Music

CC recommends

Dec 11, 2007 selected by Louis R. Carlozo

Paul McCartney’s silly, slight “Wonderful Christmastime” gets a much-needed, taut makeover. There is a dreamy opening instrumental, “The Gift of St. Cecilia.

Sound alternatives

Sep 04, 2007 reviewed by Louis R. Carlozo

David Bowie called them his favorite iPod download. U2 used their song “Wake Up” as the walk-on anthem for their last tour. Coldplay and David Byrne are unabashed fans. Not bad for a band that just debuted its second album.

Sound alternatives

Jun 12, 2007 reviewed by Louis R. Carlozo

Rickie Lee Jones broke into the music business in 1979 with the jazz-pop novelty hit “Chuck E’s in Love,” and she has been a maddening enigma ever since. At best she’s inconsistent, at worst she’s the embodiment of the tortured artist: all tantrum and attitude with little worthy fruit to show.

Sound alternatives

Apr 03, 2007 reviewed by Louis R. Carlozo

Those who discovered Joanna Newsom’s full-length debut The Milk-Eyed Mender (Drag City, 2004) fell without exception into two camps: either they ran screaming from her Betty-Boop-on-helium voice and tales of bridges, balloons and beans or found themselves enchanted and amazed.

Sound alternatives

Feb 20, 2007 reviewed by Louis R. Carlozo

Psalm 96 issues an invitation repeated throughout the Old Testament: “Sing to the Lord a new song.” Today’s Christian musicians follow that call into vistas that David could never have foreseen, from Celtic folk to speed metal to reggae.

Poem

To pull the plug

Jun 05, 2013 by Paul Willis

As if you were an odd species
of television, a fleshed machine
with un-rechargeable batteries.

Or a greasy remnant
of bathwater,
ready to rattle down the drain.

As if you were a clot
of tobacco,
something to fill up the gums.

Anything but a battered body,
one of ours, your current
passing between two hands.