Music Top 10s
Rolling Stone collects its critics’ individual top-10 lists here.
Tagged: Lists, Rolling Stone
Music
More Snot, Please
Social Distortion’s Sex, Love, and Rock ‘n’ Roll
Tagged: Reviews, Sex Love and Rock 'n' Roll,
My Songs, Damn It! Mine!
Frank Black’s Frank Black Francis
Grim and Grimmer
Driver-By Truckers’ The Dirty South and A Perfect Circle’s eMOTIVe
Portrait of the Artist from a Curious Distance
The best part of Metallica: Some Kind of Monster is its reputed backstory. Commissioned by Metallica’s record label as a promotional film about the making of the metal band’s new album, it instead documented the group’s near-implosion. Yet as engaging as the film is, it’s still strangely amiss. It’s lean but feels too long; it’s probing through the camera’s omnipresence but too gentle and polite; and it’s revealing without ever getting to the heart of the band or its leaders.
The One-Man Soul Band
It was a recording-studio engineer who turned me on to Martin Sexton. The most incredible live performer he’d ever seen, he said. Don’t mess with the studio recordings, he advised; go to Live Wide Open, his double-disc live set from 2000. Without doing much research, I bought it, listened to it, and was underwhelmed. Then I started reading.
Tagged: Interviews, Martin Sexton
Putting the Focus on Songs
Most performers would kill for one of Kris Kristofferson’s careers. But he has three of them: as a great country songwriter, a musical performer of no small repute, and a successful actor. This man has been in a musical group with Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Waylon Jennings, and as an actor has worked with Martin Scorsese, John Sayles, Sam Peckinpah, and Tim Burton. But for all that, Kristofferson seems amazingly modest, and he sounds nearly unsure of himself when he talks about playing solo.
Tagged: Interviews, Kris Kristofferson
Making Songwriting Sound Effortless
Singer-songwriter Chris Smither has been around long enough that not much surprises him. His latest album, though, came together in a way he didn’t expect. But his producer knew what he was doing, and that’s the way Smither prefers it. His expertise is in songwriting, not producing albums.
Tagged: Chris Smither, Interviews
Favorite Songs (Artists N-Z)
I don’t expect many people to actually read through this entire list, let alone try to find patterns or analyze it. But it’s an interesting ongoing exercise for me, listening to the collection album by album, song by song, and figuring out which ones I like best.
Tagged: Lists
Favorite Songs (Artists A-M)
I don’t expect many people to actually read through this entire list, let alone try to find patterns or analyze it. But it’s an interesting ongoing exercise for me, listening to the collection album by album, song by song, and figuring out which ones I like best.
Tagged: Lists
