***** By the time Guns N’ Roses arrived at the final tracklist for their landmark debut LP Appetite for Destruction, it already sounded like a best of compilation. The group had already recorded a number of tracks that would later appear across the Use Your Illusion albums, but narrowed its focus to the best of…
**** It may be hard to imagine now, but in 1956, Elvis Presley’s debut album was the most critical Rock n’ Roll release in history. It was the first rock record to sell 1 million copies and was a foundational piece of the launch of music’s most lauded cover artist to superstardom. The album was…
Epic, unadulterated brilliance. From the opening piano hit on “Thunder Road,” to Clarence Clemons’ stratospheric sax solo at the apex of “Jungleland,” Born to Run is 39 minutes of musical brilliance from the greatest songwriter to ever live backed by the best collection of musicians to hit the Jersey circuit. In fact, the album is…
**** From the moment Lover’s lead single “ME!” featuring the nails-on-chalkboard grating voice of Brendon Urie operating as a depressing foil to Taylor Swift’s infectiously endearing charm, I’ve been skeptical of her latest project. To pull such a 180 from the polarizing yet bold reputation seemed like an overly calculated move that didn’t bode well,…
My life went through some pretty significant changes in 2018. I changed jobs twice and finally got a place of my own. And while everything has largely been an improvement, many of my new responsibilities (and my lack of a regular commute) significantly cut into my music listening time this year. Yet even though I…
**** Armed with hauntingly beautiful harmonies, kinetic melodies, and plenty of weirdo moments, the now legendary Music From the Big Pink is the kind of album that probably sounded a lot more revolutionary in 1968 than it does today. Still, it’s hard not to appreciate the influence it has had on many of music’s most…
**** Few artists in the history of modern music are as diverse as David Bowie was. Most great artists are able to evolve over the course of their careers; Bowie did it over the course of singular albums. Compare the grounded sentimentality of “Be My Wife” with the extraterrestrial wail of “Warszawa.” For the uninitiated,…
***** I can’t remember what I was expecting when I went into Is This the Life We Really Want?, Roger Waters’ first studio release in my lifetime. While I’ve been a casual Pink Floyd fan since I first got into music, they’ve never really been one of my favorites. Often, I find myself gravitating toward…
As much as I love music lists, I often find year-end catalogs, particularly ones ranking songs rather than albums, to be quite weak. There is a tendency to focus on hits or to only include one song per artist. Not only is this disrespectful to artists beyond the Top 40 who may have had killer…
Critics and music-lovers tend to look back on the year in review and profess that it was a great year regardless of how much good music was actually released. It’s an annoying trend, but it’s also because if you know where to look, good music is always waiting to be discovered. There was something for…
The Soundtrack Online 