I have been listening to London Calling - the Clash's 1979 breakout album - on my morning drive recently, and wanted to blog about how fresh it still seems after 30 years. In fact, it's hard to believe that it was 30 years ago that I was first entranced by the hypnotic sounds of the title track...
Flight of the Conchords is an award-winning New Zealand comedy band, self-described as "New Zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo". While a couple previous blog posts ( 1 2 ) talked about their recent TV series on HBO, this post will focus...
I have long been a fan of Tracy Chapman. She has a beautiful, soulful voice that lends itself to the simple but smart and touching songs that she writes. "Our Bright Future" is her 8th album. She started out 23 years ago in little cafes near Harvard Square, strumming her acoustic guitar and...
Musical parody...such a fine art. Back in the day, I was a big "Weird Al" Yankovic fan ("It's all about the Pentiums, baby!"). There are also bands that take well-known music and reinterpret it: some of my favs include Hayseed Dixie (they play AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Van Halen,...
Chrissie Hynde is back -- and she's spectacular -- in the Pretenders' first studio album in 6 years, "Break Up the Concrete." She hasn't lost her voice or her style! The hard-rocking Hynde, who wrote all the songs, fronts an all-new band consisting of Jim Keltner, Eric Heywood,...
" Righteous Love " is one of my all-time favorite albums, so when I read in "People" magazine that Joan Osborne had a 7th album out -- " Little Wild One " -- I made sure the library ordered it. Osborne's music has elements of rock, folk, country, and blues -- so it's...