My first Burnes’ Turns in months highlights some early Hip-Hop classics, joyfully pissed off Hard Rock riffing and an urgently apocalyptic message from the dearly departed David Bowie that is more pressing than ever. “Five Years” – David Bowie When I was first getting into music and reading Rolling Stone, they published a playlist issue…
****1/2 Bon Scott’s potentially aptly-named farewell to our world features everything that makes AC/DC great; guitar badassery, gutteral vocals, funky rhythms, and lots and lots of sex. As the precursor to the infinitely more famous Back in Black, Highway to Hell is often shut out in discussions of the greatest Rock albums ever made, but…
7.5 Few (if any) games have frustrated me as much as Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune gave it a run for its money with its hoards of endless enemies with often sloppy cover mechanics, unclear platforming paths, and a final boss encounter that tested the boundaries of my penchant for pain. But Uncharted…
****1/2 When original AC/DC frontman Bon Scott passed away following a deadly case of alcoholism (he drank himself into a stupor, threw up and then choked to death on his own vomit) during the recording of Back in Black, it seemed like it would be the end for one of the most iconic Hard Rock…
***1/2 As much as I love Guns N’ Roses, Velvet Revolver and even, to a degree, Slash’s Snakepit, I’ve always looked back on Slash’s 2010 solo debut through rather harsh lenses. It’s easier to remember the album’s low points rather than its peaks, however, upon revisit I find that while the low points certainly exist,…
***1/2 More in vogue than any point since the late ’80s, N.W.A.’s infamous debut (and really only) LP of so-called “real rap” set the world (and the occasional police car) on fire with its back-to-back delivery of “Straight Outta Compton” and “Fuck tha Police,” two of the most controversial and important Hip-Hop records ever made.…
***1/2 Leave it to Tupac to make a double LP out of a single EP’s worth of material, but damn if it wouldn’t have been one for the ages. The title track’s effortless bravado seeps show-stealing swagger, “All About U’s” damn-near sentimentality is a sweet change of pace, and the fascinating remix of Dr. Dre’s…
7.25 I continue my impromptu run-through of Naughty Dog’s catalog with Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, the cinematic blockbuster that took the developer to a whole new level. Even so, while there are elements of Uncharted that are truly sublime, its formulaic delivery and a few frustrating segments hold it back from being on the level of much…
8.25 It’s no secret that Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy is one of my favorite video games of all time as it launched my love of gaming into the PS2 era, which for my money was still the greatest in gaming history. But Jak II changed just about everything it could about the core…
8.75 Though Naughty Dog had only planned on three Crash titles originally, after the completion (and success) of Crash Bandicoot 2 (not to mention, the success of kart racers like Mario Kart and Diddy Kong Racing), the team decided to begin production of Crash Team Racing. The result was not only one of the most…
The Soundtrack Online 