According to the New York Times, :
Many of the contemporary pop and R B acts among this year’s Grammy nominees — including John Legend, Gnarls Barkley and Corinne Bailey Rae — are also drinking from the wellspring of classic soul music. Some, like the British revivalists James Hunter and Joss Stone, are updating the styles of their forebears. Others, like Beyoncé and Mary J.
Blige, work more in a neo-soul vein, employing studio musicians and samples of older recordings to create a new hybrid. Of course the myriad tributes to the Godfather of Soul, James Brown, who died on Christmas, have also put soul on the radar. And the performances of recent “American Idol” standouts like Taylor Hicks, Ruben Studdard and Fantasia further illustrate the reach of the music.
Great voice — better than it sounded on American Idol — but wow, McPhee is working with some poor material. There s the painful rapping on Open Toes, which also has the dubious distinction of adding to the catalog of Idol Odes to Random Footwear (see Kellie Pickler s Red High Heels ); the single Over It, which sounds like a JoJo leftover; and some midtempo ballads that Mariah would ve deemed too banal in 1991. Only on the Babyface-penned Everywhere I Go does a snapshot of an intriguing Toni Braxton-esque pop star develop.
(Grade: C+)
Every time I see Henry Goldblatt, I think . Evan Handler is sex-ay. Henry Goldblatt, on the other hand, thought Dream Myself Awake was the best song on Taylor Hicks album.
NOT sex-ay.
Joss Stone to appear on American Idol. Says the newly pink-tressed songstress, I find these shows far too cruel.
Music should be allowed to develop naturally. Hmm. I don t know if I agree, but I understand where she s coming from and admire her for not selling out on her principles to promote her upcoming album, that s for sure.
(Of course, I ll have to hear the rest of her music and see the rest of her new look before I can really turn in an opinion).
Where is Bo Bice? that he is no longer with RCA.
His publicist won t comment, the RCA page no longer shows him as a featured artist, and there s no definitive word on a second album planned. It does sound like he and Clive have parted ways. I wish him nothing but the best and hope he puts out a fantastic, gritty Southern-rock-style album, and if he couldn t do that under Clive, well, he couldn t do it under Clive.
I think it ll be very important, though, to follow his career trajectory if he gets picked up easily by an indie (or even another major) and gets more creative control, it ll be great. If not, well it won t bode well down the road for Taylor s future as a recording artist, unfortunately.
And you know what?
Clive Davis really is a dick. You take an artist, you try to turn them into something 180 degrees from what they are and how they represented themselves on a television contest, and when the fans don t buy it, you just dump the poor sod and cut your losses? Shit.
Hey Sony, you listening to me? It s time to take out the trash, guys.
Aretha Franklin, Today I Sing the Blues
Oh, and, uh
Tom Jones, It s Not Unusual (well, you know you have your guilty pleasures )
At the end of long, stressful and tumultous summer that began with a frenzied month-long trip overseas, ended with the stress of a round of job interviews, and included the unfortunate passing of a loved one s father (which came bundled with a visit from that loved one, whom I hadn t seen in over two years), a friend of mine suggested that I needed a night of pure relaxation. Her suggestion: she had gotten a bunch of tickets to see MOFRO, a semi-local band with a somewhat underground national following.
The band was called .
MO-FRO, she corrected. They re really good.
Since you like that Taylor Hicks guy so much I think you re really going to like these guys. The lead is an amazing harmonica player.
And several evenings later, I found myself sitting in my local blues hall, sipping a mojito (I am obsessed with the mojito), listening to JJ Grey wail on the harmonica and rasp into the microphone while his bandmates furiously banged piano keys and drum sets.
Some of the songs were short and sweet; others went on for ten, eleven minutes each. There were slow, languid lamentations about the good ol days (JJ is from northern Florida, which shares a hell of a lot more in common with the deep south of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana than it does with South Florida, which is my old stomping ground), and jumbled, joyous, fervent tributes to and ham hocks and the Florida of yore the swampy, muggy, lazy life that Floridians used to enjoy (or like to convince themselves that they used to enjoy) before planned communities began popping up out of the dirt like prairie dogs, before tracts of land in Orlando were for bargain-basement prices. In its review of , MOFRO s last album (a third album, Country Ghetto, is slated to be released early 2007), iTunes snarks on the band s somewhat naive yearning for a simpler time, but otherwise, the disc nets a rave review.
MOFRO call themselves purveyors of front porch realism; I prefer the term redneck rockabilly and there ain t nothin wrong with rednecks. The boys have opened for B.B.
King and Widespread Panic, and have played the Bonnaroo festival. And live? Live, they rock.
Blackwater is available off iTunes; if you re going to download at least one track, make sure it s the titular Blackwater, a lackadaisical stroll that infuses the lazy immobility of a hot Florida summer with the spiciness of Cajun rock. JJ s harmonica work really is a thing to behold here. Swinging the pendulum the other way, Nare Sugar is a hectic romp with a porchfront pots-and-pans sound.
Ho Cake is an electric, growly tribute to down-home southern cookin . But as great as MOFRO s recordings are, they re a jam band at heart, and you ve got to hear them live. Their tour schedule is up at ; I highly suggest you check them out if they re heading your way.
He s not hip, he s not cool, he s not current, Timbaland won t be on his album, but Neil Diamond s , released in 2005 and re-released with some bonuses this year, is one of the best damn albums I ve heard in years. And kids, this ain t your father s Neil Diamond. This isn t flashy, Vegas-y, sequined jumpsuited Neil.
This isn t The Jazz Singer. No, this is a quieter, simpler, more introspective Neil.
Perhaps the change can be attributed to Neil s work with producer a ZZTop-bearded hulk of a man also known as one of the most respected music producers in the business (his resume includes working with The Dixie Chicks, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Beastie Boys, Johnny Cash on the American Recordings series, Jay-Z, Shakira, Slipknot and Justin Timberlake). And though Rubin s production list is diverse, he s perhaps best known for the stripped-down, minimalist sound that defines both Cash s last series of albums and Diamond s latest treasure.
Rubin sought out Diamond, who had only recently begun writing songs again, and together they embarked on an intensive process that included listening to hours and hours of music, starting with classic rock and roll and moving on to some of Diamond s older albums. Writes Diamond in the liner notes of 12 Songs
Rick had a list of my old records that he wanted to talk about, mostly stuff I hadn t listened to in years. Things he liked, things he didn t like, and things that just made him want to know what the hell I was thinking.
The process continued. Diamond would write, often wearing down pencils to the nub. He d show Rubin what he d come up with, Rubin would approve or disapprove, critique, send him back into the studio.
Empty coffee cups and discarded legal pads littered the ground. Rubin s goal, according to Diamond, was to strip down the songs to their very essence, to the barest of the bare, to something completely honest and raw, completely without gloss or pretense. Said Diamond, I loved the sheer freedom of creating music for its own sake.
(Music for its own sake. Aaaaaand thus begins my own personal campaign to get Rick Rubin to produce Taylor s next album.)
And the finished product?
There is some amazing stuff on this album. Simple, universal, accessible to be sure, but Diamond s songwriting is surely a far cry from the vague tenth-grade-diary lyrics that define modern pop. I have three favorite tracks: Oh Mary, with its simple chord progressions, Delirious Love, prominently featuring both Diamond s rasp and carefree acoustic guitar work that for me evokes memories of crisp winter nights at the fair with my high school sweetheart, and finally, Men Are So Easy, a lyrical gem that, while offering no earth-shattering revelations, is so simple and honest that it hits you as deep in the gut as any more complex or more difficult to decipher song might.
Diamond s on this week; be sure to check it out.
The following was posted at , and is reprinted with permissio of the original poster, thedingoateyobaby. The story centers around the introduction of Taylor Hicks music to someone new
I went to check in on my neighbors.
Many of you have heard the story I told about the elderly man and his elderly wife. Both are ill. One physically one mentally.
The man, beginnings of Alzheimer’s, sometimes sharp as a tack and other times barely in this realm. He can play the harmonica like nobody’s business as I found out around Thanksgiving when he did the most fucking moving rendition of Danny Boy, standing beside his wife’s bedside, winded from playing but never missing a note. Incredible.
Anyways I go there today and I am wearing my iPod around my neck. I was in the middle of Taylor’s ANS (ed. note that s Ain t No Sunshine ) and I had been thinking about Taylor and Chris.
How much I really dont like the quality of Chris’s voice and how he doesnt move me at all and how Taylor, with the rough edges and the growls just does it to me every damn time he does what it is he was born to do. I began to think that its quite possible that Chris has a better voice than Taylor. I use the word better for lack of a better word but when he sings, he doesnt make me FEEL anything and I want to FEEL.
The older I get, the more I want to FEEL. The pleading and the angst and the rawness of emotion in a song like ANS for example, well I could sit down and weep. Chris makes me weep but in a different way and Im betting that those who love Chris are younger than I am, a lot younger.
Not all of them of course but most of them I bet are and maybe its that quality in Taylor mixed with my age and experience with sorrow and loss that pierces my heart.
OK, back to the story. So I walk in the front door and he is there to greet me with that sweet smile of his and I go make sure his wife is safe and sound and if she needs anything and blah blah blah.
He sees my iPod around my neck. “Whats that?” he asks.
I tell him its a “music box” filled with about 200 of my favorite songs. He looks at me quizically, 200 songs? In that little thing?
I say yep, I tell him there is this one musician I am crazy for, his name is Taylor Hicks. He cant hear for shit so I have to go around to his good ear and YELL the name again. He says, “let me see that if its ok with you”, I say SURE!
. He rolls it around in his hands and I ask him if he wants to hear the guy Im crazy about and that he too, plays a wicked harmonica. He says SURE!
and he is eager to test out this new fangled gizmo I have. I set it to ANS and I put it into his good ear. I walk away to check on his wife and just let him listen, not expecting much just wanting him to experience Taylor and the iPod.
I walk back into the living room and his eyes are closed and he has a smile on his face. I figure he’s sleeping cause he tends to drift off easily. I sit on the couch next to his chair, trying not to wake him.
After several minutes he takes the headphones off. I say, so? Whadya think?
He says, (I hope this does not offend anyone but remember, the man is in his mid eighties and doesnt have a mean bone in his body) he says, boy, God sure did bless those old time Black musicians. I laugh. I say he sure did but he’s not Black.
What made ya think he was? Well he says, he plays the harmonica, in my day only me and Black folk played them and he sounds like he’s been around for a while and his voice, I mean…..
you kids call it something, as he searches the archives of his ragged and torn brain to find the word. I say to him, soul? Is that what you mean?
he says, yes, that’ll do. He has soul when he sings. Like he is very old and has been hurt many times over.
He laughs and says to me, he almost sounds like a wounded animal. I laugh cause I know exactly what he is saying.
Once again, Im floored.
He had been in a blues band many many years ago when he was in his 20’s, he was a photographer at The Nuremburg trials, he has still black and white photos of some of the worlds biggest monsters, on trial. He is a man who is highly intelligent and musical and spiritual. I mull what he just said over in my mind, I go to ask him another question and he is sound asleep, in the chair.
I have no idea what any of this means but I know one thing. A man who can play harmonica like this man can, a man that can bring me to tears with Danny Boy via that damn harp, knows a little about life and talent and good music.
Folks, no matter how fun it can be to analyze sales, media appearances, Idol s personalities and song choices, this is the important stuff.
If anyone has any similar stories, with regards to ANY Idol, please feel free to send them in and share them.
I ve got some traveling to do today, so I leave you with a brief article bemoaning the in today s society. The writer is not a Nickelback fan, so presumably, if Daughtry winds up at the top of next year s list, he won t be impressed.
There are some surprises on the list of top-selling artists for 2006, though. Not all hope is lost. Here s , and my own judgment of whether the music is good or crappy:
1.
Rascal Flatts (Crappy. Country music dumbed down for mass consumption).
2.
Johnny Cash (Good. Cash was a genius. He also, interestingly enough, didn t believe that country music was going too pop.
But I still don t think he would have liked Rascal Flatts.)
3. Nickelback (Crappy despite the fact that I do practice harmony to the chorus of Photograph.
What? It s perfect for practicing your thirds!)
4.
Carrie Underwood (Undecided. I haven t heard enough of her stuff.)
5.
The Beatles (Objectively good, although I was never much of a fan.)
7. Andrea Bocelli (Right now, crappy.
I really liked him when he first came out, but then he went the David Foster route and it all went to hell.)
8. Mary J.
Blige (Alternately good and crappy. And she gave us the word hateration, which is cool.)
10.
Justin Timberlake (CRA-PPY. Crappy crappy crappy. Overrated as hell.
And obnoxius. And punchable. Which means he ll probably go home with at least four Grammys.
)
Also, High School Musical was the top-selling album, followed by Me and My Gang by Rascal Flatts (seriously, that sounds like a Sesame Street episode), Carrie Underwood s Some Hearts, Nickelback s All the Right Reasons, Timberlake s FutureSex/LoveSounds (one day he ll fade into obscurity I just know it), James Blunt s Back to Bedlam (Reeeeally? I thought his single did well but his album tanked. Or maybe that was Daniel Powter), Beyonce s B-Day (good luck going up against that, Kat), the Hannah Montana soundtrack, The Dixie Chick s Taking the Long Way (yeah, I know they got death threats and all, and Bush hasn t been on my list of favorite people for a while now, and Adrian Pasdar s pretty hot, but will they shut up now?
), and finally, Hinder s Extreme Behavior. I had never heard of Hinder before reviewers started calling DAUGHTRY a Nickelback/Hinder rip-off, so I doubt I m missing much.
Thoughts?
Chris is well on his way to making next year s list; does that say more about his individual talent, or (given this years list) the popularity of his genre of music? And what of McPhee? Will she replace Beyonce next year, or is she more of a Cassie, with a hot single, a video in heavy rotation, but only 270K in sales under her belt?
Will we ever see Taylor on this list? Do we care? Does it matter?
Looks like honey-coated gravel songster Taylor Hicks will be in the spotlight right up until his single release drops and his tour kicks off in February. He ll be one of the celebrities competing in the (yeah as much as I love Taylor, I think I ll just rely on my dad to tell me how this one goes), alongside pros Mike Weir and Mark Brooks, and other celebrities including boxer Oscar De La Hoya, Jimmy Kimmel, Alice Cooper and Cheech Marin. That sounds like an interesting mix of people, to say the least.
Hey, I can always use some white noise in the background while I m editing journal papers.
And speaking of Taylor, Debs over at posted Taylor s short bio and discography from , the awesome music recommendation radio website. Check out the similar artists section though Taylor s eponymous debut is not yet loaded (all they ve got is Do I Make You Proud and Takin It to the Streets ), he s nevertheless Eric James The New Century (they re okay; nice ethereal production, but the vocals are unremarkable), (very cool folksy artist in the vein of a Ray LaMontagne, even if he did kind of rip off Keb Mo s Every Mornin for his Bottom of the Barrel ), (a Christian pop band), Maroon 5 (I blame The Maze for that unfortunate comparison), and (a somewhat breathy-voiced R B artist whom I d never heard of before now).
Fun stuff, y all! Who do we get for some of our other favorite Season 5 cast-offs?
DAUGHTRY: (EMO!
HA!), ( yep), (no shit), Paloalto ( if they say so), and (okay, but these Theory people are better, and the lead has a much better voice).
Katharine McPhee: With her Somewhere Over the Rainbow and My Destiny loaded, (well, that comparison s only going to get worse and not for JoJo), (I m not seeing that one), (yes, I can see some of the songs on Jagged Little Pill being melodically similar to My Destiny ), (not anymore, apparently snerk) and (whoever they are, they re not on iTunes, so no go).
While in Starbucks, sipping a Chai tea misto* and reveling in my consumer whore-dom, I happened across a little album titled by Neko Case. Never heard of it, never heard of her, and the album art (a cartoonish drawing of a woman, holding a head and surrounded by foxes) was too reminiscent of for my tastes, so back in the carousel it went. However, lo and behold, the album shows up but a few days later on .
Huh. All right. Time to fire up the ol iTunes and see what all we ve got here.
And in one listen, I was hooked.
She insists that she didn t set out , though, stating It wasn t so much saying, Traditional song structure sucks. I m gonna bend that. It was that the ideas I was having weren t coming together in a way that suited repeating them.
I thought they had a lot more emotional impact when things were said once.
And indeed, the alt-country-leaning Case is a old-school-style songwriter. Her lyrics are haunting and deeply personal, she s not afraid to tackle the grim and the grave, and her words paint extraordinarily vivid and specific pictures, instead of referencing vague, generalized emotions, as do so many schlocky pop tunes today.
Indeed, this is a hallmark of country music, but Case s lyrics are especially profound. Maybe that s what intrigues me so much her songs are so intense, her lyrics so raw, and yet her vocal tone is one of innocence and purity. The contrast is captivating.
And besides, how can you not love a woman who writes in her , My parents very much wanted me to become a crack-whore, but I gravely disappointed them by graduating from college. Though they did not notice until years after the event, they still take my failings personally. True or embellished, hilarious or morbid, Neko Case s stories will reel you in.
*They aren t on the menu, you have to ask special, and be sure to tell them to make it with the teabags, not the syrup, and once you do your barista will get all huffy and tell you well, you know it will be a few minutes, because it has to steep, as if tea is some mystical, unearthly substance with which you ve never dealt, and you ll smile sweetly and say I know, I ll wait anyway, and you ll play out this little ritual even though you ve been ordering the same drink for three straight weeks now. Eh. It s worth it.
Also, tell them to add a pump or two of vanilla. It really throws them.
"Sundance got lots of airtime, but he's getting the Savol Edit which is the opposite of pimping.
The whole artificial Tommy vs Sundance setup is a prime example- as though the judges went through all 40 contestants and the absolute last undecided slot for the guys came down to Tommy and Sundance, and they just *had* to choose between them. It's " "What in the world is this girl [Leslie] doing on AI? She should have already had a record deal somewhere.
Love her voice! To me she is like a and my love for Lisa knows no bounds. Leslie is the only contestant I give a crap about this season so far and that means that she'll be out before the top 12.
" "I'm kind of on the fence with Chris. I like his personality, but it might wear on me after a while, especially if the judges laugh at his jokes. From what I've heard so far, I don't think his voice is particularly special, but .
Also, he has a more interesting range of musical tastes than most of this year's contestants (looks like it's going to be R B week every week, regardless of the actual genre, so Chris might bring a welcome change of pace)." "I'm not that impressed with [Antonella's] singing. When her voice sounded nice, I thought her diction was poor, eg.
in her group performance. Although she was the best of the three of them, that was in comparison to Baylie, who was a trainwreck, and Amanda, who was Not Good. She was in The Chair episode.
" "With the success of people like Justin Timberlake, it wouldn't surprise me at all if this year turns out to be Blake Lewis. There's a lot of money to be earned for TPTB if an actual "pop" performer wins this time.
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