R.E.M. is best known as one of the forefathers of the alternative music genre, but in terms of sound I place them squarely in the folk rock tradition. Particularly on their early albums, you can trace Peter Buck’s guitar work straight back to The Byrds.
The band evolved into more of a rock sound — even grunge on 1994’s Monster and parts of subsequent albums — and also found success with the pop style (particularly on Green and Out of Time).
The final week of the genome project kicks off without any of the complexity of last Friday’s focus, Elvis Costello.
Miranda Lambert doesn’t blend genres and influences — she’s a country girl, through and through. ‘Country Plus,’ to use my designation, and she earns the ‘plus’ through the songwriting and performing chops that have lifted her to the top of the charts and onto countless critics’ best-of lists.
Well, going from Bob Dylan to Bruce Springsteen isn’t exactly the sort of wild surprise I was calling for in yesterday’s post, but it will do.
‘Working On a Dream’ is the title track from Springsteen’s 2009 album, one of three great records The Boss has released over the past six years (the others being Magic and this year’s Wrecking Ball). If you go back two more years, you can throw Devils & Dust and We Shall Overcome: The Pete Seeger Sessions into the mix.
Five excellent albums in eight years, all recorded during his mid-50s to mid-60s.
The year in movies has thus far been rather disappointing. Apart from a trio of solid comic book movies (The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man and The Dark Knight Rises) and Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, I hadn’t had a really memorable experience at the movies through the first nine months of 2012.
But I’m hopeful that things are about to change.
Last weekend I saw Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest, The Master (more below), and it was preceded by seven trailers — yes, seven! — all of which were at least mildly promising. I can’t remember the last time that happened.
Here are the eleven upcoming movies I’m most anticipating (in order of my excitement):
One of the downsides of a truly random selection — such as that of my Random Weekend Songs of the Day — is that you wind up with clusters.
I haven’t checked the numbers, but it seems like tracks from Dylan’s Bootleg Series have turned up here on a pretty regular basis. Granted, he has released nine volumes of those bootlegs — all double-CD sets — so those songs make up a healthy percentage of my music collection. Around 3 percent, to be exact.
But 3-in-100 odds aren’t exactly the sort you’d bet heavily on in Vegas. Mathematically, these songs are over-performing.
