Features
Thursday, September 23 2004
The Ramones: An Appreciation
The Sex Pistols would sing of 'no future' with rage and desperation, wearing their fury against adult culture and the failing English economy as a badge; the Ramones turned their alienation into a joke.
Tuesday, June 22 2004
Ray Charles: An American Genius
Ray Charles took nothing from no one, staking his claim to the world, thriving despite his blindness to become one of a handful of truly legendary and groundbreaking artists in the history of music. Rest in peace, Brother Ray.
Friday, December 19 2003
A Very Country Christmas
The intersection of Christmas songs and country singers might at first blush, seem a natural. The genres share a traditional worldview rooted in family and faith and an often tender, nostalgic view of the past.
Monday, November 24 2003
Reconsidering Let It Be
One of the things that strikes me about this album 33 years after its release and nearly 35 after its recording is that despite it being one of the weaker Beatle efforts, it stands above so much else recorded by so many other lesser bands across the years.
Reviews
Monday, May 22 2006
Radney Foster: This World We Live In
Like both Lucinda Williams and Steve Earle, Foster's music is stripped down with a southern twang that more tightly ties it to the country camp than country-rock bands like The Eagles or alt.country poster boy Ryan Adams.
Friday, May 20 2005
Reckless Kelly: Wicked Twisted Road
Reckless Kelly proves to be a fine-tuned precision machine, with all parts working in tandem to produce a solid, often breathtaking, piece of alt-country beauty.
Monday, April 25 2005
Bruce Springsteen: Devils & Dust
It is, by turns, a country record, a folk record and even a bit of a rock record. It is thick with atmosphere, awash in violence and a shadowy mythology redolent of the Old West.
Tuesday, March 22 2005
Magic Circles: The Beatles in Dream and History by Devin McKinney
McKinney sets out to re-place the greatest band in rock and roll history within the context of the volatile time in which the band exploded into the public consciousness, changing the band, its four members and everyone forever.
Monday, March 14 2005
Various Artists: Give 'Em the Boot IV
Hit-and-miss punk compilation often chooses empty aggression over the grace and commitment of the genre's hallmarks.
