Listening to this previously unreleased 1971 Royal Albert Hall live performance makes clear that by this time The Byrds were little more than Roger McGuinn’s backing band, but with Clarence White on guitar, Skip Battin on bass and Gene Parsons on drums, what a good backing band!

Compare this to The Byrds’ performance at the Monterey Pop Festival back when they were a band—never mind that there David Crosby’s great harmonies step all over lead vocalist McGuinn, which may in part explain the Byrds circa 1971!

Calling Ricki Lee Jones’s Pop Pop an “enduring” audiophile classic would be an understatement, though getting a copy on vinyl has been difficult until now.



Germany’s Alto-Analogue issued it on 180g vinyl, cut by Bernie Grundman (who is the original mastering engineer of record for the 1991 release) back in the vinyl-starved late 1990s. Some copies made there way back to America, though I picked mine up in Germany.

Laura Nyro’s most personal, mature and intense album of love’s struggles proved to be the stopping point for many fans of the earlier gospel-y good time Nyro who sung “Stoned Soul Picnic,” “Eli’s Comin’,” “Wedding Bell Blues,” “Stoney End,” and even “And When I Die,” which was celebratory despite the song’s morbid title.

The gift of uniqueness can easily become the curse of familiarity, easy identification and in the worst case, self-parody.

The latter hasn’t happened to Benjamin Gibbard, Death Cab’s earnest creative center but on the group’s latest album, he’s safely sticking to the ruts of his signature phrasing, melodic constructions and even subject matter.

Familiarity can breed contempt but not this time, with the band countering with toughened guitar textures and edgier rhythmic drive.

Lou Reed’s bleak Berlin album dropped with a thud when first released back in 1973. The fans were probably expecting Transformer 2 and a “Walk on the Wild Side” reprise, but Lou was having none of that. He was moving on and down (both chart-wise and thematically) but times eventually catch up to vision and that’s the case with Berlin.

Larry “Ratso” Sloman’s annotation brings into sharp, entertaining focus this collection of vital Dylan outtakes, alternative takes, unreleased tracks and live performances from 1989’s Oh Mercy sessions through his most recent 2006 release Modern Times.

There’s not a throwaway or “curiosity” in the bunch. Back in 1987, Sloman recounts, Dylan had booked some dates with The Grateful Dead, at a time when he felt pretty much washed up and ready to retire as he wrote in his autobiography “Chronicles-Volume One.”

In a 1991 book called The Worst Rock’n’ Roll Records of All Time, music critics Jimmy Guterman and Owen O’Donnell declare Van Dyke Parks’ Song Cycle the 23rd worst rock’n’roll album of all time.



What imbeciles. Song Cycle isn’t a rock’n’ roll album. I hereby proclaim The Worst Rock’n’ Roll Records of All Time the world’s most ineffective anti-missile defense shield.

Deerhunter opens Microcastle with a Pink Floyd-like grand musical flourish taken at midtempo lysergic trail speed. The floating, vibrating textures give way to an insistent, deliberate, Wire-like beat that the group rides for a while before switching to dream-like reverie resplendent of Eno’s ambient projects merged with moodiness the late Syd Barrett might be proud to call his own.

Editor's note: this review has caused quite a dust-up, in part because of the sonic description and in part because of this, which you'll find further down in the text:

"...but the mastering is just plain weird.

A layer of crunchy ice has been added on top and the bass has been boosted, producing a garish sonic mix. The result is an unpleasant edgy grit to Wonder’s voice. You know something's wrong when the triangle on "Love's In Need ..." is louder than Wonder's voice! And believe me, it is.