Jonathan Richman- Only Frozen Sky Anyway (2025)- ***
v/a- From The Grass Roots Of Jamaica (1969)- ***1/2
(Interesting collection featuring field recordings of unnamed singers and performers covering mento, gospel, junkanoo, work songs, etc.)
D'Angelo- Brown Sugar (1995)- **1/2
(Decided to give this another go after reading all of the tributes and praise in the wake of his passing. I wasn't impressed in 1975, and aside from the excellent title track, my feelings haven't changed. The record is one unchanging groove. It's a bore with few memorable melodies and even fewer tempo changes. I don't get it.)
Chrissie Hynde- Duets Special (2025)- **1/2
(Back In August, I posted how this release looked unlistenable and many readers came at me. "It's Chrissie! That voice!" Well, it's just as I expected. It's a whole lotta nothing. Yes okay, it's listenable. "Dolphins" with Dave Gahan is pretty great, as is the Elvis cover with Mark Lanegan. But some of it, especially the 10cc cover, is truly horrible. I love Chrissie, I really do. But I feel no need to say something is good when it isn't.)
Tame Impala- Deadbeat (2025)- ***1/2
Hollie Cook- Shy Girl (2025)- ***
Psychedelic Furs- Book Of Days (1989)- ***1/2
(A very underrated record.)
iPod on Shuffle:
Lovers In The Backseat- Scissor Sisters
Devotion- Paul Weller
Mean Woman Blues- Elvis Presley
Better Days- The Jayhawks
Heads of Government- Lee "Scratch" Perry
Death Or Glory- The Clash
Can't Let You Go, I Love You So- Alvin "Red" Tyler
Anywhere's Better Than Here- The Replacements
The Jangling Man- Martin Newell w/Andy Partridge
My Wave- Soundgarden
(smell my) Special Sauce- Stanton Moore Trio
Never The Same- Paul Weller
3 comments:
Jojo’s album is okay. The songs were much better live (saw him last May).
I’ve given The Bats new one two spins already. It’s mostly mellow and doesn’t try anything new but it sounds just as one would expect/want. Kaye gets to rip on two songs.
Only listened to the first two songs from Chrissie Hynde. I liked the gender shift on Me and Mrs Jones (k.d. lang). While the performance of the Elvis cover was fine, I’m not a big fan of the song. Will get to the rest of it later.
The new Boz Scaggs was too much the same from song to song. I’ll Be Long Gone is worth hearing, though. https://bozscaggs.bandcamp.com/album/detour-2
- Paul in DK
So I listened to the rest of Chrissie’s album. There are perhaps 4 songs I’d listen to again, the lead track with k.d., the Cat Power, Debbie Harry, and Alan Sparhawk songs. The singing throughout is almost all good. The song with Julian Lennon was terrible - I skipped to the next after 1 verse. I didn’t recognize Debbie Harry’s voice until the first chorus - thought it was Marianne Faithfull at first. The music is mostly boring. It sounds like a covers album you might hear in Starbucks.
- Paul in DK
Did not like Cat Power or Debbie Harry, the latter actually annoyed me. Something about Debbie's voice, which as you said, was unrecognizable. I agree, the Julian Lennon/Beatles cover was horrible, but I did like the Alan Sparhawk. "Soul & Inspiration" is an all time fave and at first I was irked by Dan Auerbach changing the melody. But then, I appreciated the change. All of this is nothing. It's an average release that I will never play again.
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