Aug 05
AndrewMusic Album
Officially a pop-punk band with detours into metal-lite, Zebrahead’s fourth album, Phoenix, is a bit of a mixed bag. Thematically, this is a teen angst album, something you imagine a band of fifteen-year-olds wrote in their parents’ garage. But Zebrahead has been around for more than a decade and the bandmates are all in their thirties. You kind of wonder what the music would sound like if they would just grow up.
There are hints of brilliance all over Phoenix. Forget lead single Mental Health and listen to the pulsing protest track The Juggernauts with its call to action, “The streets are barreling We’re freezing to reinvent our miscontent The sound is deafening.” Of course, the song could just as easily be about breaking curfew. There isn’t a clear sense of urgency that demonstrates that any of these songs are really about something.
Ignite evokes the best of Green Day. Mike Dexter Is A God, Mike Dexter Is A Role Model, Mike Dexter Is An Asshole is a great piece of pop music. Two Wrongs Don’t Make A Right, But Three Rights Make A Left is great fuck you song. But the long titles, not really about anything, don’t help the sense of immaturity that swamps this album. Hints of brilliance, maybe, but you have to wade through a lot of crap to get to the highlights.
Jul 29
AndrewMusic Album
Kidz Bop 14 makes it debut today with hits the likes of 4 Minutes, Clumsy and Bleeding Love. Don’t them? Parents, boy are you in for a surprise.
Leona Lewis’s Bleeding Love is in fact a love song, with lyrics that run along the lines of “My heart’s crippled by the vein that I keep on closing” and a chorus that repeats the chant “keep, keep bleeding love.”
Now imagine that sung by a choir of 9-year old girls. Such is Kidz Bop, cover versions of some of the hottest songs on radio, most indescribably filthy. Madonna’s 4 Minutes is relatively tame lyrically (assuming you don’t read between the lines) but it’s still the creepiest song on an album of disturbing sexual imagery sung by little girls. This is pop music by the Children of the Corn choir and I cannot imagine what parent would allow their children to listen to it.
To be fair, the songs are sanitized versions that swap out some of the worst lyrics. Take You There goes from “We can go to the tropics Sip piña coladas Or we can go to the slums” to “We can go to the tropics We can get it hoppin’ Or we can party in the sun.” But these songs head beyond just the lewd pop malarkey of the original versions you hear on the radio. Did I mention the songs are sung by kids?
Some of the stuff was vaguely child friendly to begin with (The Jonas Brothers’ When You Look Me In the Eyes was pretty much written for the 11-year old girl.) Maybe your daughter is already practicing the song in front of the mirror with a hairbrush. But taken on the whole, this concept is seriously warped. It’s the 14th volume in a series of unsettling pop covers that you might hear in the background of a To Catch a Predator confrontation. Chris Hansen’s voiceover saying, “We found the man in his house, listening to Kidz Bop 14. It sounds like Natasha Bedingfield’s Pocketful of Sunshine.”
Parent or otherwise, you might be inclined to remark that the Kidz Bop songs are no worse than the actual songs they are based on, that kids hear on the radio everyday. I would probably agree with you. I would probably also say that as a parent, you have an obligation to so some screening of the media that your child is exposed to and make some wise decisions about what is appropriate and what is borderline. Maybe Miley Cyrus isn’t really any better or worse than Kidz Bop’s version of Stop and Stare but if you intend to pick your battles, you could a lot worse than starting here.
Jul 18
AndrewMusic Album, Concert, Tour
British alternative rock band James returns to the United States with a new album and tour after a lengthy absence. The 11-track album Hey Ma is a reunion of sorts. The band had disbanded following the departure of lead singer Tim Booth to pursue a solo career. James reunited in April 2007 first for a U.K. tour, and then went into the studio to record the new album. It was released in the United Kingdom on April 7, 2008.
Hey Ma is set for a September 16 release date in North America and the band will return for a full U.S. tour for the first time in this century. The tour begins in Boston on September 15 and continues through the rest of the month. The band will open at Radio City Music Hall for Squeeze on September 19.
Tickets on sale for the Boston show go on sale today at noon. Tickets for most of the other shows go on sale in the next two weeks.
James Hey Ma Tour
September 15 Boston, MA Paradise Lounge
September 16 Philadelphia, PA The Trocadero
September 18 Washington DC 9:30 Club
September 19 New York, NY Radio City Music Hall
September 20 Ashbury Park, NJ Stone Pony
September 22 Montreal, Quebec Club Soda
September 23 Toronto, Ontario Phoenix Concert Theatre
September 25 Chicago, IL Vic Theatre
September 26 Milwaukee, WI Turner Hall Ballroom
September 27 Minneapolis, MN Fine Line
September 29 Denver, CO Ogden Theatre
October 1 San Francisco, CA The Regency
October 2 Los Angeles, CA The El Rey Theatre
October 3 San Diego, CA House of Blues
October 5 Anaheim, CA House of Blues
October 7 Mexico City, Mexico Auditorio Nacional
October 8 Guadalajara, Mexico Arena VFG
Concert information is up to date as of the time of publication
Jul 15
AndrewMusic Album
No End in Sight collects the best Foreigner tracks over the band’s 30 plus years. From Feels Like the First Time to Hot Blooded, these tracks are classic radio tunes that are instantly recognizable.
Of course, the essential Foreigner track is I Want to Know What Love Is, originally released in 1985. No End in Sight is presented in mostly chronological order and since the band has put out little in the way of new music since the 80′s (give or a take a few ignored studio releases) this is mostly retread of their previous hits set released in 2002 slapped with a new track Too Late which remarkably sounds like a lot of their earlier stuff.
The band has seen dozens of different members in its time and only currently features Mick Jones from its original line-up. They appear to be surviving on hits from the 80′s with no intention of reinventing themselves. But, if you were looking for one Foreigner album to own, then look no further than No End in Sight.
Jul 15
AndrewMusic Album
John Mellencamp has been a consistent folk rocker for his entire career, and his new album Life Death Love and Freedom does not stray from the formula. Many of the album’s tracks, including Longest Days and Don’t Need This Body, set a melancholy tone. But in between, tracks like lead single My Sweet Love, are tunes that hint at some relief.
The album warms up as you listen along. Mellencamp hits his stride dead in the middle with the spiritual tune A Ride Back Home with the message “Hey Jesus, this world is too troublesome for me. Can you give me a ride back home?” He also takes shots at the character of our country in Without a Shot and the pointed Jena.
At this point in his career, Mellencamp doesn’t offer much in the way of surprises. Yet for as mournful as Life Death Love and Freedom can be, the album taken as a whole leaves you uplifted. Mellencamp is an agitator, like on the track For the Children, but he also believes in the essential goodness of people. He carries on a folk tradition straight out of 60′s in a day when few are still doing it. This album is superb.
Jul 08
AndrewMusic Album
Warning: the new album by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes Have Another Ball is retread of past accomplishments. The tracks included here are b-sides taken from the band’s debut recording 10 years ago.
The tracks, understandably, don’t have the polish of the band’s newer releases and it’s a let down not to hear new material instead. There’s no argument that they covered some of the best songs ever written, from The Boxer to Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me and I Write the Songs but there is nothing revolutionary here. There are hints of brilliance in Mahogany and Only the Good Die Young and the rest comes off as filler. Have Another Ball is just a glorified b-sides album, of course, but as such, it does not show off Me First and the Gimme Gimmes in their glorious punk best.
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