If rock-and-roll is essentially dead, replaced by the dominance of pop, hip-hop and alternative, nobody told Tom Petty.
On Hypnotic Eye, his best album since Wildflowers (and that’s paying full respect to such great records as Highway Companion and Mojo), he unleashes monster guitar riffs and sticky melodies just like in the good old days.
Today’s selection, like yesterday’s is a collaboration between two established artists — in this case, Danger Mouse and James Mercer (the man behind The Shins).
I recently named The Shins’ Port of Morrow my favorite album of the decade so far, so I’m a natural audience for any new material from Mercer. This mash-up certainly does the trick, marrying his poignant introspection with a nifty 70s soundscape courtesy of Danger Mouse.
Aimee Mann has been churning out excellent solo albums at a pretty good clip since her 2000 breakthrough Bachelor No. 2.
In 2014 she took a little detour, pairing up with alt-rocker Ted Leo in a band called The Both and releasing a self-titled LP.
It’s hard to decide how seriously to take one-offs like this, especially when the other party is a complete mystery to me, but one listen revealed The Both to be very much in the vein of Mann’s solo work.
2015 has arrived but I still have some unfinished 2014 business. Over the next month, I’ll count down my top 20 songs from last year.
The usual caveats apply. I allow only one song per album, to avoid a glut of tracks by the same few artists. These songs had to have an official release in 2014, either on an album or as a single. And, as always, I am listing the songs I like the best, not necessarily the songs that had the biggest impact on last year’s musical landscape.
The Random iTunes Fairy is in a nostalgic mood this weekend. We got an early 00s track from Guster yesterday, and now here’s Jude, an artist who ascended briefly in the 90s before falling quickly to earth.
Jude’s 1998 album No One is Really Beautiful is a fun and innovative bit of alt-rock, showcasing his unconventional vocals and his knack for mixing balladry with white-boy funk.
Meet Me In Montauk 