Parliament-Funkadelic is one of those bands that I feel like I can go back to again and again. I doubt they would have ever came to mind had it not been for the 1990s. I was too young for any knowledge of their heyday, but the 90s brought them to the top of the list again- whether it was George Clinton producing Red Hot Chilli Peppers and touring with Lollapalooza or a multitude of rappers (Public Enemy, Dr Dre, Digital Underground, Aaliyah) having hits off the backs of their samples. There wasn’t many more impressive bands.
If you watch the first few minutes of 2016s doc Tear the Roof Off- The Untold Story of Parliament Funkadelic, you might think you are getting a hatchet job.
It’s not. It is actually a mostly appreciative story of the bands and those involved. In as much as you can tell the story within an hour constraint, I doubt you could do much better.
I know even as a fan, P Funk has largely remained a nameless collective led by George Clinton. Bootsy Collins and Bernie Worrell were too talented. I assume many people credit Clinton as doing everything when he was more of the band leader. Eddie Hazel has seen a lot more recognition in recent years, and we can only hope the same for the likes of Fuzzy Haskins, Garry Shider, Cordell Mosson, Bigfoot Braley, Junie Morrison, Stingray Davis, Grady Thomas, and Glenn Goins among other prominent members of the band.
This documentary does a good job of trying to correct that. Famously, Clinton fought a record label over the use of the name the Parliaments and so would take two routes (Parliament and Funkadelic) and many many side projects. They would be signed to Casablanca records to much critical and commercial success.
Things went south pretty quickly in the late 70s and early 80s and the doc says Clinton couldn’t pay the band and started paying them with drugs and hooked many band members on crack cocaine.
Thus we get a glimpse of what made the band so great but we move into the more sensationalist aspects of the band’s story.
Clinton isn’t interviewed or given a chance to speak in this case, but the credits roll with a number of ex-members in pretty bad conditions. I think this documentary at least highlights the relatively unknown members of the bands who deserve attention.
That said, it’s not a particularly fun documentary. I watched the PBS History of Funk one when it came out last year and that is more in line with what people are looking for.
I always regretted not seeing Clinton perform when he came to my town with the P Funk group. But this documentary left a bad taste in my mouth about Clinton and at this point (and at that time), his hired hands which are a shell of a great band.
If you have an old timey picture for your cover of your Americana album, it’s probably gonna be good. Think of The Band’s self-titled or Willie Nelson’s Red Haired Stranger. So I think immediately the Garrett Boys knew what they are doing.
Stephen Garrett is joined with his brother and his son in the Tennessee trio. Steve Earle joins them on the opening track and it’s a fitting collaboration as their music reminds me a lot of Earle with its hints of folk, bluegrass and country music. Also fittingly, the album is produced by Ray Kennedy who has produced Earle and Lucinda Williams. Kennedy co-produced that string of Earle records from 1996 to 2004 (which are some of all my time favorites). He also co-produced (with Earle, Williams, and Roy Bittan) the seminal Williams 1998 album Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. In recent years, he has reunited with Williams to coproduce her last three albums.
Earle is a good comparison especially since Kennedy produced that amazing run of Earle albums from I Feel Alright to The Revolution Starts Now.
It’s the same style and then you have similar topics- if it’s booze (Wildcat Whiskey) unemployment (God Forsaken Town) bad jobs (Back to Akron) or murder (Pond Ridge).
The Earle song is a fantastic ditty but so also is the title track and “Who I Am”. Catchy upbeat numbers that would sound great on radio if such a station to play these songs existed.
There’s plenty of songs about heritage, family and the land. “Me and this Land”, “It Runs Deep” and “Who I Am” have the pride that still can be found in even the most outlawish of country outlaws.
I like this album a lot. I saw a local public radio station was playing a lot out of it too. This album deserves attention.
For many years, Morrissey was one of my favorite artists. He needs no introduction of course, but over his career he has gone from someone identified as one of the greatest lyricists alive to someone who seems to be only known for his constant concert cancellations and quotes that get him in hot water.
Still, I have spent so much time with Morrissey that I doubt I will ever completely leave him. Besides things have changed to the point there the music itself is available for free if you want it. I can listen blissfully knowing no money is going into his coffers if I so choose.
I loved Viva Hate and the sometimes clumsy songs that came after it. Morrissey went on a commercial and critical ladder that saw him break through in America with Your Arsenal and Vauxhall and I, and although it only made it to #46, he legitimately landed a song in the American Top 100 in 1994.
It would largely be downhill from there in terms of sales and plaudits. If I was older then maybe I would have guessed this would happen. Time always wins and there are arguably a couple of artists who made music for decades without a real stinker (Nick Cave and Tom Waits perhaps) and even those with great later-in-life records ( Dylan, Reed, Cash) who rode a rollercoaster of greatness amidst duds.
I really liked the poorly received 1995 album Southpaw Grammar- an album that for once focused on music more than lyrics and the songs upon it bookended by two near ten minute pieces. 1997s Maladjusted was similarly critically mauled but I played it to death then and still think it has some songs that hold up well.
Morrissey laid dormant for almost a decade. In 2004 he teamed with producer Jerry Finn (Blink-182, Rancid, AFI) and released You Are the Quarry. It stands as a second half start in his solo career. Well regarded, I see the online crowd of a certain age treat it with the reverence older fans had for the Smiths. It’s an age thing. That said, while I don’t hate it, I was less impressed with what I consider a downhill progression.
2006s Ringleader of the Tormentors appeared after what feels an eternity of two years and was produced by Tony Visconti (Bowie, T Rex). I do think it stands as one of his best solo albums.
He reunited with Finn for 2009’s Years of Refusal. I still generally liked his output at this point. It’s a reasonable 12 track 43 minute album but still feels like an album with some great songs and a lot of extra padding. It’d be a career highlight pared down to 8 songs.
The next album is after Finn’s passing and is 2014s World Peace is None of Your Business. Joe Chicarelli (who engineered the Joes Garage and Sheik Yerbouti albums by Frank Zappa) is now his producer. Well received by the press, I find it a bit forgettable. 2017s Low in High School did not get as positive as a reception and I similarly find it uninspiring. As a fan, I reflect back on these and realize that I didn’t spend as much time with these as much as what I normally would have, but I also didn’t seem them worthy of my time. A judgment I doubt I would change.
In 2019, Morrissey made the unusual decision to release an all cover’s album California Sun. I consider it a clunker and one of the truly awful albums to be recorded by a good artist.
He returned the next year with I Am Not A Dog on a Chain. Alain Whyte had been Moz’s main songwriter from 1992 to 2009. Boz Boorer had written songs for each album from 1994 to 2017. The combination of the two have become nearly as revered as Johnny Marr and this was the first album where neither has a songwriting credit. (Boorer does appear on roughly half of the songs).
Songwriting now falls on new band members Jesse Tobias (who briefly was in the Red Hot Chili Peppers and played for Alanis Morrissette's band) keyboard player Gustavo Manzur and bassist Mando Lopez (who spent time with the Breeders and Fear).
While not a great album by any means, I did think it was his best album in a decade and the possibility popped up that we may still get a great late era Morrissey album.
Morrissey has spent recent years touring and he has two full albums recorded. Bonfire of Teenagers has been promised since 2023 but seems caught in limbo. Produced by Andrew Watt (Ozzy Osbourne, Rolling Stones, Lady GaGa). The album reportedly has contributions from Iggy Pop, Miley Cyrus and Flea & Chad Smith from the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
In 2026, he released Make-Up is A Lie again produced by Chiccarelli. Songwriting duties are split between a returning Whyte (who appears on three tracks), Tobias, Manzur, and new addition to the band- keyboardist Camila Grey (from the band Uh Huh Her and Adam Lambert’s band).
In the past, us Morrissey fans would pore over the B-sides. I didn’t often agree with some other fans who preferred them to the official releases but I do think they were often good.
I feel the best material on Make Up is A Lie is only as good as previous B-side material. While his voice is strong, his lyrics are particularly weak. If one looks back to his Smiths work, he often ripped directly from Oscar Wilde, late 50s/early 60s British playwright Shelagh Delaney (who is pictured on Louder Than Bombs) and post war UK kitchen sink dramas. Without those inspirations, his work never really connects.
Opener You’re Right It’s Time sounds like a classic single but what follows is a mixed bag. Music on that track written by Grey, her four contributions may be the album’s strongest. Her “Lester Bangs” is another highlight though it feels like one of those B-sides. The lyrics never quite connect to their potential for me.
“Zoom Zoom the Little Boy” written by Tobias stands out in that it’s upbeat song in what feels like a bunch of dirges throughout the record, but without strong lyrics isn’t particularly memorable. Tobias is responsible for some of my favorite latter era Moz music and it’s a shame that he will probably be remembered as a Whyte/Boorer replacement. That song is followed by Tobias’s second (and only other) contribution here which is another jaunty number “The Night Pop Dropped”.
These songs give it a glammy middle that gives us a glimpse of what potential this album could have been. This middle section also has a cover of Roxy Music’s “Amazona” which is kind of a clunker.
There are some ambitious songs here like "Boulevard" and "Many Icebergs Ago" that go on past the five minute mark but ultimately aren’t very satisfying to me. I have often posited that Morrissey’s solo work would be served well by a more ambitious palate (often using Marc Almond for contrast). I have long given up hope on expecting much from Morrissey outside a standard rock song framework. Perhaps the failure of Southpaw Grammar dissuaded him. Still, one only needs to look at the contrasting praise found on recent albums by Pulp, The Cure and The The for those bands when they have been able to color outside the lines
Old Morrissey would have been spiteful in the most interesting way. “Kerching Kerching” is that on paper but the lyrics are so clunky that it feels like those old B-sides.
Like any number of musicians (cough Billy Corgan) that probably need someone to reign in their biggest failings, it’s a shadow of what it could have been.
When he revisits the unrequited love that made him famous, he is also at his best. “Headache” is a pretty good song with its whispered delivery, it could have been on Vauxhall and I. Similarly “Happy New Tears” is one of his best 2026 songs and fits the mold, though you won’t find it here. You will have to wait for the upcoming Deluxe edition to own it, though (in the meantime, it has been released as a stand alone single).
Separating the art from the artist is a 2026 problem and certainly Morrissey’s sins are less than some artists. It is easy to dismiss his work though when it isn’t good. The two singles that led off that promotional material-the title track and “Notre Dame” are particularly uninspiring- the former, a character sketch that doesn’t seem to accomplish much and the latter- even if it is unhinged conspiracy theory- suffers from the worst crime of all which is being boring.
At one time I would have pictured an elder Morrissey going away every few years and occasionally regaling us with some great latter era records. I think what we will get now is a guy who will bang out records with just enough interesting songs on them to keep me from completely writing him off.
Each decade has its trends. Growing up in the United States in the 1980s, hair metal and glam rock were the marketing hook for a lot of rock bands.
While sounds of these bands varied, I often found some of the bands that came from the vein of the blues rock of the Rolling Stones and the Faces the best. Guns N Roses came from that style. Cinderella was another one that would probably have been marketed differently if they came a decade later.
Some were more true to those Stonesy roots than others. The Quireboys (London was added to the start of their name in the US) was a favorite of mine. Jackyl was another band that was looped in. They were famous for their live concerts which featured the lead singer brandishing a chainsaw. I saw them 20 years ago and they were certainly more Southern Rock than anything.
Of all these bands, my favorite might be the Black Crowes who had six hits on the Billboard 100 from 1992-4 and were constantly on MTV and took six songs to # 1 on the US Rock chart.
While their first two albums went top 10, their third Amorica just missed it at # 11. It also seemed to be the beginning of a commercial decline. Fourth album Three Snakes and One Charm seemed to have got fairly positive reviews but there was no longer the constant MTV presence. This was 1996 and the golden era of the Black Crowes now seemed to be over.
Their 1999 album By Your Side found them off the American Records label (though Columbia took them on). Guitarist Marc Ford and bassist Johnny Colt had left the band and were not to be found on the album. The Black Crowes never went away but they were starting to fade. Personally, I was taking less and less notice of them.
They released a live album paired with Jimmy Page in 2000 and it got buzz. A new album Lions came out the next year (the band choosing not to go any further with Page).
Eight years passed and maybe the biggest news about Warpaint was the Maxim magazine review. Despite a review published in the March 2008 issue, the band revealed that they had not sent any pre-release material, thus the review surely was only based on the radio edit single that was available at that time. Thus Maxim had written and published a review of the album without actually listening to it.
I had not followed the band in years but there is a noteworthy change this time. Luther Dickinson of the North Mississippi All Stars had joined the band.
There were Rich Robinson solo albums, Chris Robinson Brotherhood albums and many lineup changes (Dickinson would leave as well as drummer Steve Gorman who played on the first nine albums.).
Ten years passed without a full length Crowes album of new material.
That is an easy way for me to jump to 2024s Happiness Bastards. The Robinson brothers may be the only names most people might recognize in the lineup that has picked up keyboardist Erik Deutsch (Leftover Salmon, Shooter Jennings). The Crowes had always maintained some rock fans but the fact that Mojo magazine named it a favorite album of the year made me took notice, though I didn’t investigate further.
When 2026s A Pound of Feathers came out, I couldn’t ignore the buzz I was seeing on vinyl forums.
Listening to lead single “Profane Prophecy” I was hooked. The Crowes always had sounded like the Faces and the Stones and so they do here too. It does help that 21st Century production has updated their sound. Jay Joyce who produced their previous album is here and he has a CV of the modern country sound of Eric Church, Lainey Wilson, and Miranda Lambert, but also John Hiatt, Patty Griffin, Orville Peck and Cage the Elephant.
It’s a nice swagger that holds up the first part of the album quite well. They don’t sound like a band ten albums and 30 plus years in. There is plenty of Mick and Keef style grit in songs like “Cruel Streak” transitioning into less obvious singles and finally the second half ends with more adventurous fare like the five minute closer “Doomsday Doggerel” which doesn’t quite land for me.
That said, the Black Crowes have landed a memorable album in 2026 after a long career that continues to evolve.
Over the years, the Dandy Warhols have worked their way onto the list of my favorite bands.
I was never crazy about the name but I have learned to love it.
There were MTV hits, appearances on CD compilations I bought and of course, they appeared in the infamous rock documentary Dig!
While my friends (and many others) watched it and fell in love with the ramshackle Brian Jonestown Massacre, I opted to cheer for the Warhols.
The band recorded two records that I consider essential - 2000s Tales from Urban Bohemia produced by Dave Sardy and its follow up 2003s Welcome to The Monkey House produced by Tony Visconti and Duran Duran’s Nick Rhodes.
The band has stayed busy in the ensuing decades trying different sounds and themes. 2024s Rockmaker being the closest to a legitimate comeback record. The band with a harder sound made an album filled with stars- Debbie Harry, Slash, Black Francis, and The Shins’ James Mercer.
It’s a conundrum for any band that has put in decades of work and the Warhols haven’t quite been able to consistently find that magic, so doing an all covers album seems like the kind of thing that might get that mojo working again.
Everyone should be familiar with “Pin Ups” the 1973 David Bowie album where he recorded covers of his favorite songs of his teenage years. Recorded in the midst of some of his strongest albums, many fans seem to hate it. While I won’t spend that much time defending it, I do enjoy it in bits.
It also has become the defining album of recording “personal influential” cover songs, something artists would start doing with more regularity.
My favorite Pin Ups reference is Glenn Danzig’s personal reflection -2015s Skeletons in which he records Black Sabbath and Elvis Presley songs (among others) and the cover is an homage to Bowie with the then-60-year old Danzig and adult actress Kayden Kross in a goth tribute to the original cover.
So I knew a bit of what to expect from the 2025 Dandy Warhols album Pin Ups. Its track listing is a bit strange but the strongest parts can be found in the strangeness.
The Warhols surely have some synergy with the glammy hard rock band The Cult and so two of their tunes are covered here to great effect - She Sells Sanctuary and Rain. The glam comes through. As it does with The Cure’s “Primary” which maybe shouldn’t but does sound like a Dandy Warhols song.
Elsewhere it is the 70s sounds of America’s “Sister Golden Hair” and a double dose of Dylan -“Lay Lady Lay” and “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere”.
No one would advise a band to try covering these songs but for some reason it seems to work.
Most of the time, things fall exactly as you would expect them like covering the New York Dolls’ “Jet Boy” and the Cramps’ “Goo Goo Muck” - and ultimately are good because the original can’t be messed with.
There are a couple of missteps. The Beatles “Blackbird” somehow fades into Lo-fi while Marilyn Manson’s “Beautiful People” while not only feeling out of place, just doesn’t seem to quite gel.
Overall, this is a surprisingly fun listen.
A collection of great songs given an airy psychedelic air by the Dandy’s. Unlike their heroes Duran Duran (who gave us the much maligned covers album Thank You in 1995), here's a record I will revisit time and time again.
One of my favorite albums of 2025 (and the last few years really) was “Ghost Palace” by the Burning Hell. The Burning Hell is largely the project of singer/songwriter Matthias Kom and instrumentalist Areil Sharratt. The songs are very droll and twist and turn in unexpected ways. If I had to think of similar bands, Half Man Half Biscuit, Magnetic Fields and They Might Be Giants come to mind though none of those comparisons are perfect.
I took notice of a new release that was a collaboration with Carsie Blanton released earlier this year and being sold for one dollar. I am not familiar with her but a quick look and you can guess her style with album titles like “After the Revolution” and song titles like “Ugly Nasty Commie B*tch” and “Hello Comrade”, you’re probably going to get some leftie protest folk music.
As a child of the 80s, angry punk music was the definitive sound of resistance to Reagan and Thatcher. At least, it would seem so. But the most subversive music I have heard in the last 30 or so years is not loud.
Chumbawamba’s last recording was a late 19th century style musical called “Big Society!” Danbert Nobacon - a Chumbawamba alumni - regularly hops across all kind of genres to keep the anarchic spirt alive. Jello Biafra came from the fast loud 1980s but will alternately serve up industrial or country or folk or any of a number of random genres.
“Everything is Great” might be the most subversive album I have heard in years.
At first glance, I thought I knew what to expect- from the opening title track to song titles like “Live Laugh Loot” and “Fascists are Good”- clearly this is an album that is playing with humor.
What I didn’t expect (although given the artists involved maybe I should have) was that the wit would be so biting and unexpected. “The Price of Eggs” starts as a mild mannered ditty but escalates quickly.
“The War to End All Wars” sounds like a military ballad, but takes place in a future where anarchism has won. American progressives complain that Chuck Schumer capitulates to the Republicans and sure enough, Chuck shows up in “Peace and Freedom”
Any way, I can’t endorse anything here. Though the sounds are pleasing throughout, this is just too subversive to sign my name to.
I have long wanted to collect past concert memories, and today you will hear about a small Chicago-based rockabilly band named the Bottletones.
They were in my opinion the best band in my then hometown (Carbondale, Illinois) in the 1990s before moving to Chicago. There really wasn’t much of an Americana genre yet so who knows if they might have arrived later.
They were kind of jokey- what you would call psychobilly like the Cramps or Rev Horton Heat, with a cover of Tom Waits “Jockey Full of Bourbon” as their signature live song.
I generally don’t rhapsodize about local scenes but when they put out Corn Rampin in 1995 there were a few really good local bands and it was exciting. I didn’t know the band but had mutual friends. Vocalist Scratch Bottletone seemed older than he probably was, and more depraved than he probably was (and yes they all had the last name Bottletone a la the Ramones).
They were one of the few bands of the time with stand up bass when the Stray Cats were about the only band that did that (Sure there were bands like the Guana Batz and the Meteors but most Americans didn't know them. Today, there are plenty of bands like this touring -Nekromantix, Koffin Kats, and so on that popped up in the late 90s and after). The guitarist played fast like Billy Zoom from the band X.
In 1999, there was the Sheriff of Bottletone County as the band had moved to Chicago and trying to break in, still playing Carbondale quite a bit.
That album really captures their sound and I would put it up against any Rockabilly album of the last 30 years. It's that good.
I know the band had sort of broken up or (at least weren’t in the Carbondale area) on the early 2000s but I know that they recorded with Steve Albini (their Facebook page details how they gave him a can of pork and beans that he treasured) and they recorded a final album in 2001 Adult Time (possibly named for an adult book store off the interstate in Southern Illinois).
They reunited in 2019, placed a few live dates and released a new album that year “Alone & Rollin” which is quite good.
All their albums are up on streaming and they don’t have a ton of monthly listeners, so check them out. Their Bandcamp is mainly odds and ends with a 1999 live concert that they didn’t plan on releasing. Right now I couldn’t say that I was in the crowd, but the odds are pretty good.
There are a few articles on the internet about them (one of the members must have played in a Chicago area band called Hillbilly Idle that is now defunct). I always thought the Bottletones were a fun band and deserved a bigger audience.
Chicago based band Brigitte Calls Me Baby released their debut The Future is Our Way Out in 2024. They are a band who proudly wears their influence on the sleeve.
Led by singer Wes Leavins who supports a rockabilly quiff and named after his teenage correspondence to Brigitte Bardot. Leavins played Elvis in a Chicago production of Million Dollar Quartet and then worked on Baz Luhrman’s Elvis biopic. Crooning over rock music, the band opened for Morrissey in 2025, and recorded a cover of Wham!’s “Careless Whisper”.
I thought The Future is Our Way Out was a great album. The song propelled by a handful of songs that sounded like radio singles. Songs like “Impressively Average” cut right out from the Morrissey cloth.
It is not surprising that BCMB leans into the same sound on their follow up. There is definitely a market of music that sounds like the Smiths, particularly when Morrissey himself has seemed to lost some of his lyrical touch.
Right off the bat, “There Always” opens up the proceedings with Leavins leaning into a cod Moz voice and lovelorn lyrics which sounds like I am complaining but the melody rescues it.
Not only vocalwise, the band sways with the confidence of Morrissey.
Lyrics like “I bought the Blue Velvet DVD. I brought it to the Slumber Party” are unlikely to land. But like any crooner worth their salt, he sells like it’s the most important thing in the world, and it works on “Slumber Party”.
Though the album didn’t knock me out completely on first listen, it has surprising depth. They can still write a song that sounds like a hit single, for example “I Can Take the Sun Out of the Sky” and there really aren’t any skippable tracks. For those who long for the days of the Smiths or Duran Duran, Brigitte Calls Me Baby are here for you
Not having watched a good rock documentary in some time, I watched the 2025 Amazon Prime promoted Billy Idol Should Be Dead.
For those early elementary school days, Billy Idol was my absolute favorite artist. I don’t know that anyone liked him as much as me. At least that was how I felt until distant cousin visited from Indiana and he felt the same as me. He even had the four track Don’t Stop (featuring Mony Mony and a 12minute interview)
Billy Idol without a doubt is a particularly American phenomenon. The right person at the right time as MTV was launched.
Take a glance at his UK charts and it’s a shadow of his American success.
Of course, Idol was part of the “Bromley Contigent” and legitimately was at the beginning of the UK punk scene. He’s often unfairly treated by critics. I remember in high school finding the “Generation X” album at a record store and buying it. Idol wasn’t “lower class” and certainly his music reflected his love of rock and not angry politics.
The doc shows those days and the appearance on Marc Bolan’s show and that Marc’s endorsement would have likely catapulted him to fame, but it would be the last show, their performance overshadowed by both Bowie jamming with Bolan and Bolan’s surprising death.
With more experience, Idol seems a bit of caricature- the spirit of punk and new wave boiled down to commercial product. Yet, he wouldn’t have been such a star if he didn’t have the pop sensibility and the personality to pull it off. The sound of the era was disco turning into rock and Idol was one of the main ones to define it. He was smart enough to go with an unknown producer who got him- Keith Forsey (Forsey had been drummer for Giorgio Mororder and played on many classic tracks like “Call Me” and “Hot Stuff”)
The movie is directed by Jonas Akerlund who is probably best known for for his music videos- Madonna’s “Ray Of Light”, Beyoncé and Lady Gaga’s “Telephone”, and Prodigy’s controversial “Smack my B- Up”.
He keeps things moving fast and keeps it entertaining. Of course, there’s a lot of focus on the self-destructive element, but it’s not overly tabloid.
There are real pathos in the story of Idol’s relationships to his father, long time companion Perri Lister, and his children.
I expected a bit more discussion on Idol’s relationship with guitarist Steve Stevens who was such a big part of his success. But that’s small complaint. He’s here as are Lister, Forsey, Tony James, Gene October, Nile Rodgers and Idol’s mother and sister among others.
If you took my complaint to go deeper seriously, it would result in a 12 hour movie so let’s say we got it. There’s no mention of The Wedding Singer movie sadly, but the image of Idol in that movie feels real- despite the fact Idol probably partied too hard for a time and would have been miserable to have been around at his lowest- he comes across as a genuinely good guy.
There’s no mention of any music after 1993 which is probably fair as I don’t think they have had a ton of impact. Of course, there’s a vague tie in at the end to his latest album.
The movie does cover Cyberpunk- his 1993 album which sits high on a lot of “worst album of all time” lists. It is as one talking head says (paraphrasing) that it is surprising and also not surprising that it got the reaction it did. Drawing from William Gibson novels and being an early champion of the internet, it is “of its time” and surprisingly “ahead of its time”. It’s also probably simple enough - just not good enough with Stevens gone and a solid decade run on the charts. Sometimes, that is just how things end up.
So while I would love an in depth take on that second Generation X album, one can’t expect it and this film generally works- explaining the appeal of Idol someone who tapped into the charisma of Elvis and JFK and lived his life as Billy Idol 24/7.
I have often spoken that in elementary school, I preferred the new wave sounds which boys in my school generally didn’t like- Duran Duran, Adam Ant, Frankie Goes to Hollywood. The popular artists with boys were the coming of heavy metal - Ted Nugent, Quiet Riot, Journey and so on. But Billy Idol sort of rode that 80s wave where he could appeal to both. I will never forget going to school and telling someone that I wanted to get the greatest hits remix compilation “Vital Idol” (it was the only place you could get Mony Mony besides Don’t Stop) , but being rebuked by a classmate who said “No. You are not supposed to pronounce it that way, don’t you know. It’s pronounced “Vi’le I’le”
I first heard Zach Bryan about the time most people did with 2022s American Heartbreak. I was on a lot of long road trips and found his music was playing all over Sirius XM- from the mainstream country station to the American alternative station to the rock station.
In 2023, his self titled album would be a commercial and critical success. It was an easy prediction for me to say that at some time the country music roller coaster would spit him out and he would come out of it angry and writing some killer albums like Steve Earle had done.
2024s The Great American Bar Scene made things happen like nothing I could have foreseen. He had previously taken two songs to the # 1 position on the country charts, and though Pink Skies only got to #3, it somehow felt bigger. Maybe it was the sold out Arena tours. Maybe it was that he reached a certain ubiquitous on country radio now that he had a handful of songs getting play.
Maybe it was that he didn’t fit in with the country radio scene. Or maybe that the scene was starting to move from “party songs” to more earnest songwriter music like Bryan.
But besides being supremely talented, like young Earle, he seemed to be possessed by that artistic streak for self-destruction. He was arrested in 2023 for interference at a traffic stop. More concerningly, when he should have been celebrating a successful 2024, he was in the news because of a messy breakup with girlfriend Brianna LaPaglia (Bri is a podcaster for “bro sports” franchise Barstool Sports) that played out in public.
As good as Bryan’s music is, it’s those kind of headlines that turn people off. In 2025, he got into an online fight with singer John Moreland, an artist that he had previously collaborated with. Then later in the year, he got into an actual physical fight with country singer Gavin Adcock at a music festival.
If Bryan was going to have “rough and rowdy” days, he was having them, but 2026 could be maturity. He got married to someone without a public profile. He has also massively invested in the legacy of Jack Kerouac, purchasing the museum in Lowell, Massachusetts and the original typewriter scrolls of On The Road and Dharma Bums.
He also started out the year releasing a new album, too- With Heaven on Top. As a Bryan fan, I am impressed with the new offering which starts with a poem and then 24 new tracks. He had Bruce Springsteen guest on his last album, and it’s a quick connect-the-dots to see the influence. That said, it’s not a negative, Bryan effortlessly tell stories that usually top out at 3 minutes.
He also the bitterness of an old pop star already. “Bad News” was one of the first high profile songs to call out ICE raids. “Appetite” finds Bryan in northern Arkansas playing to “those who don’t care at all” - a lyric trainspotters try to guess might be a Wal Mart or Tyson Foods corporate gig. Elsewhere, Bryan struggles with God, Exs and the bottles.
It’s a lot existential angst for someone who ended up scoring two bonafide hit singles on the charts with this album.
As someone who like most people knew him only from radio airplay and then circled back to his early records, these songs are cut out of the same cloth. Bryan’s career feels like he doesn’t necessarily care about albums, he’s just as likely to throw out a fantastic single on an EP, which he seems to do quite abit.
He has also been amazingly prolific. That said, the songs do hang together as an album. As much as it may seem lazy to compare him to Steve Earle- the parallels are too great.
Looking at Wikipedia, his latest singles chart on both rock and country charts. That he didn't seem to put out any music in 2025 (after releasing roughly 75 songs in the previous three years) was a scary thought that he could go reclusive, but he hasn't missed a beat.
This album also can’t escape the Springsteen comparisons either and I suppose The River or Nebraska have an American country feel to them. (Earle and Springsteen have strong connections to Johnny Cash of course with their songs). Bryan has collaborated with a variety of artists that only a few people like Earle or Springsteen might boast of (Kacey Musgraves, Kings of Leon, John Mayer, Charles Wesley Godwin, Bon Iver, Noah Kahan, The War and Treaty, the Lumineers, Sierra Ferrell, Maggie Rogers and the aforementioned Moreland). That said, this album doesn’t have star studded duets like the previous two long players and recent EPs.
It is largely Bryan. He wrote all the songs and produced the album. The backing band is made of people that appear on some of his previous work but don’t include any names that most people would recognize.
It would seem to say Bryan has reached his commercial peak since he has an amount of airplay over the past three years that few ever achieved and he packed stadiums.
Whether that will continue is anyone’s guess and seems unlikely given the fact I think Bryan prioritizes art over commerce. Then again, like a Springsteen or Earle, I had no doubt with this much talent, he is going to have a solid fanbase, and the trade offs will be worth it.
This album has a handful of songs that would make anyone’s greatest hits- “Say Why”, “Miles”, “Bad News”, “Appetite”, “Runny Eggs” and “Plastic Cigarette”. These songs are some of the best of any songwriter’s catalog. The world weary music and “getting older and getting clean” lyrics have the sense of realism of The Boss’s best work. Even among the songs that don’t hit this level, there aren’t any songs that feel like filler. Needless to say, I am already reserving a spot for this one on my year end "Best Of"
I first became aware of Heavenly from the college radio station in the nineties. They were signed to K Records which history has shown to be one of American indie rocks most important record labels. They were one of the foremost places for riot grrl but they also a good deal of female led jangle and indie pop bands that I loved. Besides Heavenly, there was Lois, The Softies and Tiger Trap. But down the roster there were a lot of interesting artists. Beck, Beat Happening and Karp all had records. When indie rock cooled, they anticipated the next generation- the first EP from Modest Mouse, the first album from the Microphones and a compilation of songs by Built to Spill.
Heavenly made four albums in the 90s and a couple of EPs- all worth while (despite NME giving a complete roast review on 1992s Le Jardin de Heavenly). The band broke up in 1996 not because they had run their course but because drummer Matthew Fletcher committed suicide. There was a 1999 album with a spinoff band Marine Research and four albums a decade later from a further spinoff called Tender Trap.
I cannot mention Heavenly though without some mention of the previous band that Matthew, his sister and lead singer Amelia Fletcher, and guitarist Peter Momtchiloff were in. Talulah Gosh was a John Peel favorite and their short 1986-1988 existence predates Morrissey’s solo career, Belle and Sebastian and so much more. They weren’t on the seminal C86 album (as were Primal Scream, the Wedding Present and the Soup Dragons) but they were part of that scene which birthed indie pop forming as a band that bonded over a shared love for the Pastels. They only recorded a total of 29 songs and most of that stuff was hard to find until they were collected for a compilation in 2013
Parallel to the K Records story in America, they were signed to Sarah Records in the UK. That’s a fantastic story too but it was largely a mystery to me in the US
Heavenly reunited in 2023 and released a single in 2025.
Heavenly started 2026 by announcing a new album and February brought us Highway to Heavenly - their first album in 30 years.
It’s nice to see that the band hasn’t missed a step and that if you liked their particular brand of music, then you will be happy with the new album. It is also a testament that the music- vocal harmony, intelligent lyrics, catchy hooks and mid-song shifts still sounds cutting edge. Heavenly predates Belle and Sebastian, Camera Obscura, and the Shins but they don’t sound out of touch. This is quite an enjoyable return from a long time favorite.
Gogol Bordello are a favorite band of mine. Like the Pogues, they debuted with two largely unheard albums that created a sound that hadn’t come before. (The Pogues on two records that were “import only” in the US, Gogol with two albums for the small Rubric label).
The Pogues’ third and fourth albums were their breakout-.the sound finding itself distilled into something more accessible - similarly Gogol Bordello had that moment where the energy of their first releases gelled into a trademark sound- 2005s Gypsy Punks produced by Steve Albini and 2007s Super Taranta produced by Victor Van Vugt (Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, Beth Orton).
There’s probably not been a bad Gogol Bordello album. It is interesting that they have continued to work with top name producers for 2010s Trans Continental Hustle (Rick Rubin) and 2013s Pura Vida Conspiracy (Andrew Scheps (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica, Adele) before self producing 2017 Seekers and Finders.
But it might be 2022s Soldaritine that might be the group’s masterpiece. It’s unlikely for any band to have their ninth album be so good but it was truly inspired. It is impossible to separate the song from the reality of the day as it is inspired by a theme of supporting Ukraine which was being invaded by Russia. But also inspired by punk. There’s a cover of Fugazi’s “Blueprint”, a cameo from HR of Bad Brains and the album is produced by Quicksand/Gorilla Biscuits guitarist Walter Schriefels.
The band always seems to have an eye on what they can do different and 2025s We Mean It Man is definitely a new sound. The opening track and lead single is the title track which I assume is a Sex Pistols reference, but it threw me off (as did the people I knew who were looking forward to this).
It’s manic but in a different way. It actually reminds me of digital hardcore band Atari Teenage Riot.
Things do calm down and hit their stride on the next few tracks which more define the sound. “Life is Possible Again” sounds New Wave but not 80s MTV but the Eastern European version. Then “No Time For Idiots” isn’t quite New Wave either. It has the same energy as say U2s Achtung Baby- pulling those influences without sounding particularly dated.
The album despite its first disappointing listen expands to a satisfying new version of the old Gogol. Not quite new wave or dance, but strangely pulling post punk influences for something quite rocking, with an occasional oddball notion like “From Boyarca to Boyaka” which is just perfectly pop.
They have elected to have Nick Launay produce this one. The producer behind classic post punk albums by Killing Joke and PIL, most of Nick Cave’s more recent work, much of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs catalog, and a significant number of Australian bands like INXS, Midnight Oil , and Silverchalr. It is an inspired pick as the album definitely has those influences.
There's also a guest co-lead vocal from Bernard Sumner for a cover of the Angelic Upstarts anthem “Solidarity” rewritten as an Ukraine anthem, the original song being written as a tribute to the Solidarity movement in Poland in the 1980s.
The result like the rest of the catalog is that it is an album that proves a fine end to end listen. Eugene Hutz and band know how to vary things enough to make it not a carbon copy but something new. Songs like “Solidarity” and “We did Good With the Good we did” could have fit on the last album and definitely fit the vibe of a sequel.
In any case, I am glad I spent time with this and it’s exciting to see a band that never gives up on trying something new.
I first heard SPRINTS on their debut- 2024s Letter to Self. It was a post punk blast of energy not muh different from what we might hear from IDLES, Wet Leg or Fontaines DC.
2025’s All That Is Over climbed a bit higher into the mainstream consciousness . WIth (mostly) single word titles and three minute songs, it is hard not to be won over. Particularly when the Irish band delivers perfectly on “Descartes”.
Opener “Abandon” is a slow intense song recalling Joy Division but it’s mostly bluster after that. But pinning them down just as a punk band is oversimplifying too. On “Something’s Gonna Happen” it sort of melds the Post punk influences into something that could satisfy an arena. The same can be said for a song like “Beg” that starts sounding like a Factory Records recording that twists into an angry punk tune. Closer “Desire” is over 6 minutes long building into a guitar fueled ball of rage and is probably closer to PJ Harvey or Hole than it is to Wet Leg.
I am nostalgic for the alternative boom of the 90s and I am nostalgic for the early 00s, but it does seem like we are seeing a new boom of bands like this.
