It used to be easier to pretend that an album was its own perfectly self-contained artifact. The great records certainly feel that way. But albums are more permeable than solid, their motivations, executions and inspirations informed by, and often stolen from, their peers and forbearers. It all sounds awfully formal, but it's not. It's the very nature of music — of art, even. The Six Degrees features examine the relationships between classic records and five… more »
It used to be easier to pretend that an album was its own perfectly self-contained artifact. The great records certainly feel that way. But albums are more permeable than solid, their motivations, executions and inspirations informed by, and often stolen from, their peers and forbearers. It all sounds awfully formal, but it's not. It's the very nature of music — of art, even. The Six Degrees features examine the relationships between classic records and five… more »
There's really no debating that 2007 will be remembered, first and foremost, as the year Radiohead gleefully suicide-bombed those last stubborn fragments of the old music industry and swept the smoldering remnants into the new millennium. That story has already been told several thousand times over, though, so let's instead turn our attention to its polar opposite: Daptone Records, a tiny time-capsule studio and label in Brooklyn which channels the decades-gone glory days of R&B… more »
The Ponderosa Stomp, which is organized essentially by record collectors and takes place in New Orleans mid-week between the two Jazzfest weekends, is an eMusic.com kind of event. It's a two-night, marathon (6 PM to 4 AM) celebration of the unsung heroes and one-hit wonders of American music, including early rock 'n'roll, rockabilly, swamp pop, blues, soul, funk and garage bands. Needless to say, many of them record for independent labels. So many, in fact,… more »
A decent attempt to present some of Isaac Hayes’ past hits on an anthology. But as one of R&B and soul’s first concept and album artists, it’s impossible to appreciate his contributions out of sequence. His early and mid-’70s albums helped change the course of contemporary black music production approaches, and that can’t be understood by listening to condensed versions of hit singles, or even just by hearing the singles themselves removed from the album context. – Ron Wynn
