" category. Not only does her pearly white mainstream styling make an odd contrast to lovably scruffy indie nominees like Peter, Bjorn and John and Gym Class Heroes, but the clean-livin' "Jesus Take The Wheel" ethos makes her a comparative candy striper next to the other ferocious ladies on the list. Oh yeah, and she sings COUNTRY.

They Get So Emotional, Baby

by Nate Cavalieri

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That coyly-spelled title is a little silly, but with its big beat guitars and relentlessly catchy chorus, Fall Out Boy's "Thnks Fr Th Mmrs" is a worthy pick for the nomination of Monster Single of the Year. (Plus, the video for the tune continues the long-honored tradition of monkeys in pop music that was started with Michael Jackson and diaper-clad Bubbles.) Fall Out Boy's ascent to the top also brings more mainstream attention to the once-fringe emo subgenre…

by Nate Cavalieri

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The din of rumors about Britney's appearance at the VMAs is only growing louder, and though it's unconfirmed by our pals at MTV, the gadflies are suggesting that the former pop queen might use an appearance to buoy her image. Truth be told, with all the malicious stories, unsightly tabloid headlines, and unfortunate haircuts, we're rooting for Britney to pull it together. Looking over the list of past VMA champs, she's not the only one who could use a publicity stunt to bring them back from the edge of that scary place called Has-Been-Landia. We put together this list of acts we'd most like to see mount a comeback…or plant one on Madonna!

1.) Living Colour "Cult of Personality" Best Group Video, 1989

  • We'd chew our arm out of a bear trap to hear this Body Glove-favoring band's rumored 2007 release.   Chances are, it'll be no Vivid, but we can dream.

2.) Salt-N-Pepa & En Vogue "Whatta ManBest R&B Video" Best R&B Video, Best Choreography, 1994

by Nate Cavalieri

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Though the Justin/Beyonce dance-off sounds intriguing (we got 15-to-1 odds on Ms. Knowels) the showdown we've been waiting for is happening in the Best New Artist Category between the two feisty brunettes from across the drink: Amy Winehouse and Lily Allen. As entertaining as its been to watch their rivalry splattered across British tabloids, we feel a little bad for Lily, whose record is like a wittier, sassier, double-x chromosome version of our favorite Streets LP from way back. Even so, poor Lily seems a bit outmatched against the chain-smokin', hair-teasin', tattoo-sportin', soul-hollerin' Winehouse (who, as hard as we try, always makes us just want to listen to a real super soul sista and former Rutger's Island prison guard Sharon Jones).

by Nate Cavalieri

THE GOOD!

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  • Band of Horses put down the bong and finish another record!
    Under the all-caps title "RECORD IS DONE!!!" Band of Horses, runners-up of the hotly-debated Rhapsody year-end staff poll for 2006's Everything All The Time, might finally issue a follow up. "That's right folks," reads the myspace blog. "That little bastard's in the can and soon will be set free on the Sub Pop record label. We're looking at doing that sometime in October if CD's and Records still exsist [SIC] in 4 months."

by Nate Cavalieri

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Sure, sure, better late than never, but it's still a drag to come so overdue to a pair of wonderful, somewhat recent, vaguely-related records many months after their release. Start with You're Making It Come Alive, a LP of immaculate, slightly skuzzy pop from Brooklyn's The End of the World that'll draw quick, if not entirely just, comparisons to other post-Velvets in the Spoon/Strokes camp. But with tunes like the "Party's Over" -- a late night frustrado jam decorated with sagging balloons and hand-wringing hipster sweethearts -- the band deserves better. What might be the better half of "Party's Over," the opening "Crowded Rooms" has tons of loner charm, and, like pretty much everything else that follows, uses the croon of singer/sometimes-guitarist/drummer-when-he-has-to-be Stefan Marolachakis to take your heart out with a spork. At a recent San Francisco show with the Narrator, Marolachakis even pulled off a rare feat with the singing drummer thing -- even though he was on double duty the tunes actually felt good.

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