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This Week's New Music: What To Play, What To Skip

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.

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Opinions

  • Starshine 2010/04/24 19:22:23
    Starshine
    I LUVVVV GLEE SOOOOO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) <333333333333 luv luv LUV it!
  • King Cnut 2010/04/24 10:21:17
    King Cnut
    Hearing the cast of Glee makes me nauseous - they destroy everything that they inflict their delusional, poisonous, attention-whoring larynxes on. Their voices convey nothing but sickening sweetness, draining songs of all emotion so that they can be marketed as pop fodder for mass consumption. They sing along to generic backing tracks reminiscent of the presets on 80s Casio keyboards, further cheapening songs that were once cherished. What's even worse is that do all of this with permanent grins on their detestable mugs, making the bile rise in music lovers everywhere, and reducing grown men to hysterical sobs at the realisation that Mankind has irrefutably failed as a species.

    Some people like it, though.
  • Nika 2010/04/23 19:08:42
    Nika
    I love the Grateful Dead and Ratt!
    However, I quite dislike Glee.
  • ¢hloe ☮ 2010/04/23 17:03:52 (edited)
    ¢hloe ☮
    I don't really like any of these artists =/ In fact I really don't like Glee...
  • Jon BN-0 2010/04/23 16:47:55
    Jon BN-0
    ...I can't hate Glee....It appeals to my theatre student side.....=/
  • The Roses Thorn 2010/04/23 13:19:22 (edited)
  • lilwogboi 2010/04/23 08:26:47
    lilwogboi
    ONLY play the Glee: Power of a Madonna.
  • The Ros... lilwogboi 2010/04/23 13:24:25
  • lilwogboi The Ros... 2010/04/23 13:25:20
    lilwogboi
    HA HA HA HA HA!
  • Starshine The Ros... 2010/04/24 19:23:06
    Starshine
    omg that episode was so great.
  • bob 2010/04/23 07:27:23
    bob
    Who the hell is glee :P
  • wandering mystery aka Relch... 2010/04/23 03:02:21
  • ..... 2010/04/23 02:59:12
    .....
    Willie Nelson is just pure and simply one of the best country-rebel musicians ever! He marches to the beat of his own drum, he has his own style, his own rhythm that suit only him, his voice is one that only he could get away with, and he is one hell of a song writer!
    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.
  • super1samuel 2010/04/23 02:15:35
    super1samuel
    I'm not impressed with glee however i got to be honest...i have never seen so many boobs and asses in my life. Its like reliving everything that went wrong in high school for me. A nightmare. However i still look at the boobs and asses. What can i say i am male.
  • Algor. Mortis. - ҎԊǢɬ Physician
    The best thing on this list is Ratt, and they suck.
  • moomoof 2010/04/23 01:43:02
    moomoof
    Well you ....insulted madonna ...i have to say ....lame

    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
  • BrokencydeGurl 2010/04/23 01:14:23
    BrokencydeGurl
    i never watch the show
  • PinkSugarZombie (Tori) 2010/04/23 01:12:07
  • bags 2010/04/23 00:51:28
    bags
    I was a real tye died-in-the-wool Deadhead. Spent time in a VW microbus following them around. It's always gonna be the Dead for me. Or Willie......
  • Zeebfaev. 2010/04/23 00:48:45
    Zeebfaev.
    play never shout never mgmt and not the beatles and old music. :(

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Shawn Amos

Shawn Amos

CA, US

2009/10/20 12:35:58

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