Archive for category Reviews
The Who Super Bowl Performance Falls Flat (Set List Included)
Posted by John Romano in Reviews, Sports and Entertainment on February 7, 2010
MIAMI (YBH.ME) – The Who, or at least the living members, performed at Super Bowl XLIV today. The much-hyped performance fell flat. Both Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend are pushing 70, and it showed today. Musically the band played great, however the performance was extremely stiff. The duo used a younger backing band reminding the viewing audience of just how aged Mr. Daltrey and Mr. Townshend are. Watching a 65 year-old Pete Townshend screaming “It’s only teenage wasteland” was a very odd moment.
The band chose to do shortened versions of their biggest hits, which distracted from the overall performance. The opening number, a very short version of “Pinball Wizard” was good but lacked energy. The last tune, “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” would have been a show stopper had they not chose to shorten the tune’s signature parts. The band also played shortened versions of “Baba O’Reilly” and “Who Are You.”
Everything Old Is Old Again, But Updated
Posted by Rudy Grahn in Music, Reviews on January 28, 2010
It seems that rock music has a 20-25 year latency period after initial popularity before it is revived by the next generation and resold as homage-to or under-influence-of the originals. Sadly for me, when I was in my late teens, crap from the late 60s was being regurgitated, so I had to endure bad psychedelia and classic rock rip-offs in massive quantities. Ugh. I have my biases, but it is a bit of a treat to hear so much of non-retro the music of my youth I DID like now being redone and synthesized into other forms in a way that does right by the originals. The New Wave stuff of recent vintage is often either spot-on in homage (check the backstory of Holy Ghost’s I Will Come Back single and video, for example), or even better than the original stuff was.
PIL's Metal Box
Naturally, alongside all the plundering of the past are the revivals of many long-defunct bands who just now are putting their reunion projects together, or are establishing new eras in their band’s history. This week we will cover a good number of reunions from classic New Wave/No Wave 80’s/90’s alt rock outfits, plus some of the other big releases either now in stores or on the way.
Public Image Limited – Of all the defunct New Wave/120 Minutes-era bands to influence modern music, few could be said to have had a bigger impact than John Lydon and his post Sex Pistols project, PiL. While the Pistols reunion shows sporadically surface, the first PiL shows in nearly 20 years finally took place in the UK this past December. No wider release from the reunion is in retail stores per se, but official, multi-disc concert recordings from most of the shows were put online almost immediately. While I personally would have loved to see an early lineup reunion, the current PiL leans toward the Happy?/9 lineup. From the look of the setlists and sound of the arrangements from the shows, this revival’s aesthetic will skew that way as well. While we wait to see what fruit will be born of the reunion, there is very noteworthy re-issue of PiL’s classic Metal Box album on CD. This album has been reissued in several formats as both Metal Box and Second Edition through the years, but this issue is the first attempt to faithfully recreate on CD the original packaging and format of the original albums-in-a-can vinyl. Read the rest of this entry »
Life Is Like Art Sometimes – The 2010 Music Calendar
Posted by Rudy Grahn in Music, Opinion, Reviews on January 22, 2010
NEW YORK (YBH.ME) – This being a great week for Massachusetts reactionaries, it really should be no shock to find that objects of indie love/hate, Vampire Weekend, have the #1 album in the country with Contra. Even so, I am a bit surprised they made it that big so early in their career. That said, the synchronicity demands some attention…
Vampire Weekend set for a big 2010. Photo courtesy SHANE MCCAULEY
In the same way that MA’s newest Senator prompted Glen Beck to wonder if a dead intern might not be in future for the Senate’s newest alpha, one has to wonder if Vampire Weekend intentionally bared the uncomfortable reality of their collective id in their choice of cover photo. I believe it was Sting who said “Many miles away, there’s a shadow on the door of a cottage on the shore of a dark Scottish lake.”
So, 2010 has already sent an indie hero up the pop chart, causing one to wonder if the heydays of under-the-radar indie rock/rap greatness are over, and if the Heartland Values-types are finally gonna get in on the action. The year’s crop of new releases has some big names front-loading the calendar, so anything is possible. Are these releases big enough to prompt WalMart to make room on their precious shelves? Only time will tell. Either way, here are a few highlights from the recent release calendar to keep on your radar:
Gorillaz – Plastic Beach: Back from the dead is Damon Albarn’s project Gorillaz with a full album of original material. While he had said he was done with the Gorillaz project, and had moved on to both a short Blur reunion, and a nice alt.supergroup outing with The Good, The Bad and The Queen, the new Gorillaz sees new collaborations with old partners (De La Soul and Paul Simonon both appear on this new one), as well as new collaborations with the likes of Lou Reed and Bobby Womack. The first single is out this month, the whole album comes in March. Read the rest of this entry »
Favorite Albums of 2009
Posted by Rudy Grahn in Music, Opinion, Reviews on December 22, 2009
As I mentioned when counting down my favorites from the decade, I don’t want to confuse the idea of “my favorites” with “the best”. If you meet someone who says otherwise, DEMAND to see their ENTIRE music collection…and give no leeway for “guilty pleasures”. Such solipsists deserve none! I think I have better taste than most, but I don’t think I know enough to know what from recent history will stand the test of time. I only know what I happen to like. As was the case most of the decade, I have been liking the Indie Rock stuff quite a bit; and to that end, 2009 was a pretty good year after a string of more than a few pretty good years. Yay for ears!
Portland's Jona Bechtolt of Yacht
On with the countdown:
10. Jeffery Lewis – Em Are I: No real musical chops to speak of. Not trail-blazing. The album title sucks, and indeed, Mister Lewis comes off as an over-simplifying snotty little smug artiste-type; but there is more going on than meets the eye for this moonlighting graphic novelist . The songs are deceivingly tight and there are many an earworm here that will sneak up on you over time. He is no Elizabeth Cotten, but pickin’ grows on you too. (Politically, not going to be a big favorite for those on the right, but I have to guess if you love music and have a right-wing orientation, you already know how to separate the politics out.) Perhaps for the uninitiated or disinclined it may prove enough that he is really just a big fan of music who happens to be having fun making it. Key cuts: Bugs & Flowers, If Life Exists? Read the rest of this entry »
Google Revealed In New Book
Posted by Laura Glendinning in Media Quick Hit, Reviews on November 11, 2009
LOS ANGELES (YBH.ME) – Sit at your computer, go to Google’s home page and type in a search word. It’s done by millions of people, millions of times a day.
Website publishers, search engine competitors and the savvier members of the general public have always wondered one thing: how do they do it? How do they rank website A over website B? What, to use the insider term, is their algorithm?
Ken Auletta's new book about Google is an informative look at the internet giant.
Search engines are ruled by the engineers who write the sorting program, and they are human beings with preferences and an agenda, hopefully benign. Star media reporter Ken Auletta’s new book “Googled: The End of the World as We Know It” has released one tidbit among many, after extensive interviews with Google honchos. Read the rest of this entry »