Ray Wonder Good Music (Nons Records) Daybehavior Adored (Nons Records) Ask most American listeners what they think of music from Sweden and you’re apt to receive a diatribe about Abba for your trouble. But this pair of discs from Swedish combos shows that there’s more of interest going on in…
Neutral Milk Hotel In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (Merge) You’ve read a lot in these pages about the Elephant 6 collective and how this shifting cadre of musicians from a number of cities gets together on a regular basis to make weird and wonderful songs under several different banners,…
Zeke Kicked in the Teeth (Epitaph) You know rock and roll is in sad shape when Smashing Pumpkins takes home a Grammy for Best Hard Rock Album. After all, the hardest thing about that pack of whiners is Billy Corgan’s bald, pointy noggin. But fear not, heathens: Seattle’s Zeke is…
Ani DiFranco Little Plastic Castle (Righteous Babe) One of my colleagues suggested that DiFranco is better than most of her Lilith Fair peers because she says “fuck” a lot more frequently than they do–and after a moment’s reflection, I realized that there’s something to that. A great many of today’s…
Ani DiFranco Little Plastic Castle (Righteous Babe) One of my colleagues suggested that DiFranco is better than most of her Lilith Fair peers because she says “fuck” a lot more frequently than they do–and after a moment’s reflection, I realized that there’s something to that. A great many of today’s…
Timbaland and Magoo Welcome to Our World (Blackground/Atlantic) Tim Mosley, aka Timbaland, is a producer who has stepped into the spotlight a la Sean “Puffy” Combs–but unlike the Puffster, Mosley seems to understand his limitations. Rather than positioning himself as an egomaniacal rap word-slinger, he keeps the focus on the…
Various Artists Lounge-A-Palooza (Hollywood) Various Artists Paint It Blue: Songs of the Rolling Stones (House of Blues) London Philharmonic Kashmir: Symphonic Led Zeppelin (Point) A hundred years ago, the creative landscape fostered outrageous acts of art by Cezanne, Toulouse-Lautrec and Munch. Approaching 2000, our own fin de siecle is marked…
The London Symphony Orchestra Paul McCartney’s Standing Stone (EMI) Our nation’s classical-music critics have gone after this disc like a great white shark at a blood drive, which makes perfect sense: McCartney, who reportedly spent four years completing the piece, cheerfully admits that he can’t read music and acknowledges receiving…
Oasis Be Here Now (Epic) Many reviewers tackling this disc have complained that it’s too derivative. Well, duh. You’re likelier to get a lie-detector test from John Ramsey than originality from these blokes. But such sniping entirely misses the point of Oasis. The Gallagher brothers, Liam and Noel, aren’t trying…
Slaughter Revolution (CMC/BMG) Warrant Belly to Belly (CMC/BMG) Dokken Shadowlife (CMC/BMG) A recent Rolling Stone article declaring the return of Eighties-vintage hair metal probably left many readers wishing that the government would set up a hard-rock subsidy program similar to the ones that pay farmers not to grow any crops…
Blues Traveler Straight On Till Morning (A&M) Since the birth of rock and roll, the rise of teen idols has been a surefire indicator of a terrible period in popular music–and indeed, the recent successes of acts like Hanson and Robyn (see review on page 92) have come at a…
Atari Teenage Riot Burn, Berlin, Burn! (Grand Royal) For those of you who think that the culture industry’s commodification of packaged rebellion destroyed punk, you might find hope in this agit-prop sonic assault–but to do so, you must be willing to make the leap from old-school analog punk to what…
Foo Fighters The Colour and the Shape (Capitol) Like most of you out there, I figured that the self-titled debut by the Foo Fighters would be on par with a Ringo Starr solo album, so the quality of the disc came as a pleasant surprise. However, the recording’s strength meant…
Mark Eitzel West (Warner Bros.) Eitzel is one of those guys who could shoot the president and still not end up on the nation’s front pages. He served as frontman for the American Music Club, but the act never achieved anything more than cult status in its eleven years of…
Johnny Dowd Wrong Side of Memphis When I began reviewing albums, I instituted a simple rule for myself: I must listen to at least three songs of every recording I receive before deciding whether or not to put it in my giveaway drawer. This doctrine has caused me no shortage…
Veruca Salt Eight Arms to Hold You (Outpost/Minty Fresh) In my review of Veruca Salt’s much-ballyhooed debut, 1994’s American Thighs, I lamented the band’s derivative nature (the Breeders and Sonic Youth were among those paid homage via imitation) but suggested that, given some time, the players might eventually develop into…
Curtis Mayfield New World Order (Warner Bros.) Mayfield, who was paralyzed from the neck down in an onstage accident, discovered a year or so ago that he could sing as long as his body was in a reclining position. But doing so remains an exhausting struggle for him–and the sheer…
Joshua Redman Freedom in the Groove (Warner Bros.) Somehow it doesn’t seem fair that previous generations of jazz buffs got an opportunity to experience the inventions of Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Ornette Coleman when these artists were in their primes, while today’s jazz lovers are left with…
Better Than Ezra Friction, Baby (Elektra) Dear friends, this CD represents everything that’s wrong with alternative music in 1996. Not that it’s obviously abysmal. Far from it: The songs here are tuneful and hooky, and the players (guitarist/vocalist Kevin Griffin, bassist Tom Drummond and drummer Travis Aaron McNabb) deliver them…
Soul Coughing Irresistible Bliss (Slash/Warner Bros.) On Ruby Vroom, Soul Coughing’s bow, bandleader M. Doughty and his compatriots (complemented immeasurably by genius producer Tchad Blake) seemed absolutely fearless, slamming together jazz, hip-hop and beat poetry with an abandon that was utterly refreshing. So the sight of producer David Kahne’s name…
Nearly God Nearly God (Durban Poison/Island) Obviously, Tricky isn’t lacking in confidence; conceding that he’s “nearly” God, as opposed to “better than” God, for instance, doesn’t exactly constitute a gusher of modesty. However, Tricky earns his egotism; while Nearly God can’t top his solo debut, Maxinquaye (which is among the…
Nas It Was Written (Columbia) The reported death of gangsta rap has been greatly exaggerated: It Was Written entered the Billboard sales charts at number one, and three weeks later, it’s still there. But although this album contains the usual verbal allotment of niggas, bitches, gats and gunshots (as well…
