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The Tuesday Roundup: New Releases 10.17.06
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October 17, 2006
The Cute Kid vs. the Crass Mogul
 Yeah, I know -- the smart money's on Diddy to have the biggest chart debut this week. So call me naive, call me an optimist -- but something in my gut tells me that Diddy has worn out his welcome a little, while JoJo might actually be gaining in popularity. The first song off her sophomore album, "Too Little Too Late," is already a smash hit; she's appearing on every talk show in the land this week; she's successfully crossed over to movies; and she has, God forbid, some actual talent. Prediction: 230,000 copies.
Diddy Up: The Other Big Sellers
- Diddy, Press Play. So maybe he's worn out his welcome -- so what, right? He's still a marketing genius, and the non-stop publicity blitz, plus the laundry list of big-name guest stars and producers on the album (Kanye West, Mary J. Blige, Jamie Foxx, Timbaland), will move some units. Prediction: 210,000 copies.
- Vince Gill, These Days. Really? The world really needs a four-CD box set of new Vince Gill material? It sounds like a goofy idea to me, but then again, country music fans are the same people who try to grow 400-pound pumpkins for the county fair, so maybe they'll love his bigger-is-better approach. Prediction: 200,000 copies.
- Dierks Bentley, Long Trip Alone. He'll be hampered a little by hitting shelves the same week as Vince Gill, but don't sleep on Dierks. He's got the #3 country song on the Billboard charts, and his last album sold 75,000 copies in its first week. Prediction: 120,000 copies.
- Ruben Studdard, The Return. His last album was a stab at contemporary gospel and a commercial disappointment. This time around, he's back to being the "Velvet Teddybear," with a little help from heavy hitters like Scott Storch and Ne-Yo. It won't push him to Clay Aiken levels of popularity, but it'll give him a boost. Prediction: 110,000 copies.
- Frankie J, Priceless. His last album sold 130,000 copies in its first week thanks mainly to a huge hit single, "Obssession." He doesn't have the big hit boosting him this time around, but his following is still pretty solid. Prediction: 100,000 copies.
- Xzibit, Full Circle. It's weird how this guy went from being a legitimate hip-hop star to being, basically, that dude who hosts Pimp My Ride. His last album managed to sell 80,000 in its first week, but I'll be amazed if this one does anywhere near that. Prediction: 50,000 copies.
Pick o' the Week
 L.E.O., Alpacas Orgling. This goof of a record is a tribute to Jeff Lynne's love-'em-or-hate-'em Electric Light Orchestra, of "Don't Bring Me Down" (Bruce!) fame. If you're in the "love 'em" camp, you'll devour these ornate power-pop confections like a 5-year-old on a jellybean bender -- they're a pitch-perfect update of ELO's classic mix of Beatlesque chamber pop and prog-rock excess, lovingly applied to catchy new songs from Boston-based mad genius Bleu by a musical collective that includes members of everyone from Chicago to Jellyfish. An unapologetically retro romp of a record.
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October 15, 2006: The Day the Music Died?
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October 16, 2006
 So CBGB hosted its final concert last night -- well, its final concert in its original New York location -- and today, news outlets and music blogs throughout the land are weepily mourning the club's passing. And it's true, CBGB was a landmark location, the true birthplace of punk (sorry, Londoners) and one of the most influential rock clubs in history. But it's also true that its glory days were long behind it, and its association with anything remotely "punk" lost to -- well, to things like women's light fleece sweat pants with the CBGB logo emblazoned in hot pink across the ass. Available now in the CBGB store, which will exist forever in cyberspace whether the club itself exists or not. (Supposedly, it will eventually exist again, in Las Vegas -- sorta like how the old London Bridge still exists in Lake Havasu, Arizona.)
Listen, if Los Angeles decided to shut down one of my favorite clubs -- say, the Troubadour -- I'd be pissed, too. But let's be honest -- CBGB was pretty much just a shitty bar that happened to play host to a lot of groundbreaking bands back when no other club in New York would have them. It continued to host the occasional hot touring act in subsequent years, but no band worth mentioning made it their proving ground since Agnostic Front led the New York hardcore charge in the early '80s. I think of all the hundreds of eulogies written for it over the past week, New York Daily News columnist Jim Farber's assessment was the most honest: He called it a "sacred dump," and admitted that, although he felt a twinge of nostalgia every time he passed its familiar awning, he hadn't set foot in the place in years.
So, yes, rock will survive without CBGB -- and even punk rock will survive, sort of, if you believe that any of those bands on the Warped Tour are really punk. A far bigger blow to Music As We Know It happened earlier last week, when Tower Records officially began its liquidation. And yeah, I know The Ramones never played at Tower Records, but that's where hundred of thousands of kids discovered them over the years. I bet the Ramones made a few in-store appearances, too. I guess future generations of bands can make in-store appearances in Best Buy.
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Playlist: Guilty Pleasures, Part 2
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October 16, 2006
I promised a couple of weeks ago, when I trotted out some of the greatest guilty pleasures of my misspent youth, that I would be back with some of the guilty pleasures I listen to now. And you know what? I'm actually less embarrassed by this list than I thought I would be. Either current pop music is better than I give it credit for, or I'm just a genius at seeking out those diamonds in the slag heap. I choose the latter explanation.
1. Weird Al Yankovic, "White and Nerdy." Even if you don't know Chamillionaire's "Ridin'," which this song parodies, it will have you, as Weird Al raps, "ROTFLMAO." The best thing Weird Al's done in years, or maybe ever.
2. Ying Yang Twins, "Dangerous (feat. Wyclef)." The lastest from the guys who brought you "The Whisper Song," featuring Wyclef Jean doing his best Bob Marley impersonation, a Hall & Oates shout-out, and a killer guitar hook (yes, a hip-hop song with a guitar hook). Tell me this isn't gonna be huge.
3. Black Eyed Peas, "Like That." Yeah, I know, they lost whatever remaining shred of street cred they ever had with "My Humps," but I still think will.i.am is a genius when it comes to making fun, catchy, party-vibe hip-hop. Plus, this track has some sweet doo-wop harmonies courtesy of John Legend and Gnarls Barkley's Cee-Lo and is 100% Fergie-free. What's not to like?
4. Field Mob, "So What (feat. Ciara)." I think this Georgia duo's album Light Poles and Pines Trees is one of most overlooked hip-hop albums of this year. There, I said it. And this is one of those rare hip-hop songs that's actually sort of sweet -- it's all about a girl trusting her guy and not believing all the rumors about what a player her man is. Oh wait -- maybe it's about a girl who's just really gullible. Oh, well -- either way, it's fun.
5. Christina Aguilera, "Ain't No Other Man." Is it wrong for me to think it's sort of genius to strip the old R&B/proto-funk sounds of Stax and Atlantic down to just the drum break and a few horn stabs, then stick Chrstina's overwrought Aretha Franklin impersonation on top of it? In a way, this is weird enough to be an old Prince song.
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Let the Diddy/YouTube Backlash Begin!
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October 13, 2006
 Diddy is hardly the first mainstream act to use YouTube as a promotional platform, but he might have taken it a little too far with his latest "viral video," which features the ever-cocky Didster pimp-rolling into his local Burger King to announce that the fast food chain has appointed him "the king of music and fashion." He then orders a flame-broiled Whopper "his way," with everything on it -- including those two great burger condiments, "salt and pepper" -- and berates a BK employee for not getting the order fast enough. He also notes that he and Burger King have "bought" a new YouTube channel to launch "Diddy TV" -- which is interesting, considering that anyone can create a channel on YouTube for free.
In fairness to Diddy, there's a strong note of self-parody in the video -- especially when he has to fish money out of his wallet, admitting that "even the king of music and fashion has to pay" -- but I'm not sure your average YouTube user is going to pick up on it. And besides, self-parody or not, the video is still basically an advertisement for two major corporate products: Burger King's fast food, and Diddy himself. Which is rubbing the very grassroots-minded YouTube community the wrong way.
"Diddy is a rotten whore," reads a typical user comment. "I hope the chef jizzed in his burger," says another. Most of the rest are unintelligible and/or unprintable, but a good 90% of them are clearly negative. My personal favorite comes from someone named "scarfskin," who muses: "If Burger King named him king of fashion, does that mean he wears one of their uniforms at night when he's alone?" Let's hope so, scarfskin -- and let's hope that Diddy TV eventually does its own spin on another old Burger King viral campaign, and gives the world Subservient Diddy.
The BK/Diddy spot also very quickly inspired several parodies, the best of which comes courtesy of LisaNova, who I pictured above next to Diddy just because she's so friggin' cool. If you already suffered through BK/Diddy, I highly recommend watching LisaNova's stone-cold spoof of it. It'll get that foul chicken fries aftertaste out of your mouth.
I suppose it's likely, in the long run, that the backlash to all this will blow over, and Diddy, YouTube and Burger King will remain as popular as ever. But for YouTube, the timing's pretty bad -- all of this is happening, coincidentally, just as YouTube is getting bought by Google for a cool $1.6 billion. It may take awhile for the corporate stench to wash off, if it ever does, and that could see a lot of the YouTube community jumping ship for the next big video hosting site. And believe me, there will be one.
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Show Review: Dresden Dolls
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October 11, 2006
 If you want to see a really high concentration of misfits and geeks in one place, you could do a lot worse than a Dresden Dolls show. The self-proclaimed purveyors of "punk cabaret" have acquired an impressively large and loyal following that isn't afraid to emulate their heroes' fondness for mime makeup, bowler hats, striped tights and thrift-store formal wear. Hanging out in the lobby of Los Angeles' Orpheum Theatre last night, before the Dolls took the stage, was like junior prom meets Clockwork Orange.
Having said all that -- God bless 'em, those crazy Dresden Dolls fans. They are, in the words of head Doll Amanda Palmer, "fucking awesome" in their enthusiastic embrace of this Boston duo's dark, off-kilter, theatrical music. And the fact that so many of them are kids gives me hope for the future. When was the last time a band this defiantly weird captured the imagination of so many 15-year-olds? You almost have to go back to The Cure, or maybe a band the Dolls opened for last year, Nine Inch Nails.
More recently, the Dolls opened for Panic! at the Disco, a pairing that sort of, kind of makes sense, if you look no further than both bands' penchant for natty, theatrical attire. Musically, however, they're from different universes, and their fans tend to hate each other -- a point satirized to great effect in a YouTube video the two bands made together, set to the Dresden Dolls' "Backstabber." So you could almost sense the relief among Dollheads at the Orpheum as they cheered for the headliners, the Dresden Dolls. And I think there was more than just a hint of relief in Palmer's effusive gratitude to the fans. Finally, no more clueless Panic! devotees catcalling during quieter numbers like "Delilah."
But more than just a big geeky lovefest, the Dresden Dolls' show was just thoroughly entertaining evening of ass-kicking, glee-inducing rock 'n' roll -- delivered by a chick in thigh-high boots with an electric piano and a skinny dude in a bowler hat (well, for at least two or three songs, before it flew off) with a drum kit.
Usually, when I love an album as much as I loved Yes, Virginia, seeing the band live is a bit of a letdown. But the Dolls actually managed to exceed my expectations. Palmer and drummer Brian Viglione are ferocious live performers -- close your eyes during their show, and you can barely picture only two people making that much racket. And their best songs, like the aforementioned "Backstabber," transcend the stripped-down piano/drums instrumentation and quirky cabaret vibe and stand as just flat-out great pop music. Yes, Virginia is still my front-runner for best album of 2006.
By the way, it's a nice touch that at the end of their shows, the Dolls bring the best-dressed members of the audience -- or maybe it's the hardest working members of their street team, the "Brigade" -- up on stage to join them for the curtain call. It's like their little way of acknowledging that us geeks and misfits gotta stick together. Speaking as a fellow geek, I couldn't agree more.
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The Tuesday Roundup: New Releases 10.10.06
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October 10, 2006
Because Baby Boomers Still Buy Records
 It's a duel between two grayhairs for chart supremacy this week. Jimmy Buffett's got the Parrotheads and the country crowd, but Rod Stewart's got the baby-boomer housewives, who snapped up millions of copies of his Great American Songbook series and should go positively berserk now that he's finally covering Bob Seger and The Eagles instead of "My Funny Valentine." You gotta hand it to Rod; the man knows his target demographic. And they'll love that sexy splay-legged pose on the cover, too. I think I need to go vomit after typing that. Prediction: 230,000 copies.
Other Movers and Shakers
- Jimmy Buffett, Take the Weather With You. The Parrothead-in-Chief's latest album is named after his cover of a Crowded House song, which makes me cringe. But let's face it, it's probably a savvy choice, and the rest of Buffett's country-tinged latest is full of other smart choices, like an obligatory New Orleans tribute, some Mariachi horns, and a guest appearance by slide-guitar wizard Sonny Landreth, who was hopefully well-compensated for his time. Nearly 30 years after "Margaritaville," Buffett keeps quietly expanding his sound and winning over new fans. Prediction: 220,000 copies.
- Lloyd Banks, Rotten Apple. Interscope and G-Unit Records probably couldn't have done a worse job promoting this record if they'd tried, but it won't matter; if the street teams have done their job, it'll reach the right fans, i.e. rabid 50 Cent fanatics who must own every single thing Curtis Jackson so much as clears his throat on (he clears his throat on three tracks here, and raps a little, too). Prediction: 190,000 copies.
- Trivium, The Crusade. I know; who the hell is Trivium? Answer: A pretentious metal band who play Flying V guitars and write songs with catchy titles like "Entrance of the Conflagration" and "Contempt Breeds Contamination." Trust me, headbangers love this shit. Prediction: 50,000 copies.
- Senses Fail, Still Searching. Another band not well-known beyond their fan base, but they have 364,000 MySpace friends and their last album sold over 25,000 copies in its first week, which is pretty incredible for the debut album from a hardcore band. Prediction: 45,000 copies.
- Sting, Songs From the Labyrinth. Sting really hasn't tested his fans' patience since the very start of his solo career, when he really went off the jazz deep end before ratcheting it back to the adult contemporary pop he's been churning out ever since. Will those fans who followed him from The Police to Blue Turtles to "Fields of Gold" follow him into the world of 17th century lute music? Enough to put him atop the classical chart, but not much more than that. Prediction: 30,000 copies.
No pick this week. Maybe it's my repetitive stress syndrome flaring up and making me cranky, but most of what I've heard lately has been pretty uninspiring. Anybody know any good music out this week? Give me a shout.
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Playlist: Beautiful Noise
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October 9, 2006
I sometimes moonlight as a DJ, and one of my favorite styles of music is to play is "downtempo," a nicely imprecise term that lets me get away with mixing everything from trip-hop to post-rock to acid jazz to ambient electronica in a single set. A lot of my favorite tracks that fall under this heading are non-songs, built around loops and fragments of melody and abstract bits of sound. "Beautiful noise" is a lousy and vaguely pretentious term for it, but I can't come up with a better one. Just listen and you'll see.
1. Marconi Union, "Sleepless." A British duo -- why they're called "Marconi" I'm not sure, but they sure do make some pretty, film-soundtracky tunes.
2. Boards of Canada, "Dayvan Cowboy." A Scottish duo -- again, why they have "Canada" in their name, I have no idea. I think when you make music this airy and abstract, maybe you suffer from some kind of geographic identity crisis.
3. Nils Petter Molvaer, "Water." A Norwegian trumpeter -- why he's called Nils, um, well, I guess his parents liked the name. This track is less ambient, more jazzy, but in a way that's more spooky than smooth. You won't hear this one of "The Wave" anytime soon.
4. Cordovan, "Highway 10 Blues." A Los Angeles producer/bassist named Greg Reeves, who judging from his chosen alias has a thing for Spanish leather. He also has a thing for jazzy trumpets and the kind of bass-and-percussion loops that make you wanna drive -- well, not fast, exactly, but in a very straight line. Across some big empty expanse of desert.
5. Brian Eno & David Byrne, "Regiment." The godfather of ambient meets the punk of early '80s funk-rock. The phrase "ahead of its time" is one of the most overused in music journalism, but holy crap does it ever apply to My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, the album this track is taken from, which Eno and Byrne recorded together way the hell back in 1981. Everyone from Beck to Moby to Dead Can Dance and most of the artists on this list owes a debt to Bush of Ghosts.
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Album Covers Run Amok
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October 6, 2006
 It begins innocently enough with Billy Joel, throwing a rock at Yaz's Upstairs at Eric's, and escalates into a full-scale album artwork bloodbath. It's the Monty Pythonesque work of a group called Ugly Pictures, and you've probably already had it forwarded to you ten times by now -- but in case you haven't, here it is. Don't blink or you'll miss Michael Jackson reading Boy's Life magazine.
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The Best Concert Rider EVER
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October 6, 2006
 Thanks to Van Halen's infamous request for a bowl of M&M's with the brown ones removed, everyone knows about concert riders -- those long documents filled with the band's nit-picky requirements for their stage set-up and dressing room. Despite their reputation as documents of rock-star excess, most riders are actually quite boring to read, with painstakingly detailed descriptions of things like where the monitors should go and what brands of bottled water go in which dressing rooms. But occasionally, a rider comes along that transcends its status as utilitarian document and achieves the status of rock 'n' roll literature. Such is the case with the concert rider for Iggy & the Stooges that surfaced this week on The Smoking Gun.
I'm tempted to summarize the highlights, since the whole rider is 18 pages long, but I really can't -- trust me, the whole thing is hilarious from beginning to end, with rambling musings on everything from the hazards of hyperactive lighting designers ("We had a lighting designer once, but he went mad so we shot him") to the drinking habits of the band members (requirement for dressing room two: "6 bottles of alcohol free beer. Our saxophonist likes to mix it with his whisky") to the hyperkinetic nature of Iggy Pop's stage antics ("He'll be all over the place, like a mad woman's shit"). It's one for the ages.
Anyway, click here to go to Smoking Gun and read the whole thing. Apparently it was written by a road manager named Jos Grain, who should now, if he's still out there, become the most highly sought-after road manager in rock.
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What Boycott? Scissor Sisters Sell 42,000 Records
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October 5, 2006
 Last week, I blogged about a bizarre little tiff that had erupted between Trans World Entertainment, one of the nation's largest music retailers, and the Scissor Sisters, a fun-loving band from New York that happens to have the #1 album in the UK. That album, Ta-Dah, made its U.S. debut last week, but not at Trans World stores, because the company CEO, Jim Litwak, said he felt Scissor Sisters frontman Jake Shears owed the company an apology for saying their CD prices were too high.
Well, here's the kicker -- despite the Trans World boycott, which kept Ta-Dah off the shelves of FYE, Sam Goody, Strawberries, Wherehouse, Specs, Coconuts and Planet Music, the Sisters' sophomore album sold 42,000 units last week, enough to give it the #19 spot on the Billboard 200 albums charts and the band's highest U.S. chart position ever.
I haven't read any follow-up elsewhere on this story, so I don't know the details -- it's possible, for example, that Litwak was just blowing smoke, and some of Trans World's many retail divisions stocked the album anyway. But assuming the boycott really went ahead as planned, Litwak can't be too pleased -- clearly, it made a negligible impact at all on the Scissor Sisters' sales. And to anyone paying attention, it casts further doubt on the relevance of traditional retail outlets when it comes to selling new records. Who needs FYE when you've got iTunes, Best Buy, Amazon, Target, Wal-Mart et al.?
By the way, this little sideshow is playing itself out in the shadow of a bidding war for the remnants of Tower Records, the bankrupted retail giant that's being auctioned off this week. Would you pay $90 million or more for a music retail chain in this day and age? Yeah, me neither.
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Bob Was Right: They Are "Atrocious"
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October 3, 2006
 Admit it: You wrote it off as the ramblings of an old coot when Bob Dylan called all records of the past 20 years "atrocious," complaining that "they have sound all over them. There's no definition of nothing, no vocal, no nothing, just like -- static." I know I thought to myself, "Look, Bob, just because you're getting a little hard of hearing is no reason to condemn the whole recording industry."
But Dylan's comments, published in an interview in Rolling Stone in August, struck a chord, and not just with crazy audiophiles who are still obsessed with their old vinyl collections. Because it turns out that he may have been right. A fascinating article by Joe Gross in the Austin American-Statesman sums up the situation, revealing that a growing number of industry insiders are concerned about a mastering technique called compression.
Compression is a trick engineers use to increase the overall "loudness" of a record by flattening out its sonic footprint. The idea is to make the music sound as bright and punchy as possible, with few or no quiet spots to let the listener get distracted by the roar of their car engine, or the sound of the neighbors' kids screaming, or the chatter of their own thoughts. But it gives you an end product that has... well, that has sound all over it, with "no definition of nothing."
So in his own curmudgeonly way, Dylan summed up the problem fairly well. Even his seemingly knee-jerk, old-fogey condemnation of CDs as the source of the problem ("CDs are small. There's no stature to it.") was half-right. Back in the days of vinyl, engineers had to restrain themselves, because too much compression would literally cause the needle to jump out of the groove. Now that everything's digital, the sky's the limit.
Here's a link to Gross' excellent article, which gets a little more technically dense, but also goes into some fascinating detail in explaining how the whole industry, from executives on down to the artists themselves, is complicit in compression mania. And how it's affecting -- in all sorts of unintended and mostly bad ways -- people's music listening habits.
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The Tuesday Roundup: New Releases 10.03.06
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October 3, 2006
Modern Rock is Back!
 Well, for one week, anyway. For once, there are no major pop or hip-hop releases competing for chart domination; Oct. 3 is gonna be all about four new albums from four of modern rock's heaviest hitters, plus one big country release. Of those, only the Killers and Evanescence have any real shot at the top spot, and my guess is that Amy Lee and her gothy pop/metal buddies will carry the day. Despite the much-discussed departure of songwriter/guitarist Ben Moody, the new Evanescence sounds pretty much just like the old Evanescence, and it's a winning formula -- take a new agey, Sarah McLachlan/Tori Amos-style frontwoman, stick a hard rock band behind her, and have them crank out glossy, melodramatic pop-rock that recalls everything from Meat Loaf to Shania Twain. Their last album sold over 6 million copies in the U.S. alone, and judging from the success of lead single "Call Me When You're Sober," most of those fans haven't gone anywhere. Prediction: 600,000 copies. [Actual sales: 447,000. Not quite what I expected, but not too shabby for a little band from Little Rock.]
Other Movers and Shakers
- The Killers, Sam's Town. I like this album's chances for having a monster first week, too. All the right people seem to like The Killers, and as a result they've been featured this week on Saturday Night Live, Jimmy Kimmel and pretty much every hipster blog you care to name, even if many of those hipster blogs have pointed out, rightly, that Sam's Town is a bloated and far less entertaining outing than Hot Fuss. Prediction: 275,000 copies. [Actual sales: 315,000. So far, people are buying the Killers' Springsteenian makeover.]
- George Strait, It Just Comes Natural. The man's had 53 #1 hit country songs, including his latest, "Give it Away" -- I ain't betting against him. Prediction: 230,000 copies. [Actual sales: 232,000. Nailed it! On a country record, no less. Thanks for restoring my credibility, NASCAR Nation.]
- Beck, The Information. By Beck standards, hardly any time has gone by since the release of his last album, Guero, so fans might be slower to catch on to this latest set of songs, on which the world's hippest Scientologist continues to play to his strengths, making mutant white-boy funk and bluesy pseudo-hip-hop. I think it'll still find its audience, though it won't outsell the very successful Guero. Prediction: 130,000 copies. [Actual sales: 99,000. As expected, less than Guero's opening week sales of 162,000 -- but WAY less. Like I said, I think it's just too soon between albums for him. His audience is still digesting Guero.]
- Jet, Shine On. It's hard to justify the continued existence of a band this utterly lacking in fresh ideas, but their stitched-together riffs on old Stones, AC/DC and the occasion touch of Beatles and Strokes might still find a Stateside audience. Prediction: 80,000 copies. [Actual sales: 51,000. I actually find it sort of reassuring that I got this one wrong.]
- Monica, The Makings of Me. She's no Beyonce, but she's an old pro (her first album came out over 10 years ago, believe it or not, when she was just 14) and she's got a minor "club banger" hit with "Everytime Tha Beat Drop." She'll move a few units. Prediction: 60,000 copies. [Actual sales: 93,000.]
- Ray Charles & the Count Basie Orchestra, Ray Sings, Basie Swings. This brilliant feat of studio wizardry pairs the Count Basie Orchestra of today with the Ray Charles of the early '70s, back when he could still belt out a tune like his life depended on it. It hasn't gotten as much press as you might think, considering the massive Ray hoopla we lived through less than two years ago, but it'll be on the shelves of Starbucks stores throughout the land, and that alone should guarantee a very strong opening week. Prediction: 55,000 copies. [Actual sales: A solid but disappointing 36,000. The pasted-together natured of this album, featuring old Ray vocals and new Basie Orchestra music, might be a tougher sell than I thought it was. Plus, that Tony Bennett Duets album is still sucking all the oxygen out of the jazz room; it moved another 128,000 units this week, for a two-week total of 330,000.]
Pick o' the Week
 Lindsey Buckingham, Under the Skin. Axl Rose got nothin' on the troubled singer-songwriter behind much of Fleetwood Mac's greatest music. It's been a mere 14 years since Lindsey Buckingham put out his last solo album, and Under the Skin feels like a record that took over a decade to make -- it's sparse but painstakingly well-crafted, filled with big ideas that have been pared down to their barest essence. Buckingham's intricate guitar work is mesmerizing throughout, and his delicate vocal harmonies often recall -- perhaps a little too deliberately -- another mercurial California pop genius by the name of Brian Wilson. But what really makes the album a standout is the fact that, underneath the experimental, claustrophobic tone of Under the Skin, there are gems of pure pop songwriting like "Show You How" and "It Was You" that rank with some of his most memorable Fleetwood melodies.
The Best of the Rest
- Delerium, Nuages du Monde. I had written off Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber's long-running ambient/new age experiment after 2003's awful Chimera, but their latest release is a nice reminder that they were actually pretty good back before they did that song with Sarah McLachlan, "Silence," and followed its astonishing success down a dance-pop dead end. They're still sort of a poor man's Dead Can Dance, but their slightly more trip-hoppy take on the same ancient/modern, goth/new age, western/eastern dynamics can weave a pretty seductive spell.
- The Decemberists, The Crane Wife. Too often, this Portland, Oregon band comes off like a charming but eccentric old uncle who won't shut up about his obsession with naval history. But as usual, their latest album has a few sublime folk-rock ditties hidden amidst Colin Meloy's folklorist pretensions.
- The Kooks, Inside In/Inside Out. What is it about the Brits that enables them to churn out bands like this? The saucy young lads of the Kooks will remind you of a hundred bands that came before them -- most recently, the Arctic Monkeys, Futureheads and Franz Ferdinand -- and you'll find them irresistible anyway.
- Sean Lennon, Friendly Fire. Yeah, he sounds like his Dad -- it's genetic, okay? Give the guy a break. This is only his second solo album, and first for Dad's old label, Capitol/EMI. As such, it might disappoint fans of his more experimental-leaning indie debut, 1998's Into the Sun, but in many ways it's a much better record, less concerned with all those inevitable comparisons and more content just to serve up its own low-key spin on Beatlesque pop.
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What's That Song Selling the New iPods?
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October 3, 2006
 You gotta hand it to Apple: Every new set of iPod ads just oozes cool. Never mind that the "new" iPods are basically just the old iPods with more memory and some new colors -- the new iPod ads are eye-catching enough to make you wanna rush out for the latest model. They might even make glowstick dancing cool again.
They might also give a much-deserved career boost to Cut Chemist, the man behind the catchy/scratchy track used in the iPod television commercials. Cut Chemist is a turntable guru with an impeccable pedigree -- he's worked with the likes of DJ Shadow, Ozomatli and Jurassic 5 -- but he's always stood in the, well, shadow of his collaborators. That finally started to change this year with the release of his first solo album, The Audience's Listening and should change even more now that the title track, "The Audience's Listening Theme Song", is out there selling iPods. Look what an iPod campaign did for Wolfmother.
By the way, I have to mention that if you like Cut Chemist, you should check out this interview I recorded with him back just before The Audience's Listening came out. He talks a little bit about the album and his early days in the L.A. underground hip-hop scene -- which started in a health food store. For real.
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Playlist: Guilty Pleasures, Part One
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October 2, 2006
Every music critic has a few tunes on their iPod that critics aren't supposed to like, and I'm no exception. In fact, if you believe the image most hipster music journalists project of themselves, listening to Surfer Rosa in the womb, I'm probably worse than most. Thankfully, most of my greatest lapses of taste are not available for your listening pleasure on the ARTISTdirect site, so you're spared the worst of them ("All I Need is a Miracle," anyone?). But here's a few other howlers from my misspent youth, presented here as a little appetizer while I work up the nerve to share the even more guilt-ridden guilty pleasures I listen to nowadays.
1. Survivor, "Eye of the Tiger." I grew up in Philly, so naturally me and my friends spent many hours air-guitaring and shadow boxing to this Rocky III theme and mother of all '80s rock anthems.
2. Bryan Adams, "Summer of '69." He was always sort of a cleaned-up, Canadian, wimpier version of John Cougar Mellencamp, but damn if that Bryan Adams didn't write some big, dumb, catchy guitar hooks. And he played it till his fingers bled.
3. Poison, "Nothin' But a Good Time." I'm pretty sure I didn't even like this song when I was a kid, but something about it makes me all misty-eyed and nostalgic now. Such is the enduring, timeless power of hair metal.
4. Journey, "Don't Stop Believin'." Speaking of misty-eyed, has any singer in rock history ever had a weepier voice than Steve Perry? Coldplay only wishes they could sound this sentimental and ass-kicking all at once.
5. Motley Crue, "Girls, Girls, Girls." I had to link to the video for this one, because you really need the visual of these four pretty boys (well, three pretty boys, plus the endearingly troll-like Mick Mars) sashaying into a strip club to remember just how weird rock music got in the mid-'80s. Yup, the blow-dried peacocks who made up the Crue were, briefly, the most feared and ferocious band on the planet. The Reagan era was such a simpler time.
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1. Weird Al Yankovic, White and Nerdy
2. Ying Yang Twins, Dangerous (feat. Wyclef)
3. Black Eyed Peas, Like That
4. Field Mob, So What (feat. Ciara)
5. Christina Aguilera, Ain't No Other Man
About the Blogger
Name: Andy
Location: Los Angeles, California
Andy listens to a lot of music his co-workers call "doonce," which seems to mean any form of electronic music they don't like. He is also a recovering Lost addict.
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