This Week's New Music: What To Play, What To Skip
- 2010/04/20 14:34:25
- Read all 32 opinions
This week, the Big Music Machine helps ease our Tax Day pain by giving us a shot of welcome nostalgia. Madonna gets the "Glee" treatment, the Grateful Dead are raised and Ratt spins round and round in a big '80s circle.
Too much tie-dye, pop and metal for you? Don't worry, there are also some good country sounds from Willie Nelson and Shelby Lynne to bring you back to Earth. Read on and pick the ones you want play — if you have any money left over from the tax man.
WATCH "Glee's" Sue Sylvester pay homage to Madonna with a shot-by-shot remake of her 1990 hit "Vogue."
PLAY: "Glee: The Music, The Power of Madonna" Soundtrack
"Glee" is back in full force this season, pumping out more modern-day karaoke hits. Now our favorite faux high schoolers turn their attention to the Material Girl, with seven flashbacks to make you long for your rubber bracelets and lace gloves. It's all good, clean "Glee" fun and a reminder of a simpler Madonna before all of the Botox, adopted babies and Boy Toys.
LISTEN to a preview of "Glee: The Music, The Power of Madonna."
PLAY: Grateful Dead, "Crimson, White & Indigo: July 7, 1989, JFK Stadium, Philadelphia"
Nearly 15 years after Jerry Garcia's death, the Dead live on. The Grateful Dead haven't played together since the '80s, but their vault has enough archived shows to keep Deadheads happy into the afterlife. The band's concerts could be hit-or-miss affairs, depending on your tolerance for noodling. Still, even a hardened jam band cynic would find it difficult to resist this three-CD/one-DVD set. The Dead were flying high on a career revival, and the attention was doing them good. Concert staples like "Box of Rain" and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" sound as fresh as a Haight-Ashbury Sunday afternoon. You may want to get a beer during "Space," but wasn't that always how you remembered it?
WATCH Grateful Dead play "Let It Grow."
SKIP: Ratt, "Infestation"
In Ratt World it's always 1984, and their latest "Infestation" is reliably chock-full of middle-aged, leather-clad, '80s metal memories. Guess what? '80s metal sounded a lot better in the '80s.
LISTEN to Ratt's single "Best of Me."
PLAY: Willie Nelson, "Country Music"
Willie Nelson is nearly seventy-seven, and he's still playing country music like stoned seventeen-year-old. With nearly all of his contemporaries gone, Nelson is left to carry the country torch of such departed outlaw buddies as Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings. The mission of "Country Music" is simple: book a studio with producer T-Bone Burnett, bring in legendary musicians Buddy Miller and Jim Lauderdale, select 23 country classics, roll tape and release the 15 songs you like best. It's a lesson in simplicity that showcases some of the greatest music this country ever made.
WATCH Willie Nelson perform "Man with the Blues" live.
PLAY: Shelby Lynne, "Tears, Lies and Alibis"
I
t took Shelby Lynne 11 albums and 21 years to muster the courage to step behind the mixing board and produce her own album. "Tears, Lies and Alibis" is the most focused collection to come from Lynne, who has had a frustratingly uneven career. Yet Lynne's album is not quite the triumph this fan has been waiting for. It's full of soul and passion but short on memorable songs. Still, it's worth a play if only to see the latest in the evolution of a driven, determined artist.
WATCH Shelby Lynne perform "Alibi" live at this year's SXSW.
Top Opinion
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Mckeags 2010/04/23 00:36:05
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Some people like it, though.
However, I quite dislike Glee.
http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/i...
God bless Willie Nelson, may he never die, and may his music live on if God does decide to curse the world by taking him up.
But also the glee version of her songs lack alot that madonna gives us !
sorry but for those who like glee it sucks at times