Category: Music

Buying lots and lots of music! For those of you who haven’t been following along, this summer has been music buying chaos for me. Now that the summer is winding down, and the leaves here in New York are starting to change colors, let’s try to make some sense out of all that I’ve listened to.

It all started back at the very end of April, when both the latest Madonna and Robyn CDs released, and it ends with the new Glen Campbell album I just reviewed. Let’s go to the list, shall we?

April: Madonna “Hard Candy”, Robyn “Robyn”
May: Cyndi Lauper “Bring Ya to the Brink”, Duffy “Rockferry”
June: NERD “Seeing Sounds”
July: Nas “Untitled”, The Ting Tings “We Started Nothing”
August: Sa Dingding “Alive”, Glen Campbell “Meet Glen Campbell”

Obviously I liked all these albums. I only write about stuff I like when it comes to music. Also, I wrote reviews for all of these, so there is no need to rehash those opinions here. Let’s kick a little compare and contrast though, shall we?

Battle of 80s divas, Madonna verses Cyndi Lauper. Cyndi Lauper wins hands down. Both albums are designed to make you dance, but Madonna stuck to safer grounds with top hip hop and R&B producers, where as Lauper’s album makes you wanted to move just as much, but it took risks, such as dipping into Swedish pop and utilizing interesting and unusual sounds.

Want to unwind? Duffy verses Sa Dingding. It may seem odd to compare the two, but both albums are rich and atmospheric. Ladies, go with Duffy for introspection, listen to Sa Dingding to provide a soothing soundtrack for yoga or picturesque drives.

Waving your hands in the air, Nas verses NERD. Sonically NERD’s album is impressive. It’s a mix and match of sounds that ultimately come together with foot tapping, booty shaking, fist pumping results. Unfortunately for NERD, Nas has them beat lyrically, and the album boasts its own fantastic music. The Nas CD reigns supreme for me…I suspect it will be a long time before another hip hop album will impress me as much as this one did.

Did you just buy that? The Tings Tings verses Glen Campbell. Both albums were unknown quantities when purchased, both were entertaining. Obviously it’s hard to compare the chick 80s sound of The Ting Tings with the country reinterpretations of Glen Campbell. What they have in common…they were both inexpensive to purchase….and that’s it.

The album I’m still listening to…Robyn. That Robyn CD is the winner of the summer. I bought it at the end of April and it is still in my car for regular listens. Stuck in traffic? Listen to Robyn. Speeding down the highway? Listen to Robyn. Getting pumped up to go to a party? Listen to Robyn. Cleaning the apartment? Listen to Robyn because I loaded it onto my computer. There is no occasion when listening to the Robyn CD is a bad idea, except maybe when trying to get some sleep!

This has been a great summer for music and I’m sad to see it go. For once I don’t have a music review just sitting in my computer waiting to share with you guys. Hopefully with the upcoming holiday season there will be some new, exciting music releases for us to talk about. Until then, keep your ears open!

Yeah, I said Glen Campbell, you got a problem with that? The next time I talk music it will be my summer music buying wrap up, but this little oddity snuck in during August, so I figured, better add it to my lost summer of music purchases.

The buzz about the new Glen Campbell is that it’s an album of covers. That’s part of the appeal. Of course, “Meet Glen Campbell” should not be compared to any of the Johnny Cash “American Recordings” albums; that would be sort of like comparing, I don’t know, something super bad ass, with something not quite so. The Cash covers were revelations, these covers, just can’t hold up to them.

That said, there is a lot to love about this CD. Campbell’s producer took a handful of songs that were originally small, intimate, and pared down, and handed them over to get the big, bold, 60’s/70’s Glen Campbell treatment. Many people are all a buzz over the cover of Green Day’s song “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)”. Personally, I’m a freak in the fact that I have never been a fan of this song. Save it for high school dances, and teen television dramas, is what I say. Campbell didn’t manage to change my opinion. On the other hand, I also have never been too fond of the Travis song “Sing”, but in Campbell’s hands I find this to be my favorite track on the album. My other big favorite is his cover of Tom Petty’s “Walls”.

In my opinion, it’s time more people met Glen Campbell, and this is a pretty accessible way to do that.

“Sing”, this is a live performance and in my opinion not as good as the album version, but it will give you an idea as to what I’m talking about.

Due to the recent Beijing Olympics, for better or worse, we’ve all been learning more about China. It was in this vein that the BBC show Newsnight presented a piece about a Chinese singer named Sa Dingding. Let’s not talk politics, she didn’t in her interview. China is a wonderful place for artists, end of interview. Maybe she truly believes that, maybe the government made no secret of the fact that they knew where her family lived, all I’m saying is that it is a little creepy to see that her album was produced by ShangHai To-Wing Culture Development Co. Ltd., and not, you know, by individuals.

Enough about all of that though, the point is, I heard about her on Newsnight and instantly fell in love with her music. Her album, “Alive” came out in 2007, but thanks to the Olympics and positive feedback in Europe, I recently got a hold of the CD, now available in the United States.

What’s it like? Well, for starters, no English. Mandarin, Sanskrit, even a self created language, but no, I do not understand a single word on this album. It doesn’t matter though, the music is so cinematic that just like when watching a television show in another language, you just kind of decide what you think is going on.

What is going on? A real East meets West kind of sound. Forget Ming Tsai! This is a real cultural blend. (A personal note to Ming Tsai: Please don’t take offense and come after me with one of your beautiful Kyocera ceramic knives!) Sa Dingding blends very traditional sounding folk songs with Westernized techno and rock sounds. On my favorite song, the title track “Alive”, I swear that some sort of harp or mandolin, totally jams out in a blues/soul kind of way. The album has simple, and beautiful, vocals cutting through a dense fabric of sounds.

Check out Sa Dingding’s “Alive”!

There are Tings, which are a cheese puff-like treat that all the kids I know seem to love. There is Ting Ting, the poster girl for the card game “Shadowfist”. Despite those notable tings, today we are going to talk about the new album from The Ting Tings, that I recently purchased as part of my summer music buying madness.

Do you miss the ladies of 80’s new wave? Good news, their spirit is alive and well in The Tings Tings CD “We Started Nothing”. Their lead singer has a style that reminds me of The Waitresses (“I Know What Boys Like”). It’s not quite singing, but it’s not quite rapping, it’s like talking….with style. I’m so cool that I don’t even need to sing. If you’re looking for deep lyrical complexity, or levels of emotional resonance, skip this album. But, if you’re like me, and missed that slightly edgy pop/rock that only the way too hip ladies of the 80’s could generate, then you must buy this disc now!

Thanks to My Space TV you can check out their first single “Shut Up and Let Me Go”.

The Ting Tings – Shut Up And Let Me Go

Well, it’s time to get back on track with keeping you up to date on my summer music buying frenzy. This review is for an album that came out in June. I know, I know…but there has been a lot going on. Don’t worry though, things are getting back on track and soon you’ll be all caught up. So enjoy.

Trying to describe N.E.R.D. is essentially impossible. I know plenty of people do describe and define them. For instance the Wikipedia entry for them starts with, “N*E*R*D is an alternative rock band formed in 2001. Their music is best described as funk rock, with various other influences, including hip-hop, soul music, alternative rock, and blues rock.” It’s as good of an attempt as any.

N.E.R.D. are hip-hop with live bands. Rappers influenced by rock music. The best way I can describe it is that N.E.R.D. are in a bubble of hip hop. They push against it, stretching the bubble, but are careful not to burst it. They’re all over the map and I love them for it.

Their latest album is “Seeing Sounds”, which is a theme that plays as an undercurrent for the album. How do you see sounds? Try listening to this CD. It’s a glorious cacophony. A masterful collage. A Jackson Pollack painting pressed onto a disc. At some points it’s rap, like the tracks “Anti Matter” and “Spaz” (two of my favorites), other times it’s rock, bordering on pop, like the song “Happy”, and occasionally they meet up and mingle like on the first single “Everyone Nose”, which is rap running through a funky jazz jam.

Here’s the first video/single from the album “Everyone Nose”. Enjoy! (And yes, if you watch carefully you will see Lindsay Lohan. Lohan, in a music video, about girls using cocaine. Insert your own mean spirited joke here.)

I feel safe in saying that Cyndi Lauper is irrefutable evidence of the divine. Seriously, think about that voice. Never in all the eons of evolution has there ever been a voice like that, and once she’s gone I feel safe in saying that there never will be again. I mean there will be another Whitney Houston, known as Mariah Carey, and there will be another Mariah Carey, known as Christina Aguilera, and I’m sure there will be another Christina Aguilera. But whether it is a hiccup in Darwinism or the All Mighty Hand of God, nobody can sound like Lauper.

Her new album “Bring Ya to the Brink” is for starters, way better than its title. It’s a dance/techno album with pop tendencies. A lot of reviews mention the song “Rain on Me” and say something to the effect of, it’s the new “Time After Time”. Well every single reviewer that has used that line can bite me. What a huge disservice. I loved Lauper’s first album “She’s So Unusual” as much as the next person, song for song it’s one of the best ever, but creatively Lauper has surpassed that album, so to use her training wheels album as a comparison annoys me. Also, other than a vaguely 80s vibe, the song doesn’t sound like “Time After Time”, it sounds much better. It should, Lauper worked with Robyn’s producer for the track, and several others.

Lauper worked with notable pop and techno producers on this disc, and they definitely love her voice. No burying the vocals or running it through computers (although it’s done occasionally to good effect). They have Lauper’s signature voice cut through their instrumentals like a light saber through a Storm Trooper. A beautiful burning voice…that cauterizes.

The disc is littered with great techno inspired tracks. Some favorites: “Into the Nightlife”, “Echo”, “Raging Storm”, and “Grab a Hold”. I also do like the mid-tempo “Rain on Me”. But my favorite track is definitely “Rocking Chair”. This one was produced by Lauper and Basement Jaxx and it is fearless. An awesome techno tune, it features an almost tribal sounding Lauper, there’s a dash of urban sass, and some great use of “keyboard throat” as my friend Max would say (when you run the singer’s voice through a computer). Although, with Lauper’s insane voice, there very well could be no keyboard throat in action here, just raw Lauper bad assedness.

Unfortunately there isn’t an actual video for “Rocking Chair” but I found a fan montage thing that uses the song…good enough for me!

And here’s another kick ass tune from the album, this fan didn’t even have the decency to use photos, it’s just the song. Here’s “Into the Nightlife”.

As you all know, this has been the summer of my musical discontent…although more accurately it’s been the summer of my musical contentment and my wallet’s discontent. After my double barreled cd buying of the new Robyn and Madonna cds I was looking forward to a gap in my purchases. The next item on the list is Cyndi Lauper on 5/27 and to take a listen to the new Al Green that comes out that day to see if it to must be mine. All this said, you can imagine the word I said when browsing through my local discount store’s music section and I saw that the Duffy cd had released. (Hint, starts with f and rhymes with duck.) And with that, I snatched her cd “Rockferry” up and tossed it into the cart.

So ladies, you just realize that your life isn’t right. That the man you love isn’t capable of loving you back the way you wish he would. You need to reclaim your self-respect. To find yourself. You wake up just before the sun rises, pack your stuff into an old duffle bag, toss it into your beat up car and drive off into the rising sun on your journey of self-discovery. What cd do you listen to as you drive away? Duffy’s “Rockferry”.

Not to sound like every music critic on the planet, but it is the best way to describe it, Duffy’s cd sounds like a cleaner, less funky version of Amy Winehouse’s “Back in Black” album. It’s a fair assessment, but for me the two albums are a little like apples and oranges. Whereas Winehouse’s album reeks of self-destruction and self-loathing (God I love that album!) Duffy’s is filled with melancholy demands of self-respect and a desire for self-discovery. Maybe Rolling Stone did get it right when they said that Duffy is like Winehouse’s good girl sister.

The first single from Duffy’s album is “Mercy” which is up tempo tune that makes you want to shake your groove thang. It’s a great song. No other song on the album sounds like it. Not even a little. So do yourself a favor, don’t buy the album based on that one song! I don’t know if her label thought that Americans wouldn’t be interested in her bluesy, 60s songstress stylings or what, but they are definitely trying to pull the patented bait and switch on this one. In my opinion they’re doing the album a huge disservice. Duffy’s “Rockferry” album has a beating bleeding heart that draws you in, maybe it’s not an instant smash, but for me it is an instant classic.

Here’s the bait:

Here’s the switch: