U2 - Boy
Artist: U2 Review: From the beginning, U2 aspired to profound ecstasy. But it took Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. a while to get there. Two of U2's first three albums are undeniable classics: 1980's precociously magnificent Boy for its proudly spiritual optimism in the thick of post-punk nihilism and for the Edge's reveille-treble guitar; 1983's War for its arena-rock muscle tone (honed over three years of touring) and the matured blend of soldier's ardor and pop wile in the singles "Sunday... Rating: 4.5 Stars
The Fratellis, Here We Stand
Here We Stand is a baffling album... really, it's hard to see the point.
Various Artists - Camp Rock
Artist: Various Artists Review: History teaches us not to dismiss kiddie pop. Stevie Wonder was once Little Stevie Wonder, just as Lil Wayne was once little Lil Wayne, child gangsta rapper. And let's not forget ex-Mouseketeers Britney and Justin. Purists disdain teenybopper music as cynical pap, foisted on the young by Svengalis who lurk in the shadows, counting money. But bubblegum can be a great farm system, honing skills that pay dividends in later life. Lately, Disney's kiddie pop has been plenty profitable, with High... Rating: 2.5 Stars
Arthur Russell - Love Is Overtaking Me
Artist: Arthur Russell Review: Arthur Russell was the secret link between New York music scenes of the Seventies and Eighties — an experimental composer, a pathbreaking disco producer, a rocker in Talking Heads' orbit, a wildly original singer. His downfall, though, was a perfectionism that kept him from finishing his recordings. Culled from his ample archives, this set collects unheard pop songs from 1973 to 1991, a year before his death from AIDS-related complications. Russell's lighter-than-air voice, murmuring about... Rating: 3.5 Stars
Big Blue Ball (Peter Gabriel) - Big Blue Ball
Artist: Big Blue Ball (Peter Gabriel) Review: Gabriel fans hoping for a follow-up to 2002's Up will have to keep waiting. Big Blue Ball is neither new nor is it strictly Gabriel, although the pioneering art rocker's aesthetic stamp (and, on four songs, his voice) is all over this global-music mosaic. In the early Nineties, Gabriel staged a series of jam sessions at his Real World Studios in the English countryside, where musicians ranging from Sinéad O'Connor to Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid to soukous legend Papa Wemba sang or played... Rating: 3 Stars
Vandermark Ken
Ken Vandermark to absolutna ikona awangardy jazzu dnia dzisiejszego. Muzyk szalenie wielowymiarowy, a zarazem ze wszech miar oryginalny. Co nie mniej ważne - artysta aktywnie kreujący współczesną scenę. ...
Old Crow Medicine Show - Tennessee Pusher
Artist: Old Crow Medicine Show Review: Old Crow Medicine Show aren't revivalists. They're anachronists. On their fourth full-length, produced by Don Was, the Nashville quartet mash up a well-nigh 19th-century sound — hopped-up folk, bluegrass, country and gospel — with lyrics that are firmly planted in the 21st century. "Huff paint, cocaine, playing chicken with a train/Smack dab, meth lab, mellow out, rehab," hoots Ketch Secor in "Alabama High-Test." Several songs cast a journalistic eye on hard partying, from the countr... Rating: 3.5 Stars
Buena Vista Social Club - Buena Vista Social Club at Carnegie Hall
Artist: Buena Vista Social Club Review: In 1998, the aging members of this Cuban collective realized a lifelong dream: playing to a sold-out audience at Carnegie Hall. That show, captured on this two-disc set, is even more emotionally engaging than the group's eponymous album, which triggered a worldwide Latin-jazz revival. Highlights include a fiery vocal workout on "El Cuarto de Tula"; the intoxicating folk of "Orgullecida," featuring Ry Cooder's Hawaiian-style slide guitar; the wistful bolero "Dos Gardenias," sung with delicate nua... Rating: 4.5 Stars
Joan Baez - Day After Tomorrow
Artist: Joan Baez Review: "I believe in prophecy," Baez sings on her new album. For five decades, her ringing soprano has been a prophetic sound, summoning the earnestness and anger — and, a bit too often, the self-righteousness — of the folk revival that made her its poster child. For her 24th studio release, Baez has teamed up with Steve Earle, who produced the album and contributed three songs. It's a fruitful partnership: Earle's hard-won earthiness acts as a counterweight to Baez's ethereal tendencies,... Rating: 3 Stars
The Ting Tings, We Started Nothing
The pied pipers of hyper lead the conga into the middle of next zeitgeist.
Elbow, Seldom Seen Kid
For the most part it's brilliant business as usual.
The Doors - Live at the Matrix
Artist: The Doors Review: The Doors were still a club band in the late winter and spring of 1967 — not yet stars, not quite spectacle, reliant on blues and R&B covers to get through a whole evening on the bandstand. Stuck in a long limbo between the January release of their debut album, The Doors, and the summertime explosion of their second single, "Light My Fire," the group played discothèques in Los Angeles and New York and, during a legendary engagement that March, more than a dozen sets over five nights... Rating: 4 Stars
T.I. - Paper Trail
Artist: T.I. Review: "Facing all kinda time/But smile like I'm fine," T.I. crows on "No Matter What." The Atlanta rapper recorded his sixth album while under house arrest for weapons possessions charges, and he faces a year-long prison sentence beginning in 2009. But as the plodding "existential" concept album T.I. vs. T.I.P. (2007) showed, he is a far better braggart than brooder — smiling like he's fine is good for business. On Paper Trail, T.I. mostly dispenses with the Tupac-wannabe gangsta-confessor... Rating: 3 Stars
John Matthias, Stories From The Watercooler
What Matthias conveys in electronically-tinged folk-rock feels more sad and reflective than seething or abstract.
FlyKKiller
Świerk. Instytut Problemów Jądrowych. To tutaj w 2006 roku powstaje kolejny instytut ? FlyKKiller Research....
James Taylor - Covors
Artist: James Taylor Review: On hits like "Handy Man," "Up on the Roof" and "How Sweet It Is (to be Loved by You)," James Taylor's way of interpreting other songwriters' hits has been to turn them into James Taylor songs. His honeyed drawl is supple enough to accommodate R&B and country standards, sweetening the savory tang of their rural sources. That approach guides Covers, where Taylor assays the likes of the Drifters' "On Broadway," Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away" and Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne." He softens the arrangements... Rating: 3.5 Stars
Dr. Dog - Fate
Artist: Dr. Dog Review: "Let go of the old ones/We've got some new ones," sings Scott McMicken on "The Old Days," a woozy parlor-room piano-rock reverie. The Philadelphia band's albums have always sounded like they should be filed alongside "old ones" like the Band, the Beach Boys, the Beatles and the Bonzo Dog Band, but Fate feels less like a straight tribute to Dr. Dog's elders and more like a finely tuned collage. "The Breeze" begins as a trembling folkie ballad for acoustic guitar, piano and harmonica, then... Rating: 3 Stars
Okkervil River - The Stand Ins
Artist: Okkervil River Review: On this album-length sequel to last year's The Stage Names, these Austin indie rockers continue to dissect the looking-glass emptiness of life spent on the stage, as well as in the cheap seats. "Fuck long hours, sick with singing," frontman Will Sheff sings over slow-building, mariachi-style blues on "Bruce Wayne Campbell Interviewed on the Roof of the Chelsea Hotel, 1979," a boozy, post-fame portrait of the late gay glam rocker Jobraith. Like its predecessor, The Stand Ins also... Rating: 3 Stars
Jay Z
"Allow me to re-introduce myself/ My name is Hov', OH, H-to-the-O-V" kokieteryjnie literował swoją ksywę na "Black Album", mającym być jego ostatnim w karierze....
Lili Marléne
?Ci faceci mają papiery na granie i powinni to bezwzględnie wykorzystać? powiedział Piotr Stelmach, a Anna Gacek dodaje: ?Tam, gdzie melancholia spotyka się z żalem, a z mnogości odgłosów wyłania się idealny dźwięk, tam odnajdziesz Lili Marléne?. ...
Douglas Dave
Dave Douglas (ur. w 1963 roku) uchodzi za pierwszą trąbkę współczesnego jazzu. Potrafi on w zadziwiający sposób zjednać sobie względy zarówno bardziej konserwatywnej części publiczności, jak i miłośników awangardy....