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.
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.
There are few artists that have had such an impact on me that I feel the need to track down every release that they have ever made.
One of those is JG Thirlwell who has a 40 year career where he has mostly recorded under the name Foetus. Occasionally that moniker is part of an elaborate sentence that features the word- Scraping Foetus Under the Wheel, You’ve Got Foetus On Your Breath, Foetus Interruptus, and so on.
I first heard Foetus on public radio but also because of a friend who was familiar with his work. It was the 90s and all of his work - both the obscure and his more well known albums- were being re-released by Thirsty Ear.
Though his first couple of albums are rudimentary, they are helping invent the industrial genre. In 1984 and 1985, he released Hole and Nail, two classic albums that are industrial and yet something more.
I am going to skip to 1995. Foetus is working as a remixer for Nine Inch Nails and Columbia Records has decided to release his album. This is the weird days of Alt Rock where major labels signed artists that otherwise would never have been signed - Daniel Johnston, Ween, Boredoms, King Missile, Butthole Surfers, Unsane.
That year’s album Gash gets mixed reviews these days but I think it’s a masterpiece. Given a big budget, Thirlwell goes from industrial to big band to Arabic melodies in a mishmash of genre stylings. The production is clean, the wordplay is clever, the music intense.
These would mark the second half of his career, as would the decision to simply be called Foetus and to be credited by his birth name as opposed to the early records which were credited to monikers like Clint Ruin and Frank Want.
Foetus had been prolific and Thirlwell remained that way by releasing other projects like Manorexia, Xordox, and Steroid Maximus, as well releasing soundtrack work under the JG Thirlwell name.
Six years passed before we got Flow, which did what Gash did and possibly even better. I would sign off on it being his masterwork. Where his early work was easily categorized as manic blasts or maybe what the Damned called “mindless directionless energy”, Flow was the sound of someone in internal torment working out psychological struggles in his head. If Edward Munch’s “The Scream” had music, perhaps it would sound like this.
In retrospect, 2005s Love had high expectations to live up to. But Love, a more restrained affair largely works with its ambition and quality songwork. Thirlwell had done it once again.
Albums followed in 2010 and 2013 (the companion pieces Hide and Soak) and remix albums were sprinkled throughout but Foetus went mostly dormant.
Thirlwell was busy making music that sounded like the coolest spy shows that hadn’t been made, so when shows like Archer and the Venture Bros came out, it had to be a no brainer to hire him for the soundtrack. Having made the blueprint that Nine Inch Nails and Ministry took to filling arenas, I am happy to see him get a nice big (hopefully) payday.
His other projects put out fantastic work like the spacey Xordox, and he remained a big name remixer for artists like Faith No More, Current 93 and John Carpenter.
But it sounded like Thirlwell was done with the Foetus world which meant one final album- the appropriately named Halt, the final of many four world titled LPs in his career, released the week of Christmas 2025.
In many ways, Halt feels like a third part to Gash and Flow. The titles sound like a list of complaints- The World is Broken, Die Alone, Dead to Me, Scurvy.
The production is clear. Thirlwell who often worked alone is joined here with some collaborators like Brian Chase of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Leah Asher of the Rhythm Method, and Simon Hanes of Tredici Bacci. Not surprisingly the production is crystal clear, this is a guy who’s been behind the desk for Swans, Sonic Youth and Boss Hog.
The songs themselves stand out separately but I am always going to have a tough time judging this against a discography that I consider on of the greatest. I wish the songs had more variety between them. The “remote control clicker” effect of jumping genres from track to track as he did on Gash or Love probably would have made more an impact. Also, the crystal clear production somewhat feels like a blessing and a curse. I think it might have sounded better if it was a bit dirtier. But individually in five and six minute bursts of noise, I find myself finding the Thirlwell I fell in love with.
Still, if Foetus is going to end, it likely would sound like the individual brain fighting itself in anguish which is the sound of this album and appropriately for someone with so many different projects (and differently named projects) ending in a track called “Many Versions of Me”.
That my expectations are so high for an end to a career also means I am baffled that the album is only available on Bandcamp (and released in the dead zone of December and with only one video on YouTube to promote it) though maybe that just means Thirlwell wanted to share with his closest fans. As he has with most of his later work, Thirlwell plans to pair it with another forthcoming release, which means we should see at least that piece (entitled LEAK) according to the artist in 2027.
I read an interview with Iggy Pop awhile back where he said the best guitarists were thugs. He was talking about his Stooges, but given their history, he probably was thinking of the MC5s Wayne Kramer as well.
I bought “Kick out the Jams” likely just based on its reputation without hearing it first.
Although I never liked the MC5 as much as I did the Stooges, there was no denying its energy. There was real anger in its politics. In many ways the first step in the political side of punk.
Though arguably its lineage is punk, I think most would agree that it is more accurate to call it proto heavy metal. While the New York Dolls and Ramones picked from girl groups and surf rock, the MC5 pulled from Jazz, Blues, ames Brown and Sun Ra.
That said, I think it’s well deserving of its reputation and although it was seemingly downhill from there, there are a few standout songs in their discography like “Looking at You”.
It is that reputation that made me interested in Kramer’s autobiography- 2018s The Hard Stuff.
It’s not a perfect book by any means but Kramer is still a fascinating character.
The more interesting parts of the book are unsurprisingly about the 5. Kramer has famously stated that the “Kick out the Jams” performance was not one of their strongest moments and the band’s live performances were even better still.
As history has shown, the band was marred by self destructive behavior and record company fumbling. I find it fascinating that since the MC5 were speaking to such highly principled ideas, the fans’ expectations became unrealistic and they turned on them.
It’s hard to describe Kramer’s life as anything but starts and stops. It feels like any biography of an addict. With the MC5 no longer a going concern, Kramer takes up small crimes. He famously ends up in prison in the mid 70s.
After his stint there, Kramer starts a band with Johnny Thunders called Gang War, writes songs with Mick Farren, and finds some fame in playing with an early lineup of Was (Not Was). But that artistic and commercial well dries up and Kramer finds himself having to go into carpentry and woodwork to make a living. I can’t help but think of Kramer’s time in Key West where he was an anonymous member in a bar band.
I was always excited that Kramer got the late life career resurrection. I always found him sort of a mismatch to Epitaph Records label that signed him (home of Bad Religion, No FX and the Offspring).
This book gives the truth that these years and the MC5/DTK (a partial MC5 reunion) were not quite the Hollywood ending that us fans hoped them to be.
This book came out in 2018 and Kramer at age 70 finally seems to have found peace. He’s making jazz music and it’s having success. He has cleaned his life up and he would be taking the MC5 back on the road (as the last active member surrounded by band fans like Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron and Brendan Canty.
He also spearheaded Jail Guitar Doors USA- an American branch of the prison social outreach started by Billy Bragg in the UK named after a Clash song that referenced Kramer in its lyrics. In the afterword, he has also adopted a son and became a father.
Kramer led an interesting life and he can tell a story. Some reviewers say the book focused too much on his rehab, but it is key to his story and I didn’t find that a negative.
It isn’t surprising that there would be a MC5 reunion album. From 2003 on with brief hiatuses, the band was often alive in some form. From 2018 until February of 2020, as the band now celebrated their 50th anniversary, Kramer announced a world tour that was billed MC50 and was the band that was featured in Kramer’s book.
Post pandemic, in 2022, Kramer was ready to bring back the MC5, hitting all the media to say We Are All the MC5. With so many members passed away including singer Rob Tyner, it’s not quite the same but you also can’t blame Kramer for keeping the band alive. His plan was a new tour and a new album.
The roots of this likely came in Alice Cooper’s 2021 album Detroit Stories. That album was Cooper writing a love letter to Deroit, and in doing so reunited the classic Alice Cooper Band lineup for two of the album’s tracks. The album was produced by Bob Ezrin who had produced the classic Cooper albums.
But also of interest, Kramer played on most every track and cowrote three of the album’s 12 original tracks with Cooper.
Heavy Lifting, that anticipated MC5 release did not see release until October 2024. Sadly, the last two remaining members had passed away- Kramer passed away in February that year followed by drummer Dennis Thompson that May.
I am not sure what my expectations of Heavy Lifting were. To be sure, expecting an album like Kick Out the Jams is not realistic.
Kramer has put together a real lineup for the band with Arizona based singer Brad Brooks as cowriter for the material, and a band that includes Don Was, 90s guitar hero Stevie Salas, Vicki Randle of the Tonight Show with Jay Leno band and Abe Laboriel Jr who often plays drums for Paul McCartney.
Not surprisingly he also find a lot of guests to cameo- Slash of Guns N Roses, Tom Morello, Vernon Reid, Tim McIlreath of Rise Against and William Duvall who is the current singer of Alice In Chains. Ezrin produces and Dennis Thompson plays on two tracks.
Not surprising given the guests, I think the sound is probably closer to Hard Rock than Punk. You hear elements of grunge, Living Color and Rage Against the Machine.
It doesn’t have a ton of personality sadly and falls a bit in my opinion. That said, it does have a certain kick and I think it’s a nice bookend piece to Kramer’s career and life.
It hits the mark enough that I can’t help but wondering where it could gain an audience if it had been released in a different era. . There’s not a ton of rock records getting played these days but this certainly is in that category of recent albums by Cooper and Blue Oyster Cult that FM diehards have bought in quantity. There is a heavy blues rock sound that is definitely the 5’s trademark and the current audience of that genre would probably dig it.
Stylistically, there is a certain 80s quality. Not unlike Living Colour or The Cult, it might have done well in the era of glam rock. Wanting to overthink alternate history, would this album have given Kramer a resurrection in the Lollapalooza era of the 90s. Given he was signed to Epitaph, it is doubtful that it would have been any different.
But it is generally enjoyable.
At best when it’s straightforward like the opening title track with Morello or the similar or the lead single “Boys Who Play With Matches”. Melodic track “Blind Eye” with Thompson on drums is a particular high point and I wish more songs had a little bit of pop punk sheen like it. Instead it’s probably closer to the post grunge that these days are called (not) pejoratively as Butt Rock.
The album included a bonus disc of the MC50 band playing the classics. In 2025, there was an additional release attributed to the MC50 featuring a lineup with Thayill, Canty, Billy Gould of Faith No More, Marcus Durant of Zen Guerilla and Kramer.
This album hits the three original classic albums and a cover of Ray Charles’s “I Believe to my Soul”- an old setlist constant that the band played. It serves as a surprisingly good introduction to the band. The band is in fine form with all of the energy one comes to associate with the MC5.
One of my favorite albums of the still young century is 2004s No Cities Left, the breakthrough second album by Montreal band the Dears.
The band opened for Morrissey in 2004 and comparisons with their singer Murray Lightburn has been a blessing and a curse. While it surely helped them get an audience, Lightburn comes from a jazz background (his dad was a jazz musician) and there is a more cinematic element in his music à la Leonard Cohen, Tindersticks and Pulp.
While I am not sure they ever eclipsed that breakout album. the band has (in my mind) largely avoided any missteps in their prolific career. In 2020, the band released their eighth album Lover’s Rock.
One will occasionally find an album that no one else enjoys, and for me that might be Lovers Rock. Reviews were mostly good though some like the NME blasted it. Many a reviewer was quick to point out that Lightburn and bandmate Natalia Yanchak had been married for a couple of decades by now, but it sounded like a breakup record.
The band rightfully choosing to self produce had stripped their sound a bit (though not fully - for example Jake Clemons of the E Street Band is here) and it felt in many ways like a throwback to No Cities Left.
I find it a late era masterpiece the likes few bands can claim.
2025s Life is Beautiful! Life is Beautiful! Life is Beautiful! surely evokes a positive feeling follow up to Lovers Rock from the album title to the life affirming song “Life is Beautiful” near the end of the album.
While I prefer its predecessor, there are plenty of great moments. “Babe, We will Find A Way” is as good of a song as they have ever done.
"This is How We Make Our Dream Come True" feels like a cousin to the Sparks song “Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth”
Tomorrow and Tomorrow is direct from Leonard Cohen’s “Memories”, with soulful uplifting singing from Lightburn. “Tears of a Nation” is a hard rocker that balances U2- style arena anthems and hard Goth guitar riffs. “Dead Contacts” is probably actually the closest the band has come to making a Morrissey sounding song in awhile.
“Life is Beautiful” is almost too sunshine positive to be enjoyable but as switches to closer “Don’t Go” it feels an essential piece.
Though the band has not said it (and may not have intended it), this feels like a bookend to their last album. If Lovers Rock was the dissolution of a relationship and all the negativity that comes with it, this album is almost solely focused on the positive. The album is again bolstered by smart production, keen songwriting and a tendency towards short punchy songs.
I am still shocked by the number of reviewers (not just the NME) who hated the last album. That album is without a question, one of my favorites in the last ten years. To me, this album falls short of that, but I definitely don’t feel any disappointment.
If you know me, you know I am a huge fan of Soft Cell. It’s a joke but the gateway to most people finding music they like is greatest hits. There were some great compilations that left lasting impacts on my generation.
There of course the duality of things. 1991s Memorabilia-The Singles credited to Marc Almond and Soft Cell is at once fantastic, a primer to Almond’s best stuff and also about as good as beginning to end listen as one can experience.
But on the other hand, you can overthink such things and this compilation is one on which it is easy to overthink
These particular “greatest hits” make for a weird grab bag. The most famous songs are 1991 re-recordings of Soft Cell songs. Also, with a US track list of 13 songs (and 2 dance remixes), it is a tough job to limit that catalog to the “best of the best”. From a critic’s perspective, Marc Almond’s solo work is mostly overlooked here. There are his collaborations with Gene Pitney and Bronski Beat that both make for fine additions, but Almond had six albums of solo material by this point, and only two singles (then recently released) made the cut.
Yet, such are the arguments to be made and while one can split hairs over whether the compilation was truly representative, it was still a fantastic album. At this point, I had bought it largely on the basis of “Tainted Love”- a song that made the American Top 10 in 1982 and one of those instances where it has remained one of the most played songs from year to year.
I immediately jumped into the Soft Cell and Almond discography truly and deeply. While that momentum could have died off, especially with Almond not having a ton of success in America, the 90s ended pretty strong.
In 1997, Some Bizarre Records re-released the early Marc solo records. In 1999, his solo album Open All Night with special appearances by members of the Creatures and Sneaker Pimps got a lot of attention in Uncut magazine.
Almond’s discography is all over the place with a variety of sounds and plenty of gems in a ton of albums of various quality, but in light of David Ball's 2025 death at age 66, I want to focus on Soft Cell now.
Buying the Memorabilia compilation led to me buying the band’s debut Non Stop Erotic Cabaret. Soft Cell’s debut is on my short list of perfect albums. It is one of those magical albums where even the cover is perfect- a Peter Ashworth photo of the duo on front in a leather jackets with Almond ostensibly carrying the album like it’s a magazine in a brown paper bag as if it was just purchased from a seedy 'adults only' shop.
The band was short lived, and there’s not a better record in their discography. That, of course, is because the band was a case of “too much too soon”. While surely played up to shock, the legend was that the band’s drug dealer Cindy Ecstasy was popping up in cameos for the band’s music videos and Top of the Pop appearances.
1983s follow up The Art of Falling Apart may not have the legacy of the debut, but it’s a pretty solid of collection of songs
1984s This Last Night in Sodom is harder to defend but it does have a couple of killer tracks like the manic “Where was Your Heart (When You Needed it Most)” and the psychotic “Meet Murder My Angel”. The decadent lifestyle was over taking the music. The song “L’Esqualita” which took place in a Puerto Rican transvestite bar in New York was about Heroin.
I didn’t buy these albums until a good decade-plus after their release but the story remains the same.
Dave Ball did his own thing and did quite well, with most of his music coming from his project The Grid, also occasionally working with Almond, doing some production work, and being a top name remixer. I may or may not have been aware of his contributions to “Psychic TV presents: Jack the Tab” when I picked up that seminal release. He can also be found on that band's well-regarded Towards Thee Infinite Beat.
In 2005, Soft Cell released their early recordings in the compilation The Bedsit Tapes. These early recordings had been bootlegged and it contained the four songs that made up the band's 1980 debut EP Mutant Moments, as well as other early recordings, including a cover of Black Sabbath's "Paranoid". The Bedsit Tapes are great, not just in a "these are good for bedroom demos" way, but it truly sounds like a good record. Much like Gary Numan/Tubeway Army's early work, it is at once primitive and futuristic at the same time.
I am sure many critics thought that synths were destroying music when these recordings were made, but given the constraints of the time, it shows what an amazing ear for melody that Ball had. Obviously, the band would improve on these greatly by the time Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret came along, but the elements are there on these early recordings.
Soft Cell would reunite and go back in the studio to record a new record- 2002's Cruelty Without Beauty. Robert Christgau gave it a "Bomb", but most reviews were generally positive. I liked it a lot as a reunion album that did a pretty good job of a band catching some of their early magic, and I have listened to it quite a bit over the years.
2022's Happiness Not Included is a bit more patchy as an album, but there are some solid songs there too. "Purple Zone" is a collaboration with the Pet Shop Boys and one of my favorite songs of recent memory. I love the video where Messrs. Almond, Ball, Tennant and Lowe having written so many synth classics seem to be having the time of their life.
At some point, David Byrne and I went our separate ways.
The Talking Heads were a major pop band when I was growing up. Specifically “Burning Down the House” was a monster hit. It went to # 9 on the US charts. While “Once in a Lifetime” became their signature song (at least for awhile, “Psycho Killer” likely has eclipsed it now), the bigger radio hit was my main impression.
In 1988, they released their final album Naked. (With time, the focus has gone to the band’s early work and this album is considered a bit of a dud). I picked up Naked off the strength of the fantastic song “(Nothing But) Flowers” which featured on record (and heavily-played-on- MTV video) an assist from Johnny Marr and Kirsty MacColl.
The album feels quintessentially late 80s. College Rock was on the ascent but hadn’t quite made the breakthrough that gets attributed to Grunge in the 90s. That was when U2 and REM elevated to arena level bands. It seemed everyone was just a hit single away. There were a lot of solid albums in those days as record labels gambled on the likes of Elvis Costello, the Replacements and the Violent Femmes. There were some great albums but time has not been kind to those when people reappraise them and they get compared to those artists' earlier work.
Now, I’m not here to argue that Naked is a five star album but it was a statement, and the world music elements felt revolutionary at the time.
In 1992, I would pick up Sand in the Vaseline which like any decent compilation gives you everything you need in one spot. Though there’s probably multiple correcr answers, my go to Talking Heads album for recent years has been “Talking Heads ‘77”.
In 1989, Byrne released Rei Momo, his solo debut album. It got a lot of play in the Modern Rock space. Still in that period of the ambitious college rock landscape, where there finally was room for left-of-center artists like Billy Bragg and Robyn Hitchcock. It wasn’t something that caught my attention but I appreciated that Byrne was doing something that hadn’t been done quite like this- combining Modern Rock with sounds from Brazil, Cuba and the Dominican Republic.
You couldn’t have a discussion today of most influential bands of all time without mentioning the Talking Heads but there were some down times. In 1996, there was a reunion without Byrne called The Heads with the aptly titled accompanying record No Talking, Just Heads. It was a dud even though looking back now the talent assembled seems worthwhile. I remember listening to some songs and walking away with barely an impression.
Byrne’s output in the 1990s isn’t particularly impressive either. There were some singles that got some traction and some attention but nothing that gets much mention these days. In fact, it really was his 2012 collaboration with St Vincent-the Love This Giant album and follow up world tour that really brought Byrne back to the spotlight in a major way.
Byrne followed that up with American Utopia-an album then Broadway Show and then a Movie. It was a culmination of a new generation that celebrated Byrne- sometimes in an imitative fashion- Vampire Weekend, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Franz Ferdinand and many others. Oh and there was those guys who named themselves after the sixth track on the Talking Heads seventh album - a song called “Radio Head”.
Byrne was never completely off my radar, of course, even as I wasn’t checking in heavily. He appeared on 2009s Spirit of Apollo, an album by the collective NASA. He collaborated with Chuck D and Seu Jorge on that album which elsewhere paired indie rockers (Karen O, MIA, Santigold, Tom Waits) with innovative rappers (Kanye West, Kool Keith, KRS-1, and members of the Wu Tang Clan).
I also read and loved two books he wrote -2009s Bicycle Diaries and 2012s How Music Works.
The local public radio station played the heck out of 2025s Who Is the Sky? It makes sense of course- it’s the perfect album for that- equally ambitious and radio friendly.
That will likely be the deciding factor if you like it. I fell in love with the record but it’s an upbeat, at times silly album. Some might find it cloying.
The album is technically a collaboration between Byrne and Ghost Train Orchestra, the New York City based Avant Garde jazz collective. Hayley Williams and Annie Clark of St Vincent show up for vocals on a song each. Grammy winner Kid Harpoon (Harry Styles, Shawn Mendes, Miley Cyrus) produces, giving it pop star polish.
As I look over reviews, it seems that this was generally loved though reviewers almost universally felt it fell short of being a truly great record. Pitchfork was the rare reviewer who gave it a negative review though it’s interesting that they picked up on something that I thought right away.
There is definitely a Jonathan Richman vibe on some songs. Take “She Explains Things to Me” which is the sort of “older couple in love” songs that might fall on the wrong side for some listeners. “Moisturizing Thing” falls in similar cringe territory though I find charm in it. Or “My Apartment is my Friend”, a paean to… well, what it says in the title. Maybe this is why Pitchfork gave us the lowest score I have seen in months.
Similarly you might not take to the songs that find Byrne in a sea of hipsters.
There’s “The Avant Garde”, which is fantastic and argues just because it’s avant garde, doesn’t mean it’s good. Then, "I Met the Buddha at a Downtown Party" which has the trademark Byrne wit.
I really love this album which is chock full of poppy sounding songs which remind you why you love Byrne in the first place, and that he is indeed the same as he ever...no I can't say that. Having reminded myself of the great Modern Rock boom of the late 80s and early 90s, this album feels like that- a true album and not a collection of songs, and that there is plenty of life left in David Byrne
I probably should say something about the passing of Brian Wilson. It’s been a few years since I last wrote about him.
When I was a teenager, the conventional wisdom was that Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band was the greatest album ever.
It’s understandable that it earned that honor -it was a defining album in music. Over time, opinions change. For one, the Beatles had a lot of great music- and you could make arguments that Revolver or Abbey Road were better albums than Pepper. But more than anything, public opinion went to the album that inspired it and an album that aspired to it (Pet Sounds and Exile on Main Street)
Starting with a love of Baroque pop taking over 90s indie rock, Pet Sounds has had a steady ascent and has found new fans via the online crowd.
Now The Beach Boys were always in the discussion of greatest American bands, but it’s only recently that albums like 20/20, Surf’s Up and Holland get discussed in “Greatest albums ever” now discussion too.
Wilson (as famous as he was) kind of feels like a cult figure like Alex Chilton or Syd Barrett. The fact he was suffering mentally and physically plays into certain “suffering for art” cliches, and his solo career is quite patchy.
His 1988 debut solo album was critically loved but didn’t get the kind of mainstream inroads that similar records of the day by, fo example Roger McGuinn or Robbie Robertson did. Largely, his solo career didn’t get the attention you might expect from someone with his profile.
Personally, I love the early Beach Boy singles. Like the Beatles, there is a reason that critics focus on the albums that came later. I get it, but there is definitely a link from those early songs to the punk sound of the Ramones. Lest us not forget the other branches of psychedelia to bands like XTC and the power pop of the Raspberries and Cheap Trick.
But the story of The Beach Boys is overshadowed by the myth which is the SMiLE album. I am not sure there’s a more famous “withdrawn” album (with Prince’s Black Album and Neil Young’s “Homegrown” and a few others in that conversation)
SMiLE would not be released as planned in the Sixties. Instead we got a scaled down version in 1967s Smiley Smile. SMiLE was probably not going to bring the world jetpacks and flying cars. We know that with ambitious albums like Chinese Democracy and Their Satanic Majesty’s Request- the expectations usually overweigh anything the artist could possibly produce.
But in 2004, Wilson was able to present (indeed it’s called Brian Wilson Presents) SMiLE. By that time the myth was strong and the story had established real Heroes (Brian) and Villains (Mike Love). You can’t probably have gotten a better reception for an album that people had already mostly heard the material.
For me personally, it was my soundtrack for 2004.
It’s not an album that I revisit often but I can’t separate the music from the timeframe and so it will always be meaningful to me.
When I first heard of Robert Wilson in the 90s, my first thought was that it must be a pretty talented name (there’s also Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Charles Wilson for example).
The highlight of Wilson’s 55+ year career is the 1976 opera Einstein on the Beach which had music composed by Philip Glass. It is considered a classic with the related 1979 album scoring 5/5 on Allmusic and 10/10 from Pitchfork. It is easy enough to say the album is a blind spot for me, but avant garde theater doesn’t quite get a bunch of air time.
Wilson’s later career did bleed into rock music a bit. In 1990, Tom Waits wrote the music for Wilson’s play The Black Rider- based on a German fairy tale and a book by William S Burroughs. Three years later, it became Waits’s then-new album.
It’s hard to call Waits accessible in the first place but the Black Rider is surely an averse non commercial move following the critically acclaimed Rain Dogs and Grammy Winning Bone Machine. If Waits was making any inroads with a popular audience, The Black Rider took the weirdness to 11. Contemporary reviews maul it. Allmusic damns it to two stars and very rare is the decent review like the 4/5 from Rolling Stone.
I loved it though. The first thing anyone seems to mention is Burroughs who takes “vocals” for a song and admonishes “t’aint no sin to take off your skin and dance around in your bones”.
It’s not my favorite part of the album but I do enjoy it and it certainly adds to the weirdness. Some of my favorite moments are the inclusion of the musical saw on “November” and “Flash Pan Hunter”. I love “I’ll Shoot the Moon”, a late night drunken lament that would fit on Frank’s Wild Years. “Russian Dance” is well… just that.
The music is strange and alluring, but so are the lyrics. Waits is jarring at times “Go away you rainsnout/go away, blow your brains out”. Lucky Day may even the most Waitsian words ever “And when you get blue and lost all your dreams/ there’s nothin’ like a campfire and a can of beans”
Like Franks Wild Years, you might not get the story without the liner notes but it’s a great folk tale. Our hero hunter makes a Faustian bargain and gets a collection of magic bullets that always hit but the last one is cursed and will hit the target of his love.
I love the Waits album. It’s one of my all time favorites and probably ranks as one of my most listened to albums as well.
Waits and Wilson would do two more collaborations - in 1992 and 2000- and Waits would again turn these into albums. He would release these on the same date in 2002 - Alice and Blood Money.
You can probably guess but I love these albums too which amp up the aspects of folklore and instrumental oddity. I can’t completely remember but I must have bought them close together if not at the same time. They are pretty tied together in my mind. They take me back to 2002 and 2003 in one of those ways memories tie the music to the year because it’s become so big of a part of your life.
I think I prefer Blood Money over Alice but both are quite good and filled with memorable songs.
Looking back it was such a treasure trove of Waits sandwiched by 1999s Mule Variations and 2004s Real Gone - classic albums in their own right; followed by a three disc set of “lost songs” in 2006. Then somehow we haven’t got a new Waits album in 14+ years
Looking at Wilson’s work- I would probably enjoy it quite a bit- the names he worked with are too notch- Anna Calvi, Arvo Part, CocoRosie, David Byrne, Gavin Bryars and so on.
The last Wilson collaboration that made significant shockwaves in the alt rock category is Lou Reed’s 2003 album The Raven.
I love Reed but it is interesting that his work post 9/11 is as unpredictable as Reed could be- The Raven was his last solo rock album, followed only in the Discography by live discs, the Metallica collaboration Lulu and the Hudson River Wind Meditations album.
An all star cast collected for a concept album around Edgar Allen Poe’s poems and stories, I want to like The Raven but I find it generally unlistenable. Even with the talent assembled- Bowie, Laurie Anderson, Steve Buscemi, ANHONI, Ornette Coleman, Kate & Anna McGarigle, Willem Defoe, the Five Blind Boys of Alabama, among others including Reed’s longtime sidemen Mike Rathke and Fernando Saunders.
I did find performance pieces of The Black Rider and it’s hard to say which is weirder or more accessible- with Waits singing or with it part of musical theater.
Either way, it scratches an itch of mine which I don’t expect anyone to necessarily understand- a bit of the Kurt Weill/Beroldt Brecht cabaret and dark carnival elements - mixed of course with more modern sounds of pop, rock and blues with lines of comedy and existential horror woven through out, but also beauty.
Wilson died in July of 2025 at age 83.
This is one of a series of posts this week I wrote about artists we lost in 2025.
