Elton John - Tumbleweed Connection
Artist: Elton John Review: Elton John was a lot of things — sideman, session man and flop, with a long tail of failed solo releases, including the 1969 LP Empty Sky — before 1970's Elton John made him an overnight star. He wasn't afraid to admit it. John packed a bonus scrapbook in the original lavish packaging of 1975's Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy with bad-hair photos, comic music-press ads ("You've been warned! Elton John is 1968's great new talent") and other ample proof of his time, with... Rating: 4.5 Stars
The Replacements - Tim
Artist: The Replacements Review: Released in 1985, Tim caught a great American garage band stretching out, working Big Star pop and Fifties-style rock into a mix of punky abandon and regular-dude romanticism. This version — reissued along with three other 'Mats albums, none of which is quite as tuneful as Tim — brightens the sound and adds six bonus cuts, including a bare-bones version of "Here Comes a Regular," Paul Westerberg's moving acoustic ballad about directionless barflies. Rarely did Westerberg write so... Rating: 4 Stars
Cool Kids Of Death
Dawno, dawno temu w Łodzi - mieście kojarzonym wyłącznie z fabrykami włókienniczymi i dwoma zespołami piłkarskimi - powstał pewien zespół rockowy. ...
The Zutons, You Can Do Anything
The Zutons are, you'll be relieved to know, on fine form.
Lee Ann Womack - Call Me Crazy
Artist: Lee Ann Womack Review: Lee Ann Womack does low-key better than most of her country contemporaries. The gentle mien of Call Me Crazy suits her nuanced singing — the subtle swoops and honeyed drawls that build momentum without bothering to rock out. Lyrically, Womack mostly shuffles between sadness and devotion, mourning a dead marriage on "Either Way" and admitting she's smitten on "I Found It in You." But producer Tony Brown adds some soul to the hard-drinking ballad "Solitary Thinkin' " and builds an ambient... Rating: 3 Stars
Genesis - Genesis: 1970-1975
Artist: Genesis Review: At first, Genesis were five English ex-boarding-school mates playing complex songs about hogweed and Greek myth. They slimmed that audacity into platinum pop as members left: guitarist Anthony Phillips (1970), singer Peter Gabriel (1975) and guitarist Steve Hackett (1977). But bassist Mike Rutherford, keyboardist Tony Banks and drummer Phil Collins were never as compelling later as they were in the band that made the five LPs in this box. The country-cathedral air of 1970's Trespass and the... Rating: 4.5 Stars
Weezer, The Red Album
The Red Album is quintessentially theirs, but with a somewhat misguided twist
Lady Pank
Debiutancka płyta "Lady Pank", wydana w 1983 przez Tonpress, zrobiła w kraju furorę. Zespół dał w tym roku 360 koncertów, nieraz występując dwa, a nawet trzy razy dziennie....
Dąbrowska Ania
Wierna w muzyce latom 60. i 70., choć nadal dążąca do artystycznego rozwoju i uciekająca przed jednoznaczną etykietką. Każda z trzech jej płyt pokazała Anię jako wrażliwą i bystrą obserwatorkę ludzkich zachowań....
Various Artists - Nobody Knows Anything - DFA presents Supersoul Recordings
Artist: Various Artists Review: Having built the most reliable brand in freakably fusion-minded dance music with artists like LCD Soundsystem and the Rapture, DFA Records has decided to globalize. The debut release on its international Death From Abroad imprint collects tracks from Supersoul, a two-year-old Berlin label whose bastardized beats flaunt the same formal disregard that makes DFA so great. Because the material is from a German operation, there are minimalist 4/4 techno rhythms (Mogg and Naudascher's "Moon Unit Pt.... Rating: 3 Stars
David Archuleta - David Archuleta
Artist: David Archuleta Review: On he most recent season of American Idol, David Archuleta was a golden-voiced koala, too sweet to be sexy. His debut is similarly flavorless: Beautifully sung but snoozy tunes like "My Hands" never achieve takeoff, and his chaste voice is a poor match for lovey-dovey lyrics. He only sounds like he's having a blast on "Don't Let Go," co-written with JC Chasez, which digs into an edgier melody and trades vocal gymnastics for pure power. At least the disc ends with a reminder of how Archuleta got... Rating: 2.5 Stars
Jazzie B, Presents School Days: Life Changing Tracks From The Trojan Archive
The charm of this compilation comes from its rosy glow of musical nostalgia.
Nelly - Brass Knuckles
Artist: Nelly Review: Combining Will Smith's friendliness with St. Louis slang and a down-home drawl, Nelly has mastered his own brand of crossover appeal. On his fifth album, he mostly sticks to that pop-rap formula, cranking his distinctly melodic flow to hyper-speeds and playing the good-natured hedonist on cuts like "Party People." But when he tries to come off hard on a handful of Dirty South brawlers, he ends up sounding generic: "U Ain't Him" finds him rhyming about gunplay and warning no one in particular abo... Rating: 3 Stars
Cage The Elephant, Cage The Elephant
If you want to release some good time rock 'n' roll, listen to this album.
Cajun Dance Party, Colourful Life
Rather than being a masterpiece in itself, it's more a brief ? yet highly effective ? demonstration of genuine potential.
Juana Molina - Un Dia
Artist: Juana Molina Review: Imagine if Tina Fey quit comedy and sang electronics-based folk songs. That's the path Juana Molina took more than 10 years ago in her native Argentina, leaving her job as a TV comedian to pursue experimental folk. Her fifth disc is her most adventurous, combining avant-garde vocals with the atmospherics of Portishead and My Bloody Valentine. With looped guitar, hypnotic percussion and a bit of feedback, the title track sounds like two songs playing at once. The centerpiece is a trio that includ... Rating: 4 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
Friendly Fires - Friendly Fires
Artist: Friendly Fires Review: In the vein of funky white guys like Hot Chip and LCD Soundsystem, these British lads take disco and rock, rave and pop, groove and melody, and Cuisinart them into an airy froth. But unlike many dance-rock peers, this trio never actually stretch out for the high-steppers at the discothèque: Only one cut on their 10-song, 37-minute album goes past the four- minute mark. At heart, they are strict pop formalists, packing each track with peppy hooks ("On Board," as heard in a Wii ad), gushy New Roma... Rating: 3.5 Stars
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Willy and the Poor Boys
Artist: Creedence Clearwater Revival Review: Hailing from El Cerrito, California, Creedence Clearwater Revival should've logically been another hippie collective waving flowers in neighboring San Francisco. As these 40th-anniversary editions suggest, leader John Fogerty instead invented an alternate identity for his band based on its otherwise unremarkable 1968 debut album's rumbling reinvention of a rock oldie. His singing voice swollen with the exaggerated vowels and slurred consonants of shouting Southern bluesmen, Fogerty discovered... Rating: 4 Stars
Fela Kuti - Lagos Baby: 1963-1969
Artist: Fela Kuti Review: This set shows Afrobeat's chieftain before he became the most musically and politically radical musician in African history. Disc One, recorded shortly after Fela's college years in London, collects jazzy, percolating dance tunes that split the difference between Nigerian high-life lilt and the hotter sound of London calypso. The brassy ballroom jam "Bonfu (Short Skirt)," featuring Fela's early band Koola Lobitos, shows he was a skirt-chaser long before he married 27 women simultaneously. "Amaec... Rating: 3.5 Stars
Van Morrison - Veedon Fleece
Artist: Van Morrison Review: By 1974, Van Morrison was probably exhausted. During the past ten years, the Irish troubadour had morphed from a garage rock king (as the leader of Them) to a pop hit machine to the craftsman of such landmark albums as Astral Weeks and Tupelo Honey. His eighth album, Veedon Fleece, hit stores in late 1974, shortly after the release of those instantly accessible masterpieces — and it was greeted by a collective shrug by the rock critical establishment. Time has proven them wrong. The album... Rating: 4 Stars