Copyright 2008 The New York Sun Wed, 01 Oct 2008 13:32:27 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Bret Mccabe :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/authors/Bret+Mccabe istoll@nysun.com (Ira Stoll) webmaster@nysun.com en-us BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/high-definition-tv/86369/ Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST TV on the Radio finally lives up to its long-smoldering ambition with its third album, "Dear Science" (DGC/Interscope), which is out today. This 11-track effort features all of the Brooklyn quintet's so-called experimental hallmarks — Dave Sitek's choppy, layered production; Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone's pyrotechnic harmonies; an insouciant stylistic hybrid that freely borrows from funk and avant jazz, 1950s pop, and 1970s progressive rock; and the band's sober but hopeful worldview — more... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/dance-your-childhood-away/85875/ Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Dressy Bessy continues its winning streak of 1960s and 1970s throwback power pop on its new album "Holler and Stomp," which is out today on Transdreamer Records. The Denver quartet isn't going to reinvent the wheel with its guitar crunch or basic power-pop formula, but there is something whimsically appealing about the band's giddy exuberance. That something begins with the engaging charisma of vocalist-guitarist Tammy Ealom, whose brisk delivery and unabashedly trite lyrics make Dressy Bessy's... BRET MCCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/traditional-progressions-delta-spirit-and-obi-best/84563/ Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST The Delta Spirit's Matt Vasquez sings with an unabashed passion. On the barnstorming song "Trashcan," from the band's independently released 2007 album "Ode to Sunshine" — which receives a wide release today in a remastered edition from Rounder Records — Mr. Vasquez's alternating gritty howl and soulful wail ride a crest of piano, guitars, and percussion, something akin to the Band on an adrenalized night. Mr. Vasquez's vocal charisma, equal parts plainspoken troubadour and skyward-reaching... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/dungen-day-trippers/86828/ Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST The Swedish quartet Dungen is one of the more schizophrenic rock acts on the scene these days. Over the course of its previous five albums, the band — primarily the outlet for singer/composer/multi-instrumentalist Gustav Ejstes — has constructed swirling paisleys of reverberative, fuzz-drenched psychedelic rock and soft, lilting melodies of foresting folk. And rarely do the two meet. On Dungen's latest album, "4," which is out today on Kemado Records, that Jekyll-and-Hyde split of musical... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/survivors-of-the-1990s-unite/85969/ Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST When My Bloody Valentine arrives on the stage of the Roseland Ballroom on September 22 and 23, don't be surprised to see a few grown men crying. The band's September 19 performance at the All Tomorrow's Parties Festival at Kutshers Country Club in the Catskills is the British-Irish band's first American show in 16 years. In the interim, My Bloody Valentine has grown from one of the most celebrated "shoegaze" bands of its era into one of the most widely adored rock bands on the planet. A great... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/okkervil-rivers-jaded-dreams/85396/ Tue, 9 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Will Sheff doesn't have a good voice in the traditional sense. His tenor is flat and prone to quavering when he aims for volume or falsetto, which is often. At other times, Mr. Sheff sounds less like he's singing and more like he's speaking, merely allowing the musicality of his words to carry the tune. But every time he opens his mouth, the singer-songwriter powering Austin, Texas's folk-leaning indie pop outfit Okkervil River sounds like he's in the midst of a religious experience. In the 10... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/jennifer-oconnor-sings-her-own-tune/84286/ Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Jennifer O'Connor has been compared with and held up against so many chanteuses of the 1990s — especially Liz Phair — that it's become a disservice to all parties involved. Surely it's possible for a woman to sing passionately and intimately about her life without having to be equated with another woman simply because of a lazy implication that female experiences are all the same. "I do find it limiting, and I get asked about this thing a lot or just compared to the same people over and over,"... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/hesitant-steps-into-the-future-stereolab-and/84108/ Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Stereolab has made the musical equivalent of 1960s European art-house cinema for nearly 20 years now. Since forming in London in 1990, the group has melded lounge pop, 1970s-style German rock (better known as "Krautrock"), and electronic music with the sort of dense intellectualism that can be found in graduate student dissertations on political theory. It all makes for a plush cocktail that evokes French New Wave stars such as Alain Delon and Delphine Seyrig, wandering aimlessly around exotic... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/voices-of-authority/83642/ Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Johnny Whitney has a voice only a mother could love, though she is more likely to fear what has pushed her son to such extremes. Between 1997 and 2006, as one of two lead singers in the chaotic Seattle hard-core outfit the Blood Brothers, Mr. Whitney screamed and shrieked like a terrorized teenager forever trapped in a horror movie. It was an ideal sound for the Blood Brothers' corrosive worldview and discordant mayhem: Mr. Whitney seemed like a survivor witnessing the end times on the band's... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-pros-cons-of-consistency/83170/ Tue, 5 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST The difference between an artist staying the same and never changing is miniscule but worth noticing. Artists who stay the same can carve an entire career out of working through their organizing ideas (see: Sonic Youth), whereas artists who never change typically sound retro from the start (see: third-wave ska bands). New albums from Brooklyn's Oxford Collapse and Omaha's Conor Oberst offer two studies of this process in action. "Bits" (Sub Pop), Oxford Collapse's fourth album, which comes out... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/wolf-parade-bon-iver-head-for-the-city/82762/ Tue, 29 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Three of indie rock's most interesting, idiosyncratic, and celebrated songwriters visit New York this week in the form of Wisconsin's Bon Iver and Montreal's Wolf Parade. The two acts may sound nothing alike — Bon Iver's gentle folk is a world removed from Wolf Parade's charged energy — but they share an interest in traditional, almost old-fashioned songwriting, which helps them achieve the palpable emotional power found in their songs. Bon Iver, the solo outfit for singer-songwriter Justin... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/electroma-a-wordless-film-from-daft-punk/82336/ Tue, 22 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Daft Punk's feature film debut, "Electroma," proves that the French electronic duo's recent exploration of robot alter egos isn't just shtick. In fact, "Electroma," out today on DVD, feels like a culmination of themes the duo has explored since its 2005 album "Human After All," such as the wonderfully frustrating and tragic experience of being alive. Fans of Daft Punk's bubbly, bass-heavy, and dance floor-ready beats and melodic pop should bear in mind that none of the group's music is featured... BRET MCCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/not-your-average-adult-content/81867/ Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST 'Adult" is sometimes used to signify questionable content: adult films, adult books, adult situations. It's the same for rock 'n' roll, only not because of prurience. Somehow, rock has retained its youthful exuberance well into its fifth decade, making the idea of "adult rock" a study in conflicting ideas. The friction between freewheeling rock and quasi-sensible adulthood is exactly what Brooklyn quintet the Hold Steady has explored over its four-year career, and never more so than on its new... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/beck-stumbles-into-an-uncertain-future/81388/ Tue, 8 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Beck Hansen and Danger Mouse should be a match made in pop heaven. Beck is a genre-busting singer-songwriter who creates his strongest work when bouncing ideas off of equally innovative producers. Danger Mouse (aka Brian Burton), the mind behind Gnarls Barkley's darkly themed soul pop, is one such sound alchemist. Somehow, though, the pair's most recent collaboration, "Modern Guilt" (Interscope), Beck's 10th album and the final in his major-label contract with DGC Records, coaxes out everything... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/british-rocker-world-ambassador/81383/ Tue, 8 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST When Damon Albarn and the Honest Jon's Revue perform at the Lincoln Center Festival on Saturday, the stage will be filled with a veritable supergroup consisting of talent from all around the world. In addition to Mr. Albarn — best known for his 1990s Brit-pop band Blur, as well as the conceptual comic-book collaborative Gorillaz and, most recently, the ambitious rock outfit the Good, the Bad & the Queen — the Revue includes an impressive array of African and North American musicians, among them... BRET MCCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/sowing-the-seeds-of-discontent/80991/ Tue, 1 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Dissatisfaction is strewn throughout the new albums by England's Dirty Pretty Things and California's Earlimart, both out today. How the two rock bands choose to express that restlessness — and why they're so riled — is radically different, and boils down to what makes one a promising failure and the other a disarmingly curious gem. "Romance at Short Notice," the sophomore release from Dirty Pretty Things, suffers when compared with the output of singer-songwriter Carl Barβt's previous outfit... BRET MCCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/from-the-garage-to-the-dance-floor/80519/ Tue, 24 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST The new albums from New York bands Love as Laughter and Hercules and Love Affair rekindle memories of beloved genres before niche-marketing and trend-setting Web logs got ahold of them. Brooklyn's Love as Laughter, the long-running pop-rock band led by Sam Jayne, continues its winning streak of catchy, guiltless indie-rock with "Holy" (Glacial Pace), though in this case the "indie" isn't merely a descriptive word for feckless guitar strums and fey vocals. Hercules and Love Affair, meanwhile... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/coldplay-whistling-toward-the-middle-of-the-road/80094/ Tue, 17 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Coldplay's new single, "Viva la Vida," is already ubiquitous — at least, 30 seconds of it. That the song is patently inoffensive in its wallpaper-like omnipresence on radio and television is a new wrinkle for the band. With a gentle, string-propelled melody and Chris Martin's plangent voice — for once not creaking through a falsetto while singing an instantly catchy line, "I used to rule the world" — it feels completely innocuous whenever iTunes or iPod TV advertisements come on, or when the... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/bands-branching-out-for-better-and-worse/79618/ Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST The Brooklyn trio Joan as Police Woman sumptuously broadens its musical palette on its new album, "To Survive" (Reveal), something the Louisville, Ky.-based quintet My Morning Jacket tries but fails to pull off on its own new record, "Evil Urges" (ATO). The latter group, led by singer-songwriter Jim James, wants to spice its Southern rock with more recombinant pop, experimenting with hip-hop beats, doo-wop moods, and arresting shifts of tempo, but the result sounds too strained and cumbersome... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/weezer-and-fleet-foxes-self-titled-and-self/79131/ Tue, 3 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Weezer is one of the most curiously durable alternative rock bands to survive the 1990s and forge into the current decade. When the Southern California quartet released its self-titled debut in 1994 (the first of three self-titled albums), it sounded like an independent pop group that had been polished to major-label rock, full of precociously geeky arena hooks. That album and the band's 1996 follow-up, "Pinkerton," became surprising generational signposts, influencing a legion of emerging emo... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/steven-stein-the-art-of-sampling/78608/ Tue, 27 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Fifty-six-year-old Steven Stein professes to write about such topics as music, copyright laws, and politics on his infrequently updated Web log (www.steinski.com), but the truth is much more mercurial than that. Recent posts have included short blurbs on the PEN American Center, President Bush and disaster relief, a brief screed about the big business of scientific research, and download links to live DJ sets from Mr. Stein and his partner, Double Dee, aka Douglas DiFranco. This may sound like... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/not-too-sour-not-too-sweet/76702/ Tue, 20 May 2008 00:00:00 EST New albums from the Kansan duo Mates of State and the Canadian sextet Islands remind us of the simple pleasures of indie pop. Both albums, out today, are small in terms of scale, but not in terms of ideas, and while a tad insular — traditional indie pop is relatively untouched by the changes and shifts of hip-hop and dance music — they're never provincial, thanks in large part to their modesty and restraint. Neither Mates of State nor Islands is going to crack the Billboard Top 10 anytime soon... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/everything-is-bigger-in-austin/76337/ Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Austin, Texas, has always been a breeding ground for emerging bands. From the 1960s to the present, the Texas capital has written its own encyclopedia of American pop music, from garage rock to country singer-songwriters, honky-tonk heroes, punk progenitors, and indie rock bands. For every Spoon, Explosions in the Sky, or Okkervil River that is able to find some mainstream success, however, there is a Knife in the Water, the Inhalants, or the Kiss Offs that remains but a local legend. Right... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/music-from-around-the-world-and-inside-a-computer/75904/ Tue, 6 May 2008 00:00:00 EST The indie-rock outfit Firewater and the electronics duo Matmos continue their respective explorations of the world of sound on their new albums, which are out today. The New York-based Firewater, led by multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Tod A., injects a healthy dose of Eastern culture into its already exotic ramshackle rock on "The Golden Hour" (Bloodshot). And the now Baltimore-based Matmos — the constantly evolving and forward-thinking duo comprising Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt, who have... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/introducing-the-madonna-we-know-and-love/75478/ Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST Give the people what they want — it's a maxim that applies to veteran pop musicians as much as it does to election campaigns. Critics celebrate innovation, experimentation, and vision, but pop music, at its core, is a conservative medium, and most fans want what they fell in love with in the first place. And that patina of consistency is what makes the new albums from Madonna and Portishead, both out today, such delectably safe bets. The bad news about "Hard Candy" — Madonna's first new album... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/word-perfect-with-the-fiery-furnaces/75298/ Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST This fall, New York indie-rock outfit the Fiery Furnaces will release a mammoth live album of material recorded at concerts from the end of 2005 through this February. It's yet another curveball from the brother-and-sister duo of Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger. Since making their debut in 2003 with the relatively stripped-down "Gallowsbird's Bark," the Friedbergers have shape-shifted through various pop and rock styles during the course of their brief yet prolific career. The only thing that... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/bragg-settles-into-a-new-soul/75119/ Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST While the politics of the British singer-songwriter Billy Bragg have always remained consistently to the left, his music has veered from tight brashness to messy looseness — especially when he's backed by a band. The bristling, reedy Mr. Bragg that emerged in England in the early 1980s backed himself only with his propulsive, provocative electric guitar, a busking punk approach that complemented his personal-is-political songwriting. But his relationships with backing bands have veered from the... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/tune-in-drop-out-and-turn-it-way-up/74710/ Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST Barely five seconds into the lead track on "My Bloody Underground," the new album by the Brian Jonestown Massacre, everything sounds business as usual. The skeletal percussive drive grows from an absentmindedly struck bass drum. The melody is sketched by a vaguely psychedelic guitar strum. An electric guitar, distorted to sound like a humming Indian stringed instrument, dashes in and out. Band leader Anton Newcombe's laconic vocals fade in, as if removing a sheet from the furniture of an old... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/cave-lets-his-humor-do-the-talking/74355/ Tue, 8 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST At some point between his 2001 album, "No More Shall We Part," and his 2003 album, "Nocturama," Nick Cave realized that he could be genuinely funny. This recognition has pushed his music into the sublime. Yes, Mr. Cave's peculiar brand of brimstone and treacle post-punk blues certainly earned him an esteemed spot in rock history thanks to his late-'70s and early-'80s band, the Birthday Party, and his 11 albums with the Bad Seeds. But it wasn't until "Babe, I'm on Fire," the very last song on... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/eating-pixie-dust/73918/ Tue, 1 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST The Pixies' 2004 reunion tour and subsequent live appearances through 2007 comprised one of alternative rock's most surprising and successful second acts. The group hadn't lost its gift for simmering music onstage, but as anybody who downloaded the Pixies' first new song in more than a decade (the June 2004 single "Bam Thwok") found out, the songwriting alchemy that made those old songs so indelible wasn't as easy to relocate. So don't expect a new Pixies album any time soon. But that isn't... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/pop-convention-never-seemed-so-strange/73552/ Tue, 25 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST The oddballs of the pop world just don't sound as weird as they used to. Take the sophomore releases from Gnarls Barkley and Panic! at the Disco, both of which are out today and both of which telegraph the supposed quirkiness of the music right in their titles. "The Odd Couple" (Downtown/Atlantic) is Gnarls Barkley's follow-up to its unlikely 2006 million-seller debut "St. Elsewhere." The duo comprises the curve-ball collaboration between the futuristic soul artist Cee-Lo Green (nι Thomas... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/boom-in-bloom/73235/ Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST One of this spring's hottest tickets not only pairs two of pop's most consistent and bankable stars, but also puts two of music's best big-venue performers on the same stage: R&B singer-songwriter Mary J. Blige and hiphop sensation Jay-Z entertain crowds at Madison Square Garden May 2, 6, and 7. While they have shared this stage before, most notably in the 2004 Jay-Z concert documentary "Fade to Black," these three shows aren't an artist's goodbye before his mid-career retirement. Before these... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/throwing-rock-n-roll-haymakers/73086/ Tue, 18 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST Three solid new releases from two beloved indie outfits and a local punk troubadour hit stores today. The London duo the Kills marry their stripped-down rock to modest pop hooks for "Midnight Boom," and the New York anti-folk singer-songwriter Adam Green finds his inner orchestral romantic on "Sixes and Sevens." But it's the snarling, ribald "Get Awkward," from the Nashville punk quartet Be Your Own Pet, that packs the most consistent punch. On the Kills's first two albums, the American... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/black-hollies-pull-some-nuggets-from-the-pan/72679/ Tue, 11 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST The 1960s continue to be pop music's most cannibalized decade. Whether it's white Englishwomen updating American girl-group pop, Brooklyn indie bands revisiting the Beach Boys or the Rolling Stones, or hip-hop producers crate-digging through the endless hooks and breaks to be lifted from Blue Note and Stax, the 1960s remain a gold mine for musical inspiration and appropriation, for better and worse. With its new album "Casting Shadows," the Jersey City quartet the Black Hollies isn't the first... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/last-kings-of-grunge/72282/ Tue, 4 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST What becomes of the beloved artist who achieves critical but never commercial success? It's a question that feels especially prescient as the fκted artists of the 1990s American underground ease into middle age along with their fans. The front men from three seminal alternative rock bands have new albums out today. The Afghan Whigs's Greg Dulli and the Screaming Trees's Mark Lanegan team up for their first full-length collaborative project as the Gutter Twins in "Saturnalia" (Sub Pop), and... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/reaching-the-goldfrapp-standard/71844/ Tue, 26 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST The British electro-pop duo Goldfrapp radically reinvents itself for "Seventh Tree," its fourth studio album, out today. The makeover isn't just creatively and commercially surprising — both 2003's "Black Cherry" and 2005's "Supernature" were glam, libidinous dance-pop affairs that charted in both Britain and America, with the latter earning a 2007 Grammy nod for Best Electronic-Dance Album — but also remarkably successful. "Seventh Tree" is a woozy wash of psychedelic folk music seamlessly... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/rocking-the-outer-boroughs/71467/ Tue, 19 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST Brooklyn outfits the Epochs and the Big Sleep have little in common aside from their home borough. The Epochs trade in beat-happy electronic indie-pop, while the Big Sleep is a hair-parting power trio. But both release their sophomore albums today, and both records — the Epochs's self-titled debut on the Rebel Group and the Big Sleep's "Sleep Forever" on Frenchkiss — capture bands not only finding their songwriting strengths, but ascending from the underground. The Epochs is the more instantly... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/pop-goes-the-dance-floor/70716/ Tue, 5 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST New albums from London's Hot Chip and Berlin's Sascha Funke revisit pop's forever shifting divide separating dance-pop from the dance floor. It's always been a permeable, if not hospitable, line — as purveyors of disco discovered in the 1970s. Today, dance-floor influenced electronic music permeates nearly every facet of pop, yielding a constantly expanding pool of ideas for the producer and artist alike to explore. Hot Chip's "Made in the Dark" and Mr. Funke's "Mango," both out today, offer... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/new-york-state-of-graceland/70337/ Tue, 29 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST Some albums hit the ears with such winsome breeziness that they feel like wholly new joys, even if their influences are transparent. The self-titled debut by the Manhattan indie-pop quartet Vampire Weekend, out today, is one of those albums. With songs that reference grammar and hip roof architecture styles, lyrics that rhyme "Louis Vuitton" with "reggaeton," and melodies so sweet they could cause cavities, "Vampire Weekend" is a casually sunny, precociously witty foray into keyboard and trebly... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/bouncing-around-the-room/70174/ Fri, 25 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST When Jeffrey M. Robinson brings his music to New York this weekend, don't expect just another rock band on the stage. Yes, he will be joined by some recognizable names from independent rock, namely guitarist Mark Shippy and drummer Pat Samson, formerly of U.S. Maple and currently in Miracle Condition, along with their Miracle Condition bandmate, Matt Carson, on guitar. Fronting the band will be ex-Jesus Lizard vocalist David Yow, who currently plies his unmistakable throat for the Los Angeles... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/instant-classic-rock/69920/ Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST The music of Times New Viking revisits one of pop's basic and most essential building blocks: fuzz. The Columbus, Ohio, trio mines the amplifier-wrecking distortion and loose grooves of the rock 'n' roll that was pioneered by such 1960s bands as the Sonics and the Chocolate Watchband, and then revived by latter-day garage acts such as Supercharger, the Mummies, and the White Stripes. But Times New Viking stays free of retro nostalgia in how it updates and refines the seminal elements of this... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/merritts-push-and-pull/69534/ Tue, 15 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST "Distortion," the title of the Magnetic Fields' eighth album, is one of the most deadpan statements of fact ever to grace the cover of an album. When he began recording it, the band's formalist leader, Stephin Merritt, set out to make an album in the vein of the Jesus and Mary Chain's 1985 gem "Psychocandy," a record that made succeeding generations of listeners fans of both the Velvet Underground and Phil Spector. Not only has Mr. Merritt deliriously succeeded, he has crafted a fuzzy wallop of... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/quiet-riot-girls/69133/ Tue, 8 Jan 2008 12:43:56 EST This month belongs to the eclectic female singer-songwriter. The next few weeks bear witness to new albums from such veterans and newcomers as Natasha Bedingfield, Sarah Brightman, Rachel McGoye, Idina Menzel, Cat Power, Amanda Shaw, and Rhonda Vincent, with new releases from Sheryl Crow, k.d. lang, and Shelby Lynne appearing in the first week of February. Given the year their singer-songwriting sisters had in 2007 — recall the commercial and critical successes of Lily Allen, Kathy Diamond... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/clubland-comes-home/68212/ Tue, 18 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST It was a great year for music, plain and simple. From return-to-form albums by Bjφrk, Jay-Z, Nine Inch Nails, and the Wu-Tang Clan to the steady indie-rock consistency of Ted Leo, Rilo Kiley, and Spoon, 2007 offered a wealth of quality music from the usual suspects. R. Kelly and Mary J. Blige supplied their fans with more radio-friendly R&B drama. Even some bygone British faces — Blur's Damon Albarn with his new band the Good, the Bad and the Queen, and former Pulp front man Jarvis Cocker with... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/hip-hops-board-of-trustees-is-in-session/67854/ Tue, 11 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST The Wu-Tang Clan's fifth studio album, "8 Diagrams," hits stores today against all odds. It's a miraculous appearance, because internal group dynamics and the group members' solo careers made it seem as though it would be nearly impossible to get the eight living Clan members into the same room long enough to agree on anything, much less make a record. Also, there's that little snag about the group's previous outing, 2001's "Iron Flag," being such a weak effort. That album didn't feature... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/nuts-and-bolts-of-robot-rock/67459/ Tue, 4 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST A pair of Vocoder-distorted voices bounces the words "robot" and "human" off each other until they create a Pong-like pulse. A programmed beat then thunders behind these vocal volleys, and is soon joined by a sampled guitar chug and a keyboard riff tracing the faintest outline of a melody. Hi-hats anxiously shimmy as though counting down toward some liftoff. And then, two minutes into the opening track on Daft Punk's new live album, "Alive 2007," the Paris electronic duo launches into the... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/ndours-language-lesson/66737/ Tue, 20 Nov 2007 00:00:00 EST Youssou N'Dour is arguably the most well-known and critically heralded living African musician, and for good reason: In more than 20 years of playing and recording, he has invented languages, introduced indigenous forms of music to the popular canon, and shined unflinching lights on the lives of his fellow Africans. The Senegalese artist possesses one of the most expressive voices in music, and backing that unmistakable instrument is a supremely gifted group, the Super Etoile, which has been... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/right-there-in-black-white/66340/ Tue, 13 Nov 2007 00:00:00 EST A few weeks ago, a well-intentioned New Yorker critic tackled the hefty subject of race in music in a column about indie rock. Now, nobody wants to rekindle the blog tornado that column generated, but until this discussion also includes how consumers actually obtain music, any examination of musical miscegenation is mere windmill tilting. While some mp3 players and download sites place Chris Brown and Jackson Browne near each other on account of their surnames, the two artists still reside in... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/taking-it-back-to-the-streets/65913/ Tue, 6 Nov 2007 00:00:00 EST Jay-Z — the President and CEO of Def Jam, New Jersey Nets co-owner, and ex-retiree — has returned to bury hip-hop, not to praise it. The evil of rap lives in its shopworn rhymes, and its vulgar and misogynistic celebrations of the luxuries afforded a drug-dealing life of crime. He says as much in his sarcastic rant against rap, "Ignorant S—," from his 10th album, "American Gangster," which comes out today. The album (not the soundtrack to the film, which features soul and rap classics by... BRET McCABE http://www.nysun.com/arts/stayin-alive-with-two-pop-veterans/65500/ Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EST Common sense, Murphy's law, or pure cultural Darwinism should have prevented the following sentence from ever becoming true: The fifth studio albums by Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys both reach stores today. That's nothing against 1990s teen pop; it's just that few artists make it to a fifth major-label album, even after selling millions of albums and scoring chart-topping hits. "Tossin' and Turnin'" was a 1961 single that occupied Billboard's no. 1 spot for six weeks — longer than...