Tag Archives: Reviews

#637: B is for Bush, Kate

Memory is unreliable. I’m trying to remember the first time I heard The Dreaming by Kate Bush. It comes out in 1982. I’m eighteen. But I have a sense it was years laterwhen I was 21 or 22 years old, after years of only a vague notionabout who she was, a foggy understanding that sheContinue reading “#637: B is for Bush, Kate”

We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Program to Talk About Geese

I just don’t want to like them. Everybody loves Geese. Everybody loves their new album, Getting Killed. Everybody seems to be falling down stupid-in-love with their singer and principal songwriter, Cameron Winter. Even people whose opinions I trust and whose art I respect or love, St. Vincent and Marc Maron, as examples, are falling overContinue reading “We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Program to Talk About Geese”

#636: B is for Brubeck, Dave

The first pure jazz album in my collection, the first completely instrumental album, the oldest recording so far in thislistening extravaganza, 1959, one of the most popular jazz albums ever, or at least, with “Take 5,” one of the most famous and recognizable,or at least, the first jazz album ever to sell one million copies.VinceContinue reading “#636: B is for Brubeck, Dave”

#635: B is for Bright Eyes

In the fine tradition of great bad singers, here is Conor Oberst, otherwise known as the band leader of Bright Eyes. His singing is imprecise, full of vibrato, a tentativetenor, except for when he’s screaming, which he does sometimes, even in quiet songs. He often soundslike he’s on the verge of crying or throwing aContinue reading “#635: B is for Bright Eyes”

#630: B is for Bowie (“A New Career in a New Town,” The Box)

I “You’re such a wonderful person, but you got problems.”The second tune on Low, all one minute and 52 secondsof it, contains this gem of a lyric. It’s 1977 and records are beginning to sound reallygood, although people at thetime didn’t think so. Tony Visconti has a newtoy called a Harmonizer andit makes the drumsContinue reading “#630: B is for Bowie (“A New Career in a New Town,” The Box)”

#628: B is for Bowie (“Five Years,” The Box)

I “Ground Control to Major Tom,”are likely the first words any of usever heard from David Bowie. Maybe I was five, and for yearsI would hear that distinctive voiceon the radio and knew the hits, but my older siblings, the arbitersof new music into the householdnever brought home a Bowie album. I didn’t start buyingContinue reading “#628: B is for Bowie (“Five Years,” The Box)”

#626: B is for Blood, Sweat & Tears

It’s 1968. Hey, I know, let’sopen up a rock recordwith Eric Satie and follow that with somewild, short, orchestral Satie variation thing, and then we’ll play the funk rock real hard with horns and organs and lyrics about gettingyourself togetherand then we’ll swingharder than any jazzband and the drummerwill just kind of go crazythrough theContinue reading “#626: B is for Blood, Sweat & Tears”

#623: B is for Black Midi

I heard Black Midithe first time in the video for “John L,” a.k.a.“John 50,” which must have been the first single from the 2021 Cavalcade album, the band’s sophomoreeffort. Visually insane, a group of dancers in nude-beige body suits, in clown-like white face, wearing wigs, cavortingand contorting wildly around some obelisk figure with armsand a single eyeball. Musically, it was like a marriage between King Crimson and Primus, but weirder, noisier, aContinue reading “#623: B is for Black Midi”

#620: B is for Bird, Andrew

I He’s a whistler. He does the whistlingfor Walter, the muppet, in one of the Muppet movies.More than a decadeago (maybe two!) an intern of mine turned me on to Bird.Back in the oughts of this 21st century, I usedto purchase records for download, before streamingwas a thing. For a shorttime I subscribed to aContinue reading “#620: B is for Bird, Andrew”