It’s the Foo Fighters’ first album since drummer Taylor Hawkins’s death last year, and this is very much a tribute album to him. Dave and Taylor – both drummers – were also best friends. “Someone said I’ll never see your face again. Part of me just can’t believe it’s true. Pictures of us sharing songs and cigarettes. This is how I’ll always picture you.” from the album’s catchy second track, “Under You.”
Trying to cope with loss and grief is at this album’s core, and when I read all of the initial write-ups about it, I approached it with trepidation.
“Do I really, really want to handle a hard rock band like the Foo Fighters blasting through an album about death?”
PHOTO BY RICH FURY / Getty Images
But at just under 50 minutes, this ranks as being one of the Foo Fighters’ best albums (if not their finest). It is tight, there is no filler and is enjoyable throughout. Grohl resumes drumming duty, and they are here at their best – stadium rock interspersed with rock ballads with a few quiet moments.
I said to a few friends lately that Dave has a voice that is both confident and comforting, and that is, so, so illustrated in “But Here We Are.” He’s superb. From the blistering opener, “Rescued,” to its gentle closer, “Rest,” it takes you through Grohl’s emotional landscape, which is a deep, dark one, not surprisingly. (He also lost his mother last year. )
“Love and trust, life is just a game of luck. All this time escaping us, until our time is through.“
On the gorgeous “Show Me How,” he is joined by his 17-year-old daughter Violet – initially singing to her, “I’ll take care of everything, from now on,” but then during the song, there is a switch and they sing the refrain together, and things shift at the very end. She sings it to him on her own. It shows. Grief travels across generations. One day, she’ll take care of him.
The album reeks of sadness – take “Hearing Voices,” a fairly lightweight but pleasant enough rocker: “I’ve been hearing voices, None of them arе you,” which finishes with Dave singing over a simple acoustic guitar. This doesn’t necessarily have to be a song about death – it could simply be about a broken relationship (“Speak to me, my love.“).
“The Glass” is one of the album’s best tracks:
“I had a vision of you, and just like that, I was left to live without it, left to live without it. Waitin’ on this side of the glass.”
It’s not even really rock… it’s just Dave.
The true rock fest “Nothing at All” unleashes Dave’s mindset: “I’ll get by, or maybe I won’t. I can lie and say that I don’t waste my time. Lately, I know It’s everythin’ or nothin’ at all.“
Dave Grohl makes his grief clear and abundant in “But Here We Are.” It’s such a shame he and his bandmates had to endure what they did to produce this album which may perhaps now show they’ve moved on. Since this album was made, they now have a new drummer, Josh Freese. Time moves on.
But despite it all, I never felt sad listening to this album. At times, it feels upbeat and strangely joyous to listen to. Hearing Dave’s rolling drum licks at the end of the title track, for instance, made my ears prick up. It’s practically cathartic.
As the beautiful “Rest” finishes:
“Rest, you can rest now.”
Taylor Hawkins wasn’t just a bandmate to Dave Grohl. He was his soulmate. This album so very much shows it.
It’s a hard-driving but lovely piece of alt-rock. It’s great to hear them again.
U.S. Girls is Meghan Remy, an American musician, and producer who lives in Toronto. She draws on the Toronto-based musical scene and musicians to create and collaborate on her albums. She is a permanent resident of Canada with Canadian citizenship.
Putting aside the questionable nationality (OK, who cares?), I’ll try to focus now on this fantastic 2023 release, “Bless This Mess,” which will be one of my Albums of the Year.
To call it “Bless This Mess” is so, so appropriate. It’s got a lot of everything in here, and it’s one hell of a lot of fun. Funk, pop, disco, shades of rock, dreamy indie pop… I could go on.
It opens with what could be a 1980s roller skating anthem (I mean it), but one regarding Greek mythology, the fantastic “Only Daedalus,” and then shifts to the indie-synth of “Just Space For Light,” where she sings to her protagonist:
“Sing into an empty room, a tune about your life,Given that we each must leave, keep that door cast wide.”
“Screen Face” (with Canadian singer-songwriter Michael Rault playing along) shifts into an easy-listening pop song about digital, online dating. “Your phone is dying, And I’m dying too. I’m dying to touch you, and I’m dying to be in the same room.“
Her tracks are so slickly produced, it’s interesting that this album could be called a “…Mess”. The following catchy track, “Futures Bet,” starts with what could be Jimi Hendrix’s opening of “The Star Spangled Banner,” and after amalgamating into the actual song, we have a chorus that begins: “Goodbye, history. Why don’t we let it be a mystery? That we never sort out?” It’s a slightly rockier, sort of synth-pop track but, as Remy says: “there’s something very Pepsi commercial anthemic about it.”
As she repeats: “Nothing is wrong. Everything is fine. This is just life.” (Click… glug, glug, glug.)
Following on, “So Typically Now” is an electropop number, the first single from the album, with rolling 1980s drums (think, oh, so, Miami Vice), but apparently all about a specific time during the pandemic when people fled New York and moved upstate.
So “Brooklyn’s dead, and Kingston’s booming,” and we’ve got “Traitors with loans, they run this show. So you sold off your condo….” and “… I’m freaking out. Yeah, I’m changing my passwords. Gotta sell all my best to buy more, not less. See you someday in Heaven.” Remy does enjoy singing all of this, though. You can tell she is having so much fun doing it.
My favorite track on the album is the disco burner, “Tux (Your Body Fills Me, Boo),” which is a song written from the perspective of, yes, a tuxedo, a discarded tuxedo… “I was your passport to so many rooms. Your mask of pure exclusivity. Now you treat me like a long gone novelty.”
“I was born to be worn. Custom-fit to make you feel legit. It was expensive, and excessive. Now you’re too embarrassed to wear me ’round the house…“
The tuxedo concludes, “I was never for you.”
“I was always for someone else.”
Damn right, and Remy turns this into one fun, exciting dance song that will stick in your head for some time.
“Bless This Mess” was written and recorded while Meg was pregnant during the pandemic and tending to her newborn twins. Not easy. The song’s finale, “Pump,” samples loops of the drone of the breast pump and goes some way to her headspace. “For when I was cut open. And they were taken out. Then they turned to me. Said, “Mama, I’m hungry. I need something to eat. Give us something to eat right now.“
And her line: “What I do tonight, it makes our tomorrow.” That’s a great line, and it’s a great song.
It ends with and outro with her speaking, “So, what are we talking about? We’re talking about bodies, birth, death, machines….”
“And you, you, and you right there.”
Yes, Meg. All of us. We’re all responsible for what comes next.
Bless this Mess
This album is Meg Remy’s finest, from the beautiful balladry of the title track to the disco rhythms, funkiness, infectious R&B hooks, and synth-pop of the remaining tracks.
It is her most accessible work to date.
“Bless This Mess” is a creative, complex, but wonderous journey and I would recommend it to anyone interested in alternative dance and indie pop. Whoever wants to have fun in 2023.
It can be a mess, perhaps. But yes, let’s bless it.
But, thankfully, I had Belle and Sebastian’s “Late Developers” to tide me over when it was released in early January (well, and Margo Price’s “Strays“… but hey, that’s another review!)
I like this album because I’m not a huge Belle and Sebastian fan. So listening to it was a fresh start. They’re a Glaswegian band, formed and led by Stuart Murdoch, with Sarah Martin and Stevie Jackson just behind.
DIY
This is their second album within a year, coming hot off the heels of last year’s “A Little Bit Previous,” their first in seven years. (Not quite as good, in my opinion.)
So it’s now, what, May?!
I started to listen to this in January, and it’s now May. I’m still listening to it, so my Spotify algorithms are now already decidedly shot. I’ll be listening to it all summer. This is an indie-pop gem of an album, from start to finish, with really no terrible weak spots. None. (OK, stop. It is not perfect.)
Belle and Sebastian hardcore fans may gag at the synth poppiness of “I Don’t Know What You See In Me,” and I’ve read many who think it is totally out of place on the album – but it is so catchy, and the rest of the album is as well, I think it suits it. And it is damn good.
This band displays the confidence to sing with Stevie Jackson on “So in the Moment,” a lyric: “Now we’re balancing upon the curb, please don’t say another word. Way down below, there’s still sharks in the road.
I want to jump in like Paul McCartney and Wings. ‘I feel like letting go.’ I’ll be so in the moment.“
I remember when hearing that lyric, having to go back to make sure I had listened to what I just had heard and then thought, “Yup, these guys really are my cup of tea.” Now, let’s go put the kettle on.
The first three tracks immediately hook you in, from Murdoch’s opener, “Juliet Naked,” to what should really be the next single, “Give a Little Time,” with Martin taking lead vocals and the others clapping and providing backing vocals to the lovely end. I want to make my official Teenage Fanclub comparison here, just because of this song. Thank you very much (Hey, they’re both from Glasgow.)
“When We Were Very Young” locks you in with the chorus, “I wish I could be content with the football scores, I wish I could be content with my daily chores. With my daily worship of the sublime.”
But then one of my favorite lyrics: “When we were very young, we loved our selfish fun. We cared what people thought about our selfish words.
You could not tell us then how much we wouldn’t care. ‘Bout all the mindless trivia, now we’ve got kids and dystopia.“
Hey, being young was fun. But getting old with kids and dystopia… well maybe kinda sucks.
And finally: “I wish I could walk away from my scars and sores.” Ouch.
NME
“The Evening Star” and its horn section is fantastic, blending in so well with Murdoch’s vocals- it all sounds so effortless. I forgot this band has been doing this since 1996, and this is their 11th album.
“I Do Follow” is a lot of fun, with Murdoch and Martin trading verses, trying to figure out how much they might like (or love) each other – if it’s even possible – and then together coming to a conclusion: “I’ve got a song to sing, I’ve got pain, I’ve got sorrow. It really doesn’t matter what I say, do you follow?” I guess… not.
The penultimate track, “When The Cynics Stare Back From The Wall,” was initially written in 1995, before the release of the band’s debut album “Tigermilk.”
When you listen to the track, it is clear. I remember listening to Belle and Sebastian back then, and this brings their sound back to me.
Belle and Sebastian aren’t late developers because this album proves they are not. Listening to this, they haven’t aged. Largely, neither has their music.
And when listening to this album over and over, that’s such an oh, so, very, very good thing.
The Easy Star All-Stars and “Ziggy Stardub” have bought it.
I love coming across bands I’ve never heard of and then becoming completely smitten with them. Following that, I can feel a bit ashamed. (I have over 2,500 artists in my Apple Music library, how did I miss this one?!?!)
Enter stage right: the Easy Star All-Stars.
(c) https://music-b26f.kxcdn.com/
The Easy Star All-Stars is a reggae collective founded in 1997 by Michael Goldwasser, Eric Smith, Lem Oppenheimer, and Remy Gerstein of New York City-based Easy Star Records. The band is known for its reinterpretations of classic albums in a reggae style. As Michael describes, what a classic album would sound like in an alternative universe as a reggae album.
So far:
2003: The Dub Side of the Moon 2006: Radiodread 2009: Easy Star’s Lonely Hearts Dub Band 2010: Dubber Side of the Moon 2012: Easy Star’s Thrillah
And now…
2023: Ziggy Stardub
So, “Ziggy Stardub” is 11 years in waiting for the reggae reimagining of David Bowie’s “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.” They have done Pink Floyd (twice), Radiohead, The Beatles, and Michael Jackson (and they have released two original collections, the “Until That Day” EP and “First Light.”)
OK, let’s do this!
Is the album any good?
Yes, oh yes, it is. It’s just fun. With Macy Gray, Steel Pulse, Maxi Priest, Vernon Reid (of Living Colour), and many others collaborating on the tracks, it adds to an overall fantastic reworking of the original album. “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars” is probably in my “Top 20 albums” ever list (wait… just checking), and honestly, listening to this – at no point did I think, “WTF are they doing?”
I hope, and I don’t think, any David Bowie enthusiasts will be upset to hear this re-inventionof his classic. I’d be sorry to hear if any did.
As Michael Goldwasser explained to Billboard: “Ziggy Stardub is like taking David Bowie and the Spiders from Mars band [bassist Trevor Bolden, guitarist Mick Ronson, and the sole surviving member, drummer Michael “Woody” Woodmansey] on an airplane traveling back to Jamaica in the late 1970s; what would happen if we did that? People aren’t used to hearing music they are familiar with in a totally different light, but hopefully, they’ll come along for that ride with us.“
Macy Gray’s sultry vocals sound fantastic on a wholly reimagined “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide.” Maxi Priest sounds like “Starman” was practically written for him, except on a sunny beach with a Bermuda Rum Swizzle, rather than in space. British reggae band The Skints bring in incredibly appropriate crunching guitars to “Ziggy Stardust.” Steel Pulse transform the apocalyptic “Five Years” into a song as if it was their own.
“Moonage Daydream” features Naomi Cowan’s hypnotic vocals, finishing with a guitar solo by Alex Lifesonof the Canadian band Rush. Michael Goldwasser says,“This has been my favorite tune on the Bowie album since I first started listening as a teenager. In light of that, it’s interesting that it’s the song that I changed most radically by simplifying the chord progression and pedaling on one bass line for the entire track, which gives it somewhat of a hypnotic effect and roots it in reggae tradition.”
I love this album because I hope it hears a lot of younger ears who may have never listened to the original 1972 classic by David Bowie but may now be intrigued enough to think, “Hmm, that was cool. What did the original sound like?”
If that happens, that’s a great job done – tribute albums are partly meant to do that.
I initially said this album was fun, but this album is really just spectacular. To prove it, I’ll add a sentence here stating that I love listening to this in the shower. (I’m sure ChatGPT won’t be able to replicate any of this.)
I don’t know where “Ziggy Stardub” will end up in my favorite albums of the year list (or if it makes the list), but Easy Star All-Stars have taken a 1970s glam-rock legend album to make this.
One fantastic, happy reggae reimaginings of perhaps one of the best albums of all time.
Lana Del Rey has finally released her “White Album.”
This album is long but contains some absolute gems, which makes it great. It also includes a few fairly non-existent Lana Del Rey tracks and has two “Revolution 9” tracks, which I’ll get to.
Sadly, to call Lana Del Rey’s “Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd” somewhat indulgent, with that title and clocking in at over 77 minutes, is a bit like… OK, perhaps I’ll say “audacious” instead?
It’s like listening to a now 37-year-old Lana having a mid-life crisis, and it is at times gorgeous, at her very vintage best, and at other times, just blazingly bizarre and difficult to listen to. It is still a good listen. I found it just took quite a bit of time.
But that may be what she wanted. She is truly a unique artist.
“…love me until I love myself…” Lana croons on the sweeping, beautiful title track, a theme of this album. She struggles with self-doubt throughout the album, exploring grief, love, family, and, dare I say it, the meaning of life—or, at least, her future.
OK, the review then.
The Beginning.
The album’s first four cuts, “The Grants, “…Ocean Blvd“, “Sweet,” and “A&W,” showcase Lana at her finest, so I’ll spend most of my time here.
“The Grants” is titled after Lana’s family name, and it contains two of the dominating features of this album: gospel and the piano. She sounds highly confident throughout the track, listening to her. It opens with a gospel refrain and slows to just her on the piano: “My pastor told me, when you leave, all you take is your memories… I’m gonna take mine of you with me.”
It slowly reaches its gospel conclusion: “My sister’s first-born child, I’m gonna take that too with me. My grandmother’s last smile, I’m gonna take that too with me.” It is all about family, and it’s fantastic.
“Did you know there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd” is Lana at her finest, the lead single off the album and one of my favorite songs from last year. It is lush and could easily have slotted onto her 2019 masterpiece, “Norman F–king Rockwell!!” which is still one of my favorite albums of the last decade.
It starts with just her, a piano, and violins, and like “The Grants,” it swells and sends us to a gospel choir.
“There’s a tunnel under Ocean Boulevard. Don’t forget me.”
She sings it over and over. That tunnel was the Jurgins Tunnel, the underground entrance to Long Beach – long shut – the entry and the exit, for over 50 years. Lana asks, “When’s it gonna be my turn?“
That is Lana-speak for “I’m popular now, but when will you – the public – turn your back on me and forget about me?”
“Sweet” is sort of that, but Lana continues with a feeling of uncertainty as the album progresses. Again, piano-led. At first, I wasn’t a big fan of the track, but it has grown on me, primarily when you focus on where Lana is going with this lyrically.
“Do you want children? Do you wanna marry me? Do you wanna run marathons in Long Beach by the sea? I’ve got things to do, like nothing at all. I wanna do them with you. Do you wanna do them with me?“
She’s not sure. Lana’s certainly not lived a conventional life but is now querying whether to have children at 37. Lyrically, she’s confused, but the song, which is her, a piano and orchestra, is beautiful.
“A&W” is two songs in one, over 7 minutes long, but it is terrific. It is an abbreviation of “American whore” which already takes you into Lana-Lana-land. “It’s not about havin’ someone to love me anymorе. This is the experience of bein’ an American whore.” It starts simply enough. Again, rife with piano and her crooning.
A victim asking for it? (“Do you really think that anybody would think I didn’t ask for it?“).
No. “I didn’t ask for it. I already f**d up my story.“
After its initial lovely piano start, she moves into a Lana Del Rey pulsing rap (which only she can pull off). And it works. It is mesmerizing, and it comes out of nowhere. We end up with one of the most exciting and best songs she has ever done.
The WTF?
There are two “interludes” which follow. First is the “Judah Smith Interlude,” featuring Jack Antonoff on piano behind a sermon given by Judah Smith, with Lana laughing towards the end. During this track, I wondered, “WTF were Lana and Jack thinking?” My first “Revolution 9” track.
The next song, “Candy Necklace,” is pretty nothing (it isn’t bad, it isn’t good or offensive), but then it leads into her next “Revolution 9” track with the other “interlude,” this time the “Jon Bapiste Interlude,” which I guess if you joined “Candy Necklace” and this together, you might not have noticed. But no matter what, it’s just random nonsense.
It’s just that… “I don’t trust myself with my heart. But I’ve had to let it break a little more. ‘Cause they say, that’s what it’s for.”
“Fingertips” has me on edge, as I know it is another internal, cathartic monologue, but it is one with no melody. Having been through two “interludes” with absolutely no song structure (let alone song), “Fingertips” is a skip.
Now I know there is a tunnel under Ocean Blvd, the finale?
OK, so “Paris, Texas” (feat. SYML) brings some normalcy to the album, and it is a pretty track. Very much so. Antonoff comes back into the mix, very piano-focused, with drips of violins and an acoustic guitar strumming. It’s a simple song that Lana could have written in her sleep, but for the fact that it entirely samples “I Wanted to Leave” by SYML.
“Grandfather please stand on the shoulders of my father while he’s deep-sea fishing” is one of the best tracks on the album. Forget the title (it is easy to forget). It’s a message to her naysayers and those who have questioned the authenticity of her career—those who could cause her self-doubt.
But, instead, she feels “good in spirit” and “warm-bodied.”
“If you don’t believe me, my poetry, or my melodies. Feel it in your bones. I have good intentions, even if I’m one of the last ones.”
“Let the Light In” is a lovely duet with Father John Misty, another collaboration between the two. They suit each other. “I can never stop, wanna have fun.” she sings, “Don’t be actin’ like I’m the kinda girl who can sleep.“
“Ooh, let the light in… …Look at us, you and I, back at it again.”
I just would have loved to have had FJM sing a verse rather than just backing vocals during the choruses.
“Margaret,” which features The Bleachers (which is Jack Antonoff), is excellent. It would have been a great closer, with four strong stongs ending it, just as the beginning had four starting it. Jack was the production force behind “NFR!!” and co-wrote and produced most of this album.
(c) NME.com
In an interview for The Rolling Stone, Lana admitted: “It was written for Antonoff’s fiancé Margaret Qualley as the kind of song that could hypothetically be played at their wedding.” “So if you don’t know, don’t give up. Because you never know what the new day might bring.”
“Fishtail,” “Peppers,” and “Taco Truck x VB.”
But then we end up with what should have been a bonus disc.
So. “Fishtail,” “Peppers,” and “Taco Truck x VB.”
I’ll be brief, but “Fishtail” – Lana repeats, “You wanted me sadder,” on auto-tune, and it drones on a bit too much with little point. “Peppers” is Lana rapping “Hands on your knees, I’m Angelina Jolie” over and over for what is – I guess – a fun track but entirely out of place.
And “Taco Truck x VB” has Lana in retro mode, sampling a demo of “Venice Bitch” from “NFR!!” in the latter half of the song. I like it, but I keep thinking, “This should have been on a bonus disc.” It’s fun again. And it reminds me of “NFR!!” and the fact that Lana has no issues remixing her material from less than four years ago perhaps is a bit of a testament to her confidence as a singer/songwriter.
It took me a while, partly because of its length, but I do really like this new Lana Del Rey album, which is better than “Blue Bannisters.” I like it slightly better than “Chemtrails Over the Country Club.” But this is no “NFR!!”
Sadly, it could have been an album that ranks as highly as “NFR!!” but it doesn’t because it contains just a bit too much fluff and … awful “interludes.”
And, no. I didn’t know there was a tunnel under Ocean Blvd, but thanks, Lana. Finding out from you was still interesting, confounding at times, and one helluva mind-spinning trip.
“Memento Mori” is Depeche Mode’s 15th album and one of their darkest. A Latin phrase meaning “remember that you must die.” The name of the album is understandable.
They started working on this album during the height of the COVID pandemic and long before Andy “Fletch” Fletcher’s passing in 2022. Fletch was one of the band’s core members, leaving Dave Gahan and Martin Gore to carry on. While I hope not, they are in their 60s now, and I get the feeling listening to this that this could be their last.
After 2017’s Spirit (which could have been their – excellent – last album), it seems that Gahan and Gore may have decided to finish with this.
It is full of the feeling of death, to be honest. Depeche Mode has been there before (“Death is on the Windscreen,” “Enjoy the Silence,” etc.) This isn’t a pop album.
It is not easily accessible, except for “Ghosts Again,” which ranks as one of their best singles. However, seeing the video of just the two of them… what is left of Depeche Mode… feels sad. As they sing in the song, “Time is fleeting.”
But at just over 50 minutes, it again shows that a 75-minute album isn’t, please, oh God, necessary. When this album plays, it will repeat without me even noticing.
The opener, “My Cosmos is Mine,” sets the tone. But for recognizing Gahan’s vocals, this sounds like a Nine Inch Nails track (as do a few others). It is all very industrial, low, with the lyric: “No rain, no clouds, no pain, no shrouds, No final breaths, no senseless deaths.” i.e., hey, fun!
Dave Gahan’s vocals are as vibrant and powerful as ever, capturing the essence of Depeche Mode’s dark, introspective lyrics.
On the closer, “Speak to Me”, it pulls at your heartstrings. “I will disappoint you, I will let you down, I need to know, You’re here with me, Turn it all around.”
Dave Gahan sounds like he so, so means it. The album then closes. And that’s it.
This is one of Depeche Mode’s finest albums, completed in the worst of circumstances.
