Music Reviews

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Music Reviews
The Clash
Mike Mettler  |  Nov 21, 2013  | 
Performance
Sound
Punk. Rock. Reggae. Hip-hop. Ska. Dub. Soul. Jazz. Rockabilly. No, this isn’t a listing of all the sections in one of the only remaining cool record stores left standing; this is the breadth of the genre-bending legacy of The Clash. And the sonic scope of Sound System is set to prove The Clash may very well be The Only Band That (Still) Matters.
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Music Reviews
The Decemberists: The Hazards of Love
Brett Milano  |  Apr 26, 2009  | 
Capitol
Music •••• Sound ••••
It's no surprise that, after going semi-conceptual for The Crane Wife in 2006, the Decemberists have now gone al
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Music Reviews
The Derek Trucks Band: Already Free
 |  Feb 24, 2009  | 
Victor/Sony
Music •••• Sound ••••
Guitarist Derek Trucks has long felt suffocated by his Southern heritage and prodigious lineage - and of course, by all t
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Music Reviews
The Doors’ Perception breaks on through.
Steve Guttenberg  |  Apr 16, 2007  | 
Wide Open
The Doors’ Perception breaks on through. The Doors’ self-titled first album was in an altogether darker, more theatrical, sinful, and sexual musical realm than anything heard in 1967. It was one hell of a debut, and, 40 years on, it still sounds incredibly unique. The band functioned with a collective spirit, and its four members—Jim Morrison, vocals; Ray Manzarek, keyboards; Robbie Krieger, guitar; and John Densmore, drums—shared songwriting and arranging credits on most of the tunes.
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Music Reviews
The Earl of Duke
Mike Mettler  |  Oct 05, 2012  | 

Duke Ellington knew how to swing. Ellington (1899–1974) was one of the most prolific and influential songwriters of the 20th Century, a purveyor of what he liked to call American Music (he eschewed being labeled as “just” a jazz artist). You know him, even if you don’t think you know him: “Take the ‘A’ Train,” “Mood Indigo,” and “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” are but slivers of his deep (and deep-felt) compositional and performing catalog.

One particular set of highly attuned ears that were influenced by Ellington’s magic happen to belong to Joe Jackson. Yes, that Joe Jackson, he of the skinny-tie New Wave scene of the late ’70s who began reinventing himself at the dawn of the ’80s and never looked back. “I was always ready to move on,” Jackson, 58, said matter-of-factly over lunch in midtown Manhattan this past spring. (Well, to clarify, I had lunch; Jackson was content with “just water.”) “It never occurred to me that listeners may not have been ready to hear it. I thought the whole idea of being an artist was to do something different than everyone else.”

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Music Reviews
The Irresistible Force of Jane's Addiction
Michael Berk  |  Jul 26, 2011  | 

Jane's Addiction is back in action, with a brand-new album on the way and a tour in progress.

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Music Reviews
The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Ladyland Deluxe Edition
Mike Mettler  |  Feb 01, 2019  | 
Performance
Sound
The nomenclature of the key line that appears within the credits of the original October 1968 double-vinyl release of Electric Ladyland tells quite the prescient tale: “Produced And Directed By Jimi Hendrix.” The most crucial word in that phraseology, of course, is Directed, as the ace guitar slinger spent a good bit of his in-studio time in 1968 thinking in purely cinematic terms.
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Music Reviews
The Mahler Symphonies on SACD — and Vinyl LP
Robert Ripps  |  Jun 22, 2011  | 

Back in September 2002, I interviewed Michael Tilson Thomas about the launch of a bold new project with the San Francisco Symphony: a complete cycle of the Mahler symphonies to be released on hybrid multichannel SACD via the orchestra’s fledgling in-house label, SFS Media. At the time, Thomas already had clearly formed ideas about the sound he wanted:

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Music ReviewsMusic and Soundtrack FeaturesStreaming Movies and TVSpecial Features
The Making of The Beatles' Let It Be and Peter Jackson's Get Back
Matt Hurwitz  |  Dec 03, 2021  | 
1968 was a busy year for The Beatles. They had traveled to India to study Transcendental Meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, launched their own record label, Apple, and spent months at EMI's studios at Abbey Road recording their mammoth double-album, The Beatles (aka The White Album). But even before that album was released, they were planning what would end up as their post-breakup album and film, Let It Be. That disc was recently reissued by Apple/Capitol/Universal in a super deluxe edition, remixed by Giles Martin and engineer Sam Okell, complete with previously-unreleased bonus tracks, and the film has now been given a reimagining by Oscar-winning director Peter Jackson, in the form of The Beatles: Get Back on the Disney+ streaming service.
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Music Reviews
The Police: Synchronicity Super Deluxe Edition Box Set
Mike Mettler  |  Nov 14, 2024  | 

Synchronicity is the album that vaulted the blended British/American trio The Police into the megaplatinum global-phenomenon stratosphere, itself a 10-track master class of envelope-pushing pop songwriting, clever and sometimes challenging song arrangements, and truly elite musicianship. To properly fete the band’s studio swan song, A&M/Polydor/Universal Music Recordings has issued several expanded multiformat editions of Synchronicity, including an 84-track 6CD box set and a more abbreviated 43-track 4LP box set. Read Mike Mettler’s review of both super deluxe editions to see if you should add either, or both, to your collection and listening rotation accordingly. . .

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Music Reviews
The Raconteurs: Consolers of the Lonely
Rob O'Connor  |  Jul 22, 2008  | 
Third Man/Warner Bros.
Music ••• Sound ••••

To Jack White, everything is a concept.

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Music Reviews
The Replacements: Pleased to Meet Me - Deluxe Edition
Mike Mettler  |  Oct 09, 2020  | 
Performance
Sound
"The Replacements are self-destructing right in front of me."

That's what I was thinking to myself as I watched these four Minneapolis-bred indie-rock stalwarts attempt to play through their rag-tag set while opening for Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers on August 19, 1989, at the Brendan Byrne Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

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Music Reviews
The Replacements: Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash; Stink; Hootenanny; Let It Be
Brett Milano  |  Jul 15, 2008  | 
Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash; Stink; Hootenanny; Let It Be

Twin/Tone/Ryko/Rhino

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Music ReviewsAudio Video News
The Rolling Stones Catalog Comes to HDTracks.
Stan Horaczek  |  Mar 03, 2011  | 

It was kind of a big deal with The Beatles finally made their way onto the ever-growing digital music behemoth that is iTunes, but we find this news just as, um, satisfying. Starting this week, 27 Stones records will be finding their way onto the audiophile music service, HDTracks.com. The tracks have been pulled from remasters that were originally created for and released on SACD in the early 2000s.

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Blu-ray Movie ReviewsMusic Reviews
The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus - Limited Deluxe Edition
Mike Mettler  |  Aug 23, 2019  | 
Performance
Sound
The rock and roll circus was coming to town. In 1968, Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, The Who's guitar wizard Pete Townshend, and Small Faces bassist Ronnie Lane had collectively decided to organize a perpetual traveling show that would consist of equal parts live performance, grand spectacle, and mobile art installation, all rolled into one never-ending carnival bacchanal.
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