READ PART 1 OF THIS ARTICLE: Oasis Retrospective 1991-1995 During 1996, Oasis continued to blow up, selling out a quarter million-attendance concert and climbing the charts with each single. But the band was on the verge of combustion: Liam routinely skipped concerts for the hell of it, leaving Noel with vocal duties. Noel (not for the first…
Here’s a fun game: Name the greatest one-year “peak powers” for any band or artist — considering quantity of production, quality of production, and overall transcendence. At the top of the list is probably whichever mid-‘60s Beatle year you prefer (1965, thanks – or 1966 if I can take the singles recorded in ’65 but…
So, what is it that makes Taylor Swift appealing? What is it about her music that drew me in enough to make her the most embarrassing entry on my top 100 (or maybe runner up)? Before I try to answer those questions, let’s take a quick walk through her career to date. Swift burst on…
Dan: So, Colton, let’s talk about Eve 6. Their reunion album has come and gone. In a few months, we’ll hit the fifteenth anniversary of their debut album. Though they might tour some more and, who knows, release another album, now seems as good a time as any to reflect on their career, discography, and…
In the summer of 2011, I was privileged enough to see Green Day play an impromptu, intimate concert at an Orange County, California venue normally reserved for bands who have sold about 1/100th as many records as they have. I had just moved out to southern California, and the area greeted me by placing me within…
All-American Rejects (2002) – 4 stars (out of 5) Move Along (2005) – 4.5 stars When the World Comes Down (2008) – 3.5 stars Kids in the Street (2012) – 4 stars Blessed with a great name, underrated talent, and the good fortune to enter the musical world at the height of the teen emo-pop surge, The…
Over the past year, I have been working on writing in-depth reviews and features on Billy Joel’s discography. As I publish them, I will link to the articles in below Album Reviews (out of five stars) Cold Spring Harbor (1971) – *** Piano Man (1973) – ****½ Streetlife Serenade (1974) – *** Turnstiles (1976) –…
Just for a Day (1991) – 5 stars Souvlaki (1993) – 4.5 stars Pygmalion (1995) – 3 stars I was surprised to discover that I’ve never written about any musical group that would be classified as ‘shoegaze.’ That genre’s emphasis on heavenly washes of guitar sounds, gentle vocals, heavy feedback, and timeless melodies worked wonders…
Goodness knows there are more active musical artists today than there were thirty years ago – or five years ago, or yesterday. Just like the global population, the “band population” has a birth rate that exceeds its mortality rate. (Don’t ask for an analogue for shifting line-ups or new group formation – it gets gruesome.)…
“Silence is the enemy.” At some point on this past August 11th, at Jiffy Lube Pavilion in Virginia, it all went away. At some indefinable moment, while realizing that time had seemed to stop as Green Day obliterated tedium on their way through a legendary, two-hour-and-45-minute show, while observing that Billie Joe Armstrong is a…