Merry Christmas From The World Wide Glen

Music 2011: The Rockologist's Top Ten Album Picks

Ladies and gentlemen, we don't have a winner.

As the year in music 2011 draws to a close, the biggest news is that — unlike 2010's near universal anointing of Arcade Fire's The Suburbs — there was no such unanimous consensus amongst music critics, regarding a clear-cut choice for the year's best album.

No matter.

Adele's 21 was of course, still the biggest story of 2011. The come-from-nowhere chart dominance of "Rolling In The Deep" alone all but guaranteed that.

But Adele was only one of several new talents — including Florence Welch of Florence And The Machine — to emerge in a big enough way this year, to lead some veteran observers to label 2011 as being "the year of the big voice." Somewhere out there, a guy living alone in his Mom's basement was heard saying "Oh, Snap!" to that.

The untimely death of Amy Winehouse no doubt played at least some role in this. In 2011, both critics and fans searched far and wide, in the hopes of finding that fresh, new voice ready to fill the surprisingly huge void that Winehouse left behind. Meanwhile, a mostly older generation of classic rock fans mourned the year's other biggest loss — that of saxophone player Clarence Clemons, otherwise known as the "Big Man" of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band.

But even with Adele's huge commercial and critical breakthrough this year, this was still not enough to solidify 21 as the odds-on choice for Album of the Year. Instead, when one scans through the various year-end lists already making the rounds out there, several names seem to pop up repeatedly. Some of the most often mentioned, also made my own top ten this year (Kate Bush, Tom Waits), while others (most notably PJ Harvey's Let England Shake) did not.

The best news about 2011 though, was that once you managed to get past the seemingly endless string of mindless pop-candy out there from Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and the like, there was still a surprisingly ample amount of great music. Other than the fact that Springsteen is touring with the E Street Band, and Bon Jovi is thankfully alive and well (ditto for Bon Iver), we still don't know a lot about what 2012 will bring yet.

In the meantime, these were the ten albums that spent the most time in heavy rotation on my CD player. Sorry, the Rockologist doesn't do iPods.

10. The Black Keys - El Camino

A very late entry, from a nonetheless very worthy contender. Guitar. Drums. Danger Mouse. Big Ass Sound. Any Questions?

9. The Beach Boys - SMiLE

After much deliberation and gnashing of teeth, I've reluctantly decided to include this here, even if the music — originally recorded for an unreleased 1967 Beach Boys album that has long since gone on to mythical status — doesn't technically qualify as being exactly "new."

The most common gripe about the 2011 SMiLE box, is that much of the music has been around for years (at least in bits and pieces), and available on various Beach Boys reissues and bootlegs. But up until now, it has never been pieced together with this much loving care on an official release.

Sure, the endless outtakes of "Good Vibrations" are a bit much to take (unless you're a diehard completist, anyway). But for sheer warmth, this beats the pants off of Brian Wilson's 2004 studio recreation of SMiLE. It will be interesting to see if the Beach Boys try any of this stuff out live on their reunion tour with Brian Wilson next year.

8. Adele - 21

I didn't feel the love for Adele quite as much as the rest of the world did in 2011. But there was simply no denying that voice, and especially that damn song. As I recently said to a commenter on Blogcritics Top Ten Best Albums list, you had to have been living in an igloo, if you weren't "Rolling in the Deep" in 2011.

7. Radiohead - The King Of Limbs

Radiohead's full-on return to the minimal, icy sound of 2000's Kid A, and its 2001 companion album Amnesiac hasn't stuck with me quite the same way that 2007's In Rainbows did, nor does it have that album's same "big-time statement" feel and resonance.

Even so, The King Of Limbs has more than its share of great moments. If anything, the songs here feel more like unfinished fragments, than anything resembling the grand sonic sweep of "Reckoner" from In Rainbows. On this album, Thom Yorke's voice is as hypnotic an instrument as ever. And when Yorke sings "don't...hurt...me" on "Give Up The Ghost," it's impossible not to be sucked in by it.

6. The Jayhawks - Mockingbird Time

Although the reunion of principal songwriters Gary Louris and Mark Olson was one that long suffering Jayhawks fans pined nearly two decades for, the results as heard on Mockingbird Time proved well worth the wait.

From the first few moments that the power chords of the opening "Hide Your Colors" come thundering through your speakers, it's clear that the Jayhawks have lost nary a step. On Mockingbird Time the Jayhawks continue the great tradition of their nineties classics Tomorrow The Green Grass and Hollywood Town Hall, with uncommonly great songwriting, and the sweetest sounding harmonies this side of the Burrito Brothers.

5. - Neil Young & The International Harvesters - A Treasure

Okay. Another cheat here.

But one well worthy of inclusion on this list. This compilation of live performances from one of Neil Young's many genre-hopping experiments during the "lost eighties" — for his ongoing Archives Performance Series — actually lives up to its name as a lost treasure of sorts.

Performing with the expanded International Harvesters band during his country phase, Neil Young offers up surprisingly radical takes on obscure chestnuts like "Southern Pacific" and "Flying On The Ground Is Wrong," in addition to previously unreleased gems like "Amber Jean." The song "Grey Riders" also rocks as convincingly as anything from Crazy Horse.

4. Steven Wilson - Grace For Drowning

On his second solo album, the two CD Grace For Drowning, Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson serves up little bits and pieces of everyone from Joy Division and King Crimson, to Brian Eno and Radiohead in the mix.

Wilson also gets a little help from Dave Stewart and original Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett. But what you mostly hear on this record is Steven Wilson himself, offering up a crash course in modern-day prog-rock, that ranges from the swelling mellotron, wildly swirling saxes, flutes and clarinet of "Reminder The Black Dog," to the epic Crimson-esque prog of "Raider II." This is textbook modern prog, and absolutely great sounding stuff, courtesy of Wilson's expert production.

3. Kate Bush - 50 Words For Snow

Kate Bush's first album of new original material since 2005's Aerial is one of those weird little records that creeps up on you slowly, and then really starts to get under your skin. Taken on its surface, the seven songs on this album are quietly reflective pieces — either performed solo by Kate on piano, or with a small trio of bass and drums — revolving around the central theme of snow.

But a deeper listen reveals a more layered lyrical experience, where the songs are populated by ghosts — not to mention a certain snowman — stranded in a purgatory of romantic longing, and almost impossible loneliness and regret. Since the first time I heard it, I have yet to get the simple, but hauntingly catchy "Misty" out of my head. Damn you, Kate.

2. Tom Waits - Bad As Me.

Despite being one of our greatest songwriters, Tom Waits hasn't made an album with this many great and unexpectedly accessible songs in years. On what is easily his best record since Rain Dogs, Tom Waits revisits many of the same questionable haunts, inhabited by the usual cast of shady characters, that he has for going on a half century now. But there are some surprising new twists.

On the gorgeous sounding "Talking At The Same Time," Waits' trademark cigarette and whiskey laced rasp, is transformed into an unexpectedly lilting falsetto. But on this album's best track, "Hell Broke Luce," Waits, backed by an all-star band including Keith Richards and Flea, takes on the persona of a severely damaged war veteran, returning home from a tour of duty marked by listening to the "big fucking bomb made me deaf" and "the general every goddamn word."

This amazing song — which is easily the most overtly political of Waits' career — simply has to be heard to be believed.

1. Wilco - The Whole Love

It's no secret that I love me some Wilco, and why not?

Jeff Tweedy may be the best songwriter of the post-Dylan/Springsteen/Neil Young era, and Nels Cline is quite possibly the most bad-ass guitar player on the planet. But there are at least twelve other reasons why The Whole Love is the year's best album, and they are the twelve great songs on this album.

Wilco's best album since their 2002 masterpiece Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is also their most stylistically diverse. But beyond that, this is also the album where Wilco's strengths as a band are proven to go far beyond the sum of their individual parts as Tweedy's mere backup crew. From the avant-sonic freakout of "Art Of Almost," to the Doors like keyboards of "I Might," to the lyrical poignancy of "One Sunday Morning (A Song For Jane Smiley's Boyfriend)," Wilco's The Whole Love was track for track, the single greatest record I heard this year.

This article was first published at Blogcritics Magazine.

Bonghits For Audiophiles: CSN's 1969 Debut Gets A 2011 Makeover

Music Review: Crosby, Stills & Nash - Crosby, Stills & Nash (Audio Fidelity 24K Gold Limited Edition)

Back in the day, those of us who worked in record stores used to have a saying describing those finicky customers who fancied themselves as "audiophiles."

We called them our "dust cover-dust cover" guys, as in the sort of music listeners who were so anally retentive that an entire market could be created for a plastic dust cover, just to protect more dust from collecting on the fold-down dust cover already protecting the vinyl albums on their $99.00 Radio Shack turntables.

If all this sounds unnecessarily complicated, it's because, well quite frankly, it was.

What made the whole thing even more ludicrous though, was the fact that the musical tastes of these "audiophiles" ran more towards the hot-tub "smooth jazz" of George Benson, Chuck Mangione and Grover Washington Jr., than anything even remotely more musically substantive.

For these folks, one "pop" in the middle of "Breezin'," "Feels So Good" or "Mister Magic" was enough to warrant numerous trips back to the record store to exchange these "defects" for fresh new copies. It's no wonder that the old jazz label CTI accounted for nearly half of all returns to the manufacturer back in those halcyon retail days at my old record store.

One thing I do remember from those days though, is that the "direct-to-disc" albums offered by companies like Mobile Fidelity Audio Labs, ran only a distant second to Japanese imports in the burgeoning audiophile market.

This tradition has carried on today in the CD era (or what is left of it, anyway), with the 24K Gold pressings offered by Mobile Fidelity's successor, Audio Fidelity. The concept here is much the same as the original. By pressing the master recordings of classic albums onto cleaner sounding gold discs, the virgin integrity and warmth of the original recording is preserved.

It is hard to imagine a better candidate for the Audio Fidelity 24K treatment than the 1969 debut from Crosby, Stills & Nash. The good news here is that the audiophile CD of this classic recording is not only warranted, but that it also delivers on everything promised.

At the time of this album's 1969 release, CSN was heralded as everything from rock's first true supergroup, to the American answer to the Beatles. And while in the supergroup sweepstakes they may have had some formidable competition from the combination of Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood in Blind Faith, it is the music of CSN that has most stood the test of time. The fact is, while it has taken a few critical lumps over the years, CSN's debut holds up remarkably well as a unique snapshot of its time today. Steeped in the sixties as they may be, the songs on this album really are that timeless.



The bottom line is that there are very few albums in all of rock history that can boast as many truly great songs as this, and even fewer featuring three voices that harmonize as sweetly as those of David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash.

Unlike so many modern day digital remastering jobs, Audio Fidelity's 24K recording wisely focuses on the music. The packaging on this CD is a modest recreation of the original (the lone correction is a respelling of the song "Guinevere," which removes one "n").

But the loving detail paid to the actual music itself is something else entirely. The acoustic guitars on Stills' "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" sound crisper than ever, and those famous harmonies on songs like Nash's "Marrakesh Express" sound even sweeter here than you remember them.

But the electric stuff is the real revelation here. The stereo separation on "Wooden Ships" alone will have classic rock fans reaching out for their bongs out of sheer reflexive action alone. Crosby's sharp rhythm guitar dances perfectly around Stills' more understated lead guitar on this original acid-influenced sci-fi epic.

Crosby's homage to Bobby Kennedy "Long Time Gone," is another highlight of this CD that sounds better than ever here. I can still remember how both of these songs were staples of the pre-recorded music piped through the P.A. system at early seventies rock concerts.

This is great stuff. The obvious loving care taken by Audio Fidelity on this pristine sounding recording takes you right back. For audiophiles, this recording is sure to satisfy your need for cleanliness. But for the rest of us, this is headphone heaven, and a great excuse to dust off the old bong.

Speaking of dust covers...

This article was first published at Blogcritics Magazine.

Atlas Shrugged Part One: Trickle Down Filmmaking For Ayn Rand Devotees

DVD Review: Atlas Shrugged - Part One

In director Paul Johannson's modern-day update of Ayn Rand's epic 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged, the not-too-distant world of 2016 has become a very frightening place — especially for the capitalists and corporate types, deemed as this film's "rugged individualist" heroes on the DVD cover.

America is on the brink of economic disaster, and gas prices have hit 40 bucks a gallon, necessitating a return to the rail system as the primary means of affordable transportation. Meanwhile, banking CEOs and other people who "get things done" are mysteriously disappearing faster than you can say "Who Is John Galt?"

An out-of-control government bureaucracy is also uncharacteristically hostile to corporate interests, making things tough for them by passing laws limiting their holdings to a single company, and making it illegal for any company turning a profit to fire its workers. Oh, the horror!

The perspective of these workers, by the way, is an element missing from the story altogether. The only time the working class is acknowledged at all in Atlas Shrugged, the point seems to be to dismiss them as parasites sucking the life force from the corporate machine. Or as Dagny Taggart, one of this film's two main protagonists puts it, "What's with all this altruism, anyway?"

Other than this sort of back-handed lip service, you never see the working stiffs building her railway system at all. It's as though they never existed.

Rather, the main point of Atlas Shrugged, seems to be a so thinly veiled as to be transparent attempt at promoting the "Objectivist" ideas put forth in Ayn Rand's books. This school of thought espouses the virtues of self-reliance and self-determination, and the idea of a free market unfettered by such inconveniences as taxation and government regulation. It's no wonder that libertarian purists like Ron Paul have embraced Rand's Objectivism like some kind of new religion.

What is more curious however, is how conservative Christians have likewise hitched themselves to an atheist movement that celebrates blind selfishness and greed over the "feed the hungry, clothe the poor" teachings of Jesus. When the other heroic figure of this film, corporate honcho Hank Reardon, defends his tireless drive for profit, he does so almost incredulously, simply saying "because, it's mine."

So it is inevitable when the two main characters, Reardon and Taggart, form an alliance to defend their corporate interests against a sea of government bureucrats conspiring to bring their two respective empires down. The government types here are portrayed as bumbling idiots — people who would impede any forward progress during bad economic times in the name of misguided altruism at best — and evil, inherently corrupt conspirators at worst.

The thing is, despite a couple of pretty great performances from Taylor Schilling (as Taggart) and a very charismatic Grant Bowler (as Reardon), the heroes of this film are far from sympathetic, driven primarily by greed and selfishness as they are. The only time you really feel anything for these characters, it is because Reardon is stuck in a loveless marriage to an ungrateful bitch, and because Taggart's brother is a clueless fool more interested in gaining political than monetary capital. Needless to say, these two souls find common ground in their self-interest and eventually fall into bed together.

Other than that, Atlas Shrugged mostly plods along through an endless series of boring boardroom meetings and cocktail parties in getting to its point. The thin production values also add little to the intrigue. When Reardon excitedly marvels at the "advanced technology" he sees in an abandoned warehouse where a revolutionary engine was developed, the background scene looks more like the sort of ordinary vacant garage you might find in some B-grade zombie film.

The subplots — which include a terrorist pirate character named Ragnar, and a hedonistic millionaire playboy named Francisco — are also given too little time to develop into anything more substantial than brief diversion. Presumably, these will become more fleshed out in the second and third installments of the planned Atlas Shrugged trilogy though.

But the seemingly most important subplot here, the question of "Who Is John Galt?" is likewise barely addressed. The bigger question one might ask here, is since when do billionaire CEOs answer the door for some mysterious stranger wearing a dark hat and trenchcoat (especially with an epidemic of other corporate types going missing)?

Even so, it's not hard to see where this is going, and I fully expect to see the emergence of John Galt as the messiah figure of some capitalist utopia in Atlas Shrugged Part Two. For now though, Atlas Shrugged Part One represents the sort of trickle down filmmaking, that is unlikely to find much of an audience outside of hardcore Ayn Rand devotees.

Extras on the DVD include filmmaker commentaries, and a series of YouTube videos that feature average Joes proclaiming "I Am Joe Galt."

This article was first published at Blogcritics Magazine.

Lindsey Buckingham's Big Songs, Big Guitar, And Big Voice Shine On "Small Machine"

Music DVD Review: Lindsey Buckingham - Songs From the Small Machine - Live in L.A.

The most striking thing about Lindsey Buckingham's new Songs From the Small Machine - Live in L.A. concert DVD, is the revelation of just how amazing — yet underrated — a guitarist Buckingham really is.

Both with Fleetwood Mac and as a solo artist, Lindsey Buckingham most often gets his props — and rightfully so — as a songwriter, and perhaps to a slightly lesser degree as a singer. But on this DVD, and particularly on the five solo acoustic songs that open the set, Buckingham really lets things rip on the guitar.

Thankfully, the camera work here wisely zeroes in on all the action. There are several close up shots that reveal Buckingham's intricate style of hard finger picking. But the best stuff comes when Buckingham is strumming like a maniac on songs like "Big Love," and especially during an intense version of "Go Insane," where he essentially turns the pop song inside out.

Who said acoustic sets at a rock concert were supposed to be for bathroom breaks? Don't tell that to Lindsey Buckingham.

By the sixth song, the shiny pop gem "Under The Sun," Buckingham is joined by his band for several songs from his great new Seeds We Sow album. Calling these "new songs from the small machine" (as opposed to the "big machine" that is Fleetwood Mac, and hence the DVD title), Buckingham likewise shows his gift for writing intelligent, well crafted pop and especially his ear for a great hook, to be as sharp as ever here. If anything, songs like "Stars Go Crazy" and "That's The Way Love Goes" are just a natural extension of the same smart pop sensibilities of his work with the "big machine."

But even on the Fleetwood Mac songs, Lindsey Buckingham finds new ways to keep things fresh. On "I'm So Afraid," the already bluesy song takes on an even more foreboding tone, thanks to an even slower arrangement, and a beautifully haunting vocal from Buckingham. The song also serves as the launchpad for another stratospheric guitar solo, and the camera once again captures Buckingham's unique picking technique up close.

The arrangements on other Fleetwood Mac classics like "Go Your Own Way" and "Never Going Back Again" are more familiar sounding. But Buckingham's strong vocals and guitar playing still make them standouts. The whispered vocal delivery on "Never Going Back Again" is particularly sweet. On "Go Your Own Way," he projects his vocals to the crowd at L.A.'s intimate Saban Theater as though he were playing a sold out arena.

The only bonus feature on Songs From the Small Machine - Live in L.A. is a new Lindsey Buckingham interview. But the concert itself is beautifully filmed — especially when the closeups reveal a few of the master's secrets. The Dolby Digital 5.1 sound mix is likewise flawless and squeaky clean.

In short, Lindsey Buckingham's Songs From the Small Machine - Live in L.A. is another home run from the fine folks at Eagle Rock.



This article was first published at Blogcritics Magazine.

Sting Gets Back To Business, And Back To Bass In Seattle

Concert Review: Sting's "Back To Bass" Tour, 12/5/11, At The Paramount Theatre, Seattle WA

Ever since concluding his big bucks reunion tour with The Police a few years back, it's been back to business as usual for Sting. Which, on his current tour, means it has also been "Back To Bass."

Sting is currently touring in support of his 25 Years retrospective boxed set, performing a hits-heavy set mainly in theaters and small venues with a relatively stripped down five piece band. During the first show of a two night stand at Seattle's Paramount Theater (on a freezing cold Monday night, no less), Sting and his band warmed up the crowd of adoring, mostly older fans with an energetic, well balanced two hour set drawing equally from both his solo work, and his back catalog with the Police.

Of course, this is Sting we are talking about here. Which meant that his "stripped down" band, still included two guitarists and a miniature string section (specifically, violin and fiddle).

The newer live arrangements of vintage Police songs like "Every Breath You Take," "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" and "Next To You," while certainly not lacking anything in the energy department, likewise tended more towards an adult-contemporary feel, than his classic eighties period as New Wave's favorite blond cop.

No matter though. With the help of a band that was nothing short of amazing, Sting and company still managed to turn the heat up enough on Seattle's wine and cheese crowd to make them forget the cold outside.

Fiddle player Peter Tickell turned in a couple of particularly jaw-dropping solos, and also re-created the soprano sax parts on songs like "Fortress Around Your Heart" perfectly, with help from Jo Lawry on violin (who also displayed her gorgeous five-octave range on backing vocals). The father-son guitar tandem of Dominic and Rufus Miller likewise had some fine moments (including a couple of cool solos from Dominic using a wah-wah pedal). Monster drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, a recent veteran of Jeff Beck's band, was a dead ringer for Stewart Copeland on the Police songs.

Sting himself often gets a sometimes deserved, but just as often unfair rap for pretentiousness, mostly because of his genre forays into everything from celtic to classical as a solo artist. At the Paramount, Sting was the antithesis of the stuffy performer he is often made out to be, engaging the audience with a humorous sing-along on the ready made for Seattle "Heavy Cloud, No Rain," and name dropping Toby Keith's cover of his country themed divorce song "I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying," while adding a disclaimer about Keith's politics.

Sting was likewise in fine voice, showing no signs of his age on vocals, and hitting all the right notes on his signature bass. By the end of the night, Sting had the crowd eating from the palm of his hand, sending them warmly singing their "Whoah-oh's" into the cold Seattle night with an acoustic version of the Police's "Message In A Bottle."

This article was first published at Blogcritics Magazine.

Best Music Writing 2011: They Didn't Pick Me...Again.

Book Review: Best Music Writing 2011 (Edited by Daphne Carr and Alex Ross)

If you enjoy reading music criticism even half as much as those of us who write it, then this year's annual volume of Best Music Writing from Da Capo Press is probably already a major event on your reading calendar.

For those of us poor slobs who slave away writing this stuff for what passes as a living however, this is the closest any of us will ever come to winning the Oscars for music nerds.

Alas, I didn't make it again this year.

But longtime series editor Daphne Carr, and this year's guest editor Alex Ross, have once again put together a fine collection of this year's finest essays from music critics, writing as the few remaining champions of what is left of the rapidly dying art of music journalism.

Like everything else in the present age of internet generated immediate gratification, music journalism has become something of a great, lost art. Both the traditional music business, and the idea of a truly objective journalistic medium, unclouded by the biases of providing infotainment to a ready-made audience pre-determined by demographic labels, have in musical terms long since gone the way of the eight track tape.

No matter. the braintrust at Da Capo have still managed to put together an impressive collection of this year's best critical essays on music.

I'm still not entirely sure what constitutes the judging criteria for inclusion in this book (do you sense my bitterness yet?). But the diverse variety of opinions and genres covered remains as impressive as always. Classical music in particular gets some extra love this year, presumably because of guest editor Alex Ross' bonafides as a symphony scribe.

Beyond that, you'll find some rather eye-opening essays on everything from heavy metal to hip-hop, and everyone from Neil Young and Miles Davis, to Lady Gaga and Keith Moon.

I particularly enjoyed reading Nancy Griffin's remembrances of a once human Micheal Jackson shyly fawning over his "Thriller" video co-star Ola Ray (and the relationship between them that might have been), and Evelyn McDonell's portrait of the tragically lost, late former Runaways drummer Sandy West.

Beyond that, you'll find great music writing here on subjects ranging from the secret diaries of Nina Simone, to Will.I.Am's manifesto for global domination through catchy pop hooks cleverly disguised as street-worthy ghetto jams.

If nothing else, Da Capo's Best Music Writing 2011 is proof positive that good music journalism isn't dead.

Yet.

This article was first published at Blogcritics Magazine.

Kate Bush's Impossibly Sexy And Snowy Winter Wonderland

Music Review: Kate Bush - 50 Words For Snow

Even for an artist whose music has taken more than its fair share of odd twists over the years, Kate Bush's new album has to rank right up there as being among her strangest. It is also one of her most beautiful, and one that was well worth the wait.

50 Words For Snow, her first album of all new material since 2005's Aerial, takes a couple of spins for it all to really start to sink in. On an initial listen, the seven songs on this album have the same sort of quietly pleasant, but meandering, innocuous sort of quality you might find on any random piano solo album released on New Age labels like Windham Hill in the seventies.

Sure, they might go down fine with a nice glass of wine next to a warm fireplace. But if you can name that tune in three notes or less the next day, you've more than earned that trip to the sudden death round.

Yet, once you get past this simple deception, these are songs — mostly performed solo by Kate Bush on piano and vocals, with minimal accompaniment in a light jazz trio sort of format with bass and drums — that really begin to creep up on you and get under your skin.

Then, they start to haunt you.

The unifying theme of (what else?) snow is equally deceptive. Kate Bush's "Winter Wonderland" is not the same one you'll find on some Hallmark holiday greeting card, but rather one littered with ghosts stranded in a purgatory of romantic longing, and almost impossible loneliness and regret.

Ever since she was first discovered as a teenage prodigy by Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour back in the seventies, Kate Bush's music has always had a strangely ethereal quality to it. At it's best though — particularly as heard on early songs like "Wow" and "The Man With The Child In Her Eyes" — Kate Bush's unearthly soprano voice can also be both wondrously innocent and wildly erotic at the same time (of course, it doesn't hurt that Kate is also pretty hot).

It's no mistake that Kate Bush has been oft-cited as a key influence by everyone from Tori Amos to Florence And The Machine.

On 50 Words For Snow, Kate Bush is still walking this same delicate line between rapture and desire, even as she is doing the nasty with Frosty The Snowman on this album's best track, the oddly beautiful "Misty." Yet, there is also an undeniable sense of loss here, as Kate feels her icy lover "melting in my hand," and then wakes up the next morning to find "soaking sheets" and "on my pillow, dead leaves and bits of twisted branches."

This is about as far removed from Phil Spector's original girl-group vision of an innocent, Christmas Eve encounter with ol' Frosty as it gets.

It should also be noted that veteran jazz studio drummer Steve Gadd's light and airy cymbal brushes provide a perfectly understated musical backdrop here. Although Gadd's contributions to this album are mostly subtle and nuanced, his musical presence is the most deeply felt (outside that of Kate Bush herself) on virtually every track of this album.



On the opening track "Snowflake," Kate is still searching for her missing snowman, while lamenting that "the world is so loud, keep falling, I'll find you." This same sense of longing takes on another shade on "Snowed In At Wheeler Street," which finds two star crossed lovers (Kate and guest vocalist Elton John) yearning for what could have been, from when they "met in '42," to "9/11 in New York" (there's that whole ghost thing again).

Elsewhere, Kate Bush finds a little sympathy for Bigfoot on the surprisingly catchy (for this album) "Wild Man," and plays narrator (in an uncharacteristically deep and sexy voice) to British actor Stephen Fry as he runs down the complete list of "50 Words For Snow" on the title track.

But mostly, this particular snowfall from Kate Bush seems to serve as a metaphor for longing of the romantic variety. It's never a Merry Christmas when you're alone and missing your snowman.

But it does make for a very beautiful record, and one well worth the repeated listens it takes to get there.

This article was first published at Blogcritics Magazine.

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The Who's Quadrophenia Reimagined On The Fine, If Slightly Flawed "Director's Cut"

Music Review: The Who - Quadrophenia- The Director's Cut

With multiple disc packages from artists as diverse as U2, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys and Leonard Cohen to choose from, this year's holiday boxed set season has been a particularly rich one — especially for classic rock fans.

But perhaps none of these deluxe editions are as deserving of the re-imagined treatment as the Who's landmark 1973 album Quadrophenia.

As Pete Townshend's second rock opera, Quadrophenia has historically played second fiddle to its more celebrated older brother Tommy, and even to the more commercially huge Who's Next.

But most diehard Who fans know better. Not only does the original double album contain some of the Who's most explosive performances as a band — particularly from bassist John Entwhistle and drummer Keith Moon — it also features some of the best, and most personal songwriting of Pete Townshend's career.

Quadrophenia's storyline, about an alienated mod youth growing up in swinging sixties, post war England, mirrors the Who's own story closely. Jimmy's four "Quadrophenic" personalities are designed to represent the four members of the Who. On the album's original grey jacket, you can even see their faces in the rearview mirrors of the scooter he drives.

Even so, you can see where Jimmy's story might make for a less compelling, cinematic narrative than the more famous deaf, dumb and blind boy of Tommy. Where Tommy rises — and eventually crashes and burns — as a messianic sort of figure, Jimmy's road to redemption comes through the more difficult path of trying to carve an identity out for himself by fitting in with the mod youth culture of sixties England. It's not hard to see why both Hollywood and Broadway embraced the romantic and sympathetic Tommy, over the more complex character of Quadrophenia's deeply troubled, and admittedly more depressing Jimmy. It also didn't hurt that Tommy came first.

The "Director's Cut" of Quadrophenia isn't perfect. In fact, many Who fans have been publicly grousing about both the album mix on the box (from a 1996 remixed version, rather than from the original tapes), and the lack of live material from the same period (even though it is fairly common knowledge that the live Quadrophenia shows from 1973-74 were hit and miss). What is more curious though, is the decision to leave several songs off of the highly anticipated 5.1 Blu-ray/DVD mix included here.

All nit-picking aside (and it really is nit-picking), the original album still sounds great though. On songs like "The Real Me" and "The Punk Meets The Godfather," John Entwhistle's bass runs serve more as a second lead instrument, than merely providing a bottom end to Townshend's slash and burn power chords.

Keith Moon's drumming is also a revelation here. On the powerful album closing suite of "The Rock" and "Love Reign O'er Me," Moon's drums thunder through the mix like controlled symphonic waves of sound, a stark contrast to the more wildly chaotic rock style he is most often associated with. Roger Daltrey is likewise in fine form here. The scream at the end of "Love Reign O'er Me" alone still sends shivers down your spine.

But it is Townshend's masterful writing that makes Quadrophenia quite possibly his greatest achievement. Tucked neatly in between this album's storytelling about youthful alienation, you'll find plenty of songs with biting political commentary ("we're the slaves of the phony leaders, breathe the air we have blown you"), romantic longing ("I just wanna' die with you here, I'm feeling so high with you here"), and spiritual discovery ("only love can bring the rain, that makes you yearn to the sky").

In addition to the 1996 and abridged 5.1 mixes, there are also two discs worth of the original demos for Quadrophenia. In their stripped down, original form, these demos of the original songs provide a unique perspective into the creation of this great Who album. When played in sequence, they also serve as a cool alternate version, that shows just what this album might have sounded like in some parallel universe. Songs that didn't make the final cut like "Joker James" and "We Close Tonight" are also included. A 100 page hard-bound book and a lengthy new essay from Pete Townshend about the making of the album round out this fine, if slightly flawed package.

With six discs worth of both familiar and never before heard material, Quadrophenia - The Director's Cut will be a bit pricey for some fans. But slight imperfections aside, this is an ambitious, and mostly very well done re-examining of what is arguably the Who's greatest album. For hardcore Who fans, the "Director's Cut" of Quadrophenia is a must.

This review was first published at Blogcritics Magazine