Ryan Adams isn’t too popular these days, after a New York Times investigation earlier this year exposed him as an overbearing #metoo villain who promised music industry success to women as a way to get them into his bed.
He is reportedly the subject of an FBI investigation and his current tour, as well as three planned albums, have been postponed indefinitely.
I once ranked Reveal as the 12th best R.E.M. album, which isn’t saying much because they had released only 14 at the time. But I guess that’s enough to make it my #9 album of 2001.
Reveal was the band’s second album without drummer Bill Berry, and while none of the post-Berry records measure up to R.E.M.’s work as a quartet, this one does have several of their best tunes from that era.
Of the various theme weeks I cover on the blog, I think my favorite is the Decades series. That’s where I dive into the same year across four decades (1972, 1982, 1992, 2002, for example) and write about noteworthy album releases.
I like it because it gives me a chance to both highlight some of my personal favorites and dig into albums I missed along the way. And jumping ahead a decade at a time allows me to explore different popular music movements.
Ah, one of my favorite things, a holiday that falls on a Random Weekend. A chance to spin the wheel and come up with a match that’s surprisingly appropriate, hysterically inappropriate, or somewhere in between.
Before I find out which it is, let me wish a heartfelt Happy Mother’s Day to my own beloved mother, who brightens every day with her warmth, wit and wisdom.
‘Murder by Numbers,’ the final track on The Police’s classic 1983 album Synchronicity, wasn’t originally intended for the album’s lineup. Indeed, it was left off of some LP releases of the album, though it appeared on cassette and CD.
The song started as the B-side of Synchronicity‘s most popular track, ‘Every Breath You Take.’
‘Murder by Numbers’ was co-written by guitarist Andy Summers, whose only other songwriting contribution on the album was ‘Mother,’ by far the record’s worst track. He did just fine here, though, coming up with a seductive jazz-pop arrangement.
Meet Me In Montauk 