Album Reviews

Sort By:  Post Date TitlePublish Date
Album Reviews
Richard Thompson's "Electric" Continues Celtic Mayhem Chronicles
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 26, 2013
Sexual obsession, ugly betrayals, bitter kiss-offs, working men's tribulations, murder and mayhem— all of the traditional British balladry fare continue to preoccupy Richard Thompson as they have for decades. While he's moved on occasion through musical fashion, he always manages to return, as he does here, to his ground zero (dis)comfort zone.
Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
Prokofiev's "Love For Three Oranges" Plays Cinematic Mind Games
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 23, 2013
Everyone knows that composer John Williams cribbed Holst's "The Planets" for his "Star Wars" soundtrack. Fewer know that the main theme and even the arrangement for "Star Wars" is almost a complete rip of Eric Wolfgang Korngold's score for the movie "King's Row" starring Ronald Reagan, Ann Sheridan and Robert Cummings. People absolutely freak out when I play it for them.
Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
Counting Crows Debut "August And Everything After" Among the Last of the Great Analog Rock Recordings
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 19, 2013
With his influences clearly imprinted on his creative sleeve, Adam Duritz and friends created in 1993 one of the last great analog rock recordings. Duritz understood that sound mattered as did producer T-Bone Burnett who continues to treasure the basic sense even when working with diminished budgets.
Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
"The Allman Brothers Band" Debut Half-Speed Mastered By Mobile Fidelity
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 19, 2013
A record label forensic specialist might be required to trace how The Allman Brothers Band ended up an Island/Def Jam property issued on Mercury Records, all now owned by Universal Music Group. The original was issued in 1969 on the ATCO division of Atlantic Records. Perhaps it had to do with the sale of the late Phil Walden's Capricorn imprint, through which the ATCO deal had been made.
Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
Ella's in the Room on This Double 45rpm "Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie!" Reissue From Analogue Productions
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 15, 2013
Ella's lushly orchestrated songbook albums were popular when first issued in the '50s and '60s and again more recently as reissues. They were not just popular. They were transformational, whether she was re-interpreting Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Ellington, Irving Berlin or Jerome Kern.
Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
"Monk's Dream" IMPEX Reissue Makes The Most of Master Tape
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 11, 2013
Yes, yet another Thelonious Monk reissue review. What can I tell you? Love that Monk. Criss-Cross with the same quartet (and in serious need of a reissue) was the second jazz record I ever bought and it made an even bigger impression than Coltrane's My Favorite Things, which was my first.
Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
Van Dyke Parks' "Arrangements Volume 1" Looks Back In Pleasure
Matthew Greenwald  |  Feb 07, 2013
Van Dyke Parks: singer, songwriter, arranger, session musician, producer, creator of soundtracks, music video audio-visual pioneer...raconteur, (I'm sure I'm missing a few)...and above all, an artist. I can't think of another figure in recorded music for whom the title "Renaissance Man" would be more fitting.
Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
"Pink Moon" Reissue Box Set, Is It Worth $70?
Randy Wells  |  Jan 31, 2013
Nick Drake was born June 19, 1948 in Rangoon, Burma. Such unusual beginnings for a shy singer-songwriter who would die of a drug overdose twenty-six years later might seem exotic to some. But the gentle music he created sounded quite ordinary to most, if they heard it at all.
Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
"It's Monk's Time"—Speakers Corner Reissues Columbia Records Monk Classic
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 30, 2013
A few months ago my friend and fellow Stereophile writer (not to mention Pulitzer Prize winner, author of a new book "Insurgents" about General Patraeus, etc.) Fred Kaplan and I were lamenting the absence of reissues of Thelonious Monk's Columbia catalog.
Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
"What Is There To Say?" (Other Than That This is the Epitome of Cool, Late '50s West Coast Jazz)
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 29, 2013
Baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan's 1959 major label debut features his self-penned liner notes advocating putting the fun back in jazz and not worrying about hipness. Mulligan states that the album is all about fun and he's not kidding.
Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
Norah Jones Box Set From Analogue Productions: Too Much of a Good Thing?
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 24, 2013
The issue here isn't Norah Jones, it's the amount. While Jones "burst upon the scene" more than a decade ago while still in her early thirties with her debut album come away with me, she was hardly an overnight sensation. What's heard on that memorable debut is the result of years of live playing at The Living Room, an intimate, lower Manhattan club that encourages artistic growth over headliners.

Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
The Best Ever "Bringing It All Back Home"?
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 22, 2013
One side electric, one side acoustic, both sides of this March, 1965 release announced in both words and music Dylan's liberation from his folk music and "spokesperson for a generation" straight jacket and a turn towards more personal expression.
Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
Dirty Projectors Practice Musical Hygiene on "Swing Lo Magellan"
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 05, 2013
Dear Diary:

Dirty Projectors has been around for a decade. This is the group's, what? sixth album? but only the first I've heard since becoming aware of it only a few month ago. How totally clueless have I become?

When I write about Swing Lo Magellan do I fake it and write as if I've known about the group for a decade? I can't do that. So I'll have to admit how unhip and out of the loop I've become.

I know! I'll blame The Beatles and all of the reissues I have to cover. Right!

Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
Elvis Peeks Under the Sheets in the "Imperial Bedroom"
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 03, 2013
The song "Imperial Bedroom" does not appear on E.C.'s fourth album issued back in 1982 but it does as a bonus track on Rykodisc's twofer CD. The twofer's other album Almost Blue does not include the song "Almost Blue," which is on Imperial Bedroom. Got that?
Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
Neil Young's "Psychedelic Pill"—"Don't Want My MP3"
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 29, 2012
"Don't want my MP3," Neil Young protests on side two's "Drifting Back (Part 2)".

Young's lifelong obsession with sound quality is well known and of course welcomed around here. He was one of the first musicians to express serious reservations about digital recording and playback. Back in 1993 he appeared on an MTV News piece along with Peter Gabriel and me too. You can watch it here. "We've lost the sound" Neil laments—and that was before the scourge of MP3.

Continue Reading »

Pages

X