REVIEW: EMINEM : MUSIC TO BE MURDERED BY (SIDE B)

5/5

Psycho II. 

Dear Slim, thank you for giving us a music project. 2020 needed this. All the Stan's needed this.

Where to begin? From the sample of Alfred Hitchcock, to the last track of the B-Side taking me back to some old school Shady with a Dre on the boards type track. Probably on my 60th play through from start to finish and it's safe to say he is the Rap God for a reason. I mean once again he does what only Eminem can. Which is sandwich rhyme schemes and punch lines that will leave you laughing or thinking, "did he really just say that"? I mean I'm not the only Stan that literally think's "damn there is no one on his level". Some in his eye come close like in the track 'Favourite Bitch', were he gives a shout out to J. Cole and Lil' Wayne, which was amazing to hear because second to Marshall, J. Cole hits that silver spot in my top five of all-time. From that track its on to the DJ Premier feature in 'Book Of Rhymes', which has got to be one of my favourites off the album.

Ok Fan Boy calm down and let the Poet start speaking my views. Matter of fact you can fall off the deep end.

There is a reason artists don't come at Marshall and if they do well....look at MGK. I mean he has had to change genres to pop punk after he tried to go at the the Rap God and just like the 'Killshot' that took him out this B-Side of 'Music To Be Murdered By' is stacked with that many lethal bars. Anybody would be stupid to go at him, but to be honest that's not why he has done it. You can tell by the style of tracks that Eminem is just doing what he does best and well letting his alter-ego Slim Shady take the reins.

In what is the lead track 'Gnat', he effortlessly takes a run at breaking his own records with the fast flow. Granted it’s not like 'Godzilla' or 'Rap God', but his flow acrobatics are just as effortless. Some that truly have you listening and  picturing a mic drop once the final bar is spat.

Notably tracks that stand out for me from a production stand point include 'Guns Blazing', which sounds like it’s got Dre not just featuring with a verse, but on the boards to. It even makes me think that they could have been tracks that were recorded for the infamous 'Detox' project. Next up I have the track 'Higher'. The beat takes me back to old school Shady Aftermath days.

Hey I completely agree.....

Shut up Fan Boy no one asked you. Poet's talking. Now let me round this up while you get to walking...

Now when it come to the lines that made me want to quit music all together (with Gods bars that most of them) these off of the track 'Favourite Bitch's' first verse really made me say, "f### it. I'm done. Game over!"

"And I know nothing is funny 'bout the Manchester bombing/But we got something in common (What?), both of us are alarming/Foul, disgusting, and awful (Yeah), so repugnant and ugly (Yup)/I could give the Boston Marathon a run for its money”

I mean the above makes you say, "s### did he say that!" Then when it all clicks at what he structured for that last bar of that, combined with the fact it’s no holds barred in terms of subject matter, there is only one thing that comes to mind......Slim Shady. DAN STOCKER and the REAL POET. 

REVIEW: PAUL MCCARTNEY - MCCARTNEY III

4/5

Live And Let It Snow... 

"Simply...having...a wonderful Christmas time." That's what we all wish we could be doing right now, but instead locked down in quarantine we are just standing in our "living" rooms. Staring at four walls like a Willie Nelson hello, or through the frosted glass out to the snow outside. Wishing we could play like kids with a fever. Coronavirus has crucified the calender, but this is the time of year to stay safe at home with the one you hold dear. After all four wise men once said, 'All You Need Is Love'. You can get by with a little help from these friends. Two dearly departed may be like the stars; above, but one of the greats and the guy who isn't even the best drummer in the Fab Four (we're playing Ringo...you're as much a legend as the rest of your band on the run) are still here. Mac is back. You can imagine Sir Paul McCartney standing at the rooftop of his apartment like we all are now. Just watching the world go by. A rooftop reunion reminiscent of Apple Studios in London's Savile Row. Where tailor made for a surprise The Beatles put on one last open air live concert before they let it be. Or it could be Liverpool. Because this legend has never forgot where he's come from. Like another local lad here in Japan ("from Liverpool to Tokyo, what a way to go" like John and Yoko Ono and seeing their 'Double Fantasy' again) a train ride from the big city in Yokohama, the same time it took him to get to the Lime Street station from his seaside Southport hometown. Or the Cavern of car pooling with James Corden. Paul looks to his left. "By George where is he?" He looks to his right. His right hand man. "Have you seen my good friend John" like Marvin? He looks to the wings. He looks straight ahead, down below were crowds on their lunch gathered during the middle of just another day in 1969. "Where is everyone?"

Macca, Maggie and Mando. This big Friday sees the release of the best young artist of our generation, Maggie Rogers' 'Notes From The Archive'. A retrospect of her salad days, 2011-2016 recordings before she hit it big like the Pharrell peak of 'Alaska'. Taking it back but also heading forwards in light speed because this is the way, we also have the concluding episode of Star Wars' out of this world successful series 'The Mandalorian' for Disney + and all you Baby Yoda fans. And Denzel Washington hopping August Wilson's staged 'Fences' again with an Oscar winning Viola Davis for the late, great Chadwick Boseman playing it one last time. But the real conclusion comes with, 'McCartney III', where the Godfather of rock and roll jets to the end of his epic trilogy. Mac's solo act has always been critic as criminals, cruelly underrated. Just like his beautiful ballad of 'My Love' and heart. The same can be said for this trilogy and concluding album. Par exemple. There's nothing in his career (including The Beatles), or music right now that sounds like his inspired 'Long Tailed Winter Bird' into as Macca flies from his last stop at the epic 'Egypt Station'. Right as we find ourselves like him, coming out this terrible year with the fresh 'Find My Way'. "You never used to be/Afraid of days like these/But now you're overwhelmed/By your anxieties" he sings in solidarity to a coronavirus crippled planet in a pandemic, fighting for our lives and souls as we've lost so many. Marching in movements like 'Black Lives Matter' whilst blue powers that be are still choking us by the collar. He continues his barefooted 'Abbey Road' zebra crossing walk on 'Pretty Boys' and the warning to 'Women and Wives' in this year of a locked down, quarantined war zone that may even be our own homes. "Hear me, women and wives/Hear me, husbands and lovers/What we do with our lives/Seems to matter to others/Some of them may follow/Roads that we run down/Chasing tomorrow." It's a chorus we should all chorally respond to and sing along like a 'Hey Jude', "na, na-na-na, na." Right now paying heed like we did to any Lennon and McCartney songwriting partnership lyrical lament that told us things like "all we need is...(do you really need me to remind you?). A duo so dynamic, everyone from Sinatra and Martin, to De Niro and Pacino, or even Shaq and the late, great Kobe were compared to them. 

Time to roll the dice again on its black balled knife edge. 'Lavatory Lil' could Cavern Club find its way on the 'Rubber Soul' treadmarks of any old record from Paul's big three in the Fab Four. But it's the eight minute wonder of a 'Deep Deep Feeling' that really take us higher than a 'Yellow Submarine' trip acid hit. And deeper and darker too. As the living colours like Mr. Mustard are replaced with lyrics that resonate with bite like, "You know that deep, deep feeling/When you love someone so much, you feel your heart's gonna burst/The feeling goes from best to worst/You feel your heart is gonna burst/Here in my heart, I feel a deep devotion/It almost hurts, it's such a deep emotion." He laments on a track that in the sitar studios, George Harrison would really think is something. Then slipping into 'Slidin'' like familiar footwear this Beatle rocks like a Rolling Stone or the cover he shared with the 'Folklore' of Taylor Swift before she 'Evermore' surprised us with another album out of the blue and woods again. Then the man who has been interviewed recently from everyone from super Beastie Boy, Chili Pepper and Cash producer, Rick Rubin to amazing actor and marvellous musician too, Idris Elba for the BBC spins some of his own folky tales for 'The Kiss Of Venus'. All before he 'Seizes The Day' for another Beatlemania classic of "Yankee toes and Eskimos" and more simple trademark and traditional messages that hold your hand as Mother Mary sings to me as he tells us in this show that, "it's still alright to be nice" in a world of woe gone trumped up and fake tan or sour orange bad. Taking us 'Deep Down' on some orchestrated organ that will have us tapping our feet in church as we count our blessings and sins like the tipping point of a balancing scale. Don't lose your footing this year, because this man's worn through these type of shoes. Giving Ed Sullivan, hordes of screaming teenagers and America hope after they lost JFK. Now a living legend like Dylan still working on his songbook like Springsteen or a 'Letter To You' is the only boss we need as we fire the apprentice. Reprising the 'Winter Bird' for the classic closer of this trilogy 'When Winter Comes' like a game of thrones. In what would have been the year of his dear John's 80th, this man keep it 100 and hits his biggest solo percentage. Sounding as much as a Beatle as he does his own artist. As familiar as some songs do stranger. 'McCartney III' is an offer you can't refuse. Now Macca looks over his shoulder, behind his back to see the man whose still got his. The little drummer boy. Merry Christmas. "Ding, dong, ding dong". "The moon is right. The spirits up. We're here tonight". And believe me, "that's enough". Have a wonderful one. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'Long Tailed Winter Bird', 'Deep Deep Feeling', 'Seize The Day'. 

REVIEW: MAGGIE ROGERS - NOTES FROM THE ARCHIVE: RECORDINGS 2011-2016

 

4/5

Maggie's Farm.

What's a year for 'Women In Music' without the one with the best album of last year like this calendars Haim? Maggie's back in town, but this is something you may have heard in a past life. Ever since Pharrell took a trip to N.Y.U. and was moved to disbelief and choked back tears on hearing 'Alaska', Maggie has been on the top of a music mountain. You can tell just in how she holds her stage. From her charming shyness on her first 'Tiny Desk Concert' for NPR (Lizzy Goodman's 'Meet Me In The Bathroom' dog earred book that the once aspiring journalist, Maggie interview editing poured over for hours, lost in transcription, Easter Egg resting on the desk amongst other tidbits), to how she 'Fallingwater' floats in her beautiful ballet like the paint strokes from her traditional shawls and wraps (her superhero cape) like the iconic artwork of her first classic album. A set that featured 'Alaska', 'Burning', 'Overnight', 'The Knife' and so many singles and classics as she more than gave a little, leaving the 'Light On'. "Standing in the open light, within' the swelter of the night", like our favourite, 'Say It'. I can't tell you how I couldn't help but fall in love the first time I heard it through my headphones coming into play as Spotify shuffled into this new artist after Leon Bridges latest album for-like him-another who would instantly become one of my favourites like Springsteen, Ben Harper, Norah Jones, or the late, great purple one, formerly of this world, the artist we will always know as Prince. And of course for a local lad from a train ride from Liverpool myself, The Beatles. But in a big week to end a locked down year, quarantined in the studio, trying to make sense or 2020. One that sees Macca conclude his trilogy with 'McCartney III' and Mando complete his second season with Baby Yoda (I'm sorry, but it will always be Baby Yoda) on Disney + for Star Wars' 'The Mandalorian'. Even in this week with spin-off a from the biggest band and movie franchise of all-time. Not to mention the late, great Chadwick Boseman's last dance as executive producer Denzel Washington and Best Actress Viola Davis take to the 'Fences' of August Wilson's stage again for 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom'. It's Maggie reissuing and releasing some B-sides with, 'Notes From The Archive: Recordings 2011-2016' that really hits from the cutting room floor. This is the way. Just when you thought the singer who recently duetted with 'The Punisher' of another album of the year, Phoebe Bridgers on an 'Iris' Goo Goo Dolls cover to rock the vote, hanging out of the car window like Heath Ledger's Joker with the knives out on a Captain America sweater for the stunning, Summer like single, 'Love You For A Long Time' was going to lead to a new album like that tweet she reposted (it will). Maggie 'Echo' takes it back for the 'Better' like the 'Color Songs' that went 'On + On' for the treasure of the 'Now That The Light Is Fading' EP. These are the 'Dog Years'. Count your time in it this Christmas, because this is a gift. Like the balm stuck at home this year of the wooden box, personal letter and field notes gift set some (I wish, but thank you for sharing my review of your first classic album Maggie. You have no idea how much my phone blew up with retweets...thats how big of a star you were in that moment and still are in your legacy) have been already sent for this collection. Take notes of your past life for the record. Because if you've had a bad week (or let's face it year) this one that loves you will sing you to sleep. 

Oh, 'James'. Like an old lover or friend, this feels so fondly familiar. "Maybe you're in love or hung up on another/Maybe you found a far prettier lover/Maybe you'll paint her a picture like you did for me/You color your world with that Neverland smile/But it goes dark in pieces every once in a while/And on my birthday I told you, "Dont worry, there'll be other days/Oh James/Oh James", she sings in the 'Blood Ballet' (we need a reissue of this album) of a former Spotify viral chart sensation and easily one of her best songs for the record...or any record. Say it. And how about the actual 'Blood Ballet' itself as this song is counted in and Maggie dances around acoustics singing, "Tell me how you are/And I'll write a song for every feeling I can't name/Like we were dancing in a f###### blood ballet/It was a massacre", for this album title track in raw retrograde? As soon as this 'Archive' opens up like a Prince vault the treasures spill out in 'Celadon & Gold' for the sound of this singer, formerly knowingly like an indie darling, as tracks like the beautiful 'Together' bind. On 'Steady Now' she keeps going like a raconteur. Before giving us 'One More Afternoon' with grunge guitars that sound like Seattle or early Chili Peppers out in California. But it's the banjos of 'Resonant Body' that really have a resonance like a shiver down your spine as this is her signature sound. "Drum on my ribcage" she tells you, "for my disonant tones" as she goes back into hers in all its beauty, "freckles and old scars". And if you thought that was beauty, check out the reflection of pure 'Symmetry', chord-for-chord on the perfect piano. "We don't have to talk/Leave your words in the city with your heavy thoughts" she says as the Steinway is the only way. Depths of darkness that aren't downcast if you leave the light on like the shadows of this albums artwork, because this is the most personal, perfect portrait of an artist who takes us there in a quarantined, 'I Know Alone' world that's been wearing masks for years, as we scroll through our phones. 

'Little Joys' can be found here like the gems of these tracks. But to get 'On The Page' of one of Maggie's earliest records is to get to the heart of who this artist really is and what these past recording releases are all about. And in the same time we finally see some 'Early Years (1963-1967)' archives from the Volume 1 of icon Joni Mitchell, this singer who was oft-compared and called an electric version before she made her own name creates her own legend with her own scrap book crate of musical memory. Rogers singing on the backstage steps with tiles as acoustics to her guitar, telling her muse, "So hold me/Sing me to sleep/On the crest of a late breaking wave/And write me/Into your thoughts/I'll be safe with the words on the page" shows us even back then she was writing classic choruses and lines that will last longer in legacy than this streaming moment right now. Pure warmth like 'James'  and his "ooh, ooh, ooh" harmonies, or the comfortable sweater in the desert of the singles original artwork. Getting together with Del Water Gap on a 'New Song' the chemistry is set as her beautiful banjos meet his atmospheric acoustic as she sings, "lovely, tearing me down with your cheekbones/They're warm, but they hit me like sharp stones." Showing yet like time-and-time, "still smelling your scent" again that no one can write about the joys of falling in love without a parachute like her as she webs lyrics together in a beautiful vocabulary. It's what we all need right now in a time of love and life were relationships these days are swiping away at trying to find what's right from all we've left behind. "Everybody's waiting for their one and only/And now and always" she adds on 'Anybody' on another amazing song and reason this collection was curated. Because how has this not been on an official record until now? Just like her signature, generational classic 'Kids Like Us' on more banjo sessions than you could shake some bluegrass at. But nothing howls with such cinematic depth or platinum foreshadowing as when she let's the 'Wolves' out, 'waking with the sun" on an 'Light On' road trip into the wild. "Gearing for the road", "running and never coming back", with the warmth of the "Autumn harvest moon" as her company in this 'Echo' and extended play. The journey is complete by 'Satellite', but Maggie Rogers' one is far from as the pianos play on and again like Sam with stirring strings. The old saying goes that "you can't tell where you're going, if you don't know where you came from" and now we know exactly where Maggie is coming from we can look to 2021 with the clarity and clearness of when the rain is gone. Now we can't wait to hear what comes in the future life. Say it. Tell it. Hear it. TIM DAVID HARVEY. 

Playlist Picks: 'James', 'New Song (Feat. Del Water Gap)', 'Symmetry'. 

REVIEW: TAYLOR SWIFT - EVERMORE

 

4/5

Evergreen. 

Out of the woods no more, Taylor Swift isn't even in the clear with her second surprise release of the year and her third album in 15 months my 'Lover'. Following the 'Folklore', the evoking 'Evermore' see's Taylor remade and releasing swiftly once again. Surprising like Ariane Grande, as we still can't work out who's the biggest artist (not female artist...but, ARTIST) in the world. Her, her (H.E.R.) or the 'Rain On Me' reign of star reborn, Lady Gaga in her own quarantined world at a social distance of 'Chromatica' this year. And let's not forget about the 'Lemonade' of Beyonce (her sister Solange), or the work, work, work of Ri, Ri. But notoriously dropping like bird excrement with another B.I.G. album in the same string vain of folk to the hardcore debuting DMX of 1998 (releasing both 'It's Dark And Hell Is Hot' and 'Flesh Of My Flesh, Blood Of My Blood' in the same year with no quarantine), Swift sings with the big three sisters of Haim (whilst 'Punisher', Phoebe Bridgers collaborates with the 'Red Eye' or Rager Cudi) who in their 'Part III' had and still has (even with those two) the best album of this year of 'Women In Music'. "Este's a friend of mine/We meet up every Tuesday night for dinner and a glass of wine/Este's been losin' sleep/Her husband's actin' different, and it smells like infidelity/She says, "That ain't my merlot on his mouth/That ain't my jewelry on our joint account"/No, there ain't no doubt/I think I'm gonna call him out", Taylor tells it before Este doesn't show up at everyone's favourite Olive Garden. "Does anyone have eyes on Este", Haim's official band Twitter posted today in reaction to this faux true crime story of their sister confronting a cheating lover and ending up in a coffin, as the 'Red' singer and those 'Days Are Gone' remaining sisters vow a blood soaked revenge on a country classic storytelling track that echoes the misty haunting vocals of Norah Jones' 'Miriam' (the anti-'Jolene'). A legend whose had her own legacy making run of 12 months with her own supergroup Puss N Boots' second album and Christmas EP, not to mention her 'Pick Me Up Off The Floor', back to basics solo. Its no longer three for those 'Man From The Magazine' singers battling c###s. "Good thing my daddy made me get a boating license when I was fifteen/And I've cleaned enough houses/To know how to cover up a scene/Good thing Este's sister's gonna swear she was with me," Taylor concludes as Danielle Haim replies, "she was with me, dude" with Swift "not lettin' up to the day I die" turning into the day, "he died". Now we just can't wait for the blood soaked paddle video. Yeah there's no longer three, because Taylor Swift says, "she's the fourth Haim sister now" like a Brie Larson skit on this track from the sister album to 'Folklore', 'Evermore'. No woman, no cry. 'No Body, No Crime'. Mind hunter's will try and figure out if this is real like Van Damme doing the splits between two Volvo's. "I think he did it, but I just can't prove it" (her man, not Jean Claude) sings the chorus in curiosity "killed the" harmony. "He did it" from the siblings haunting in the vocal background. But for the record, I'll tell you one thing that is true. I'd never treat Este this way. Just sayin'. 

Lost in the woods no more, but found like "building a sill" in this time were clocks on the four walls have slowed. Taylor made the record of the year when she collaborated with the Justin Vernon of those Bon Iver folk for the 'Exile' from this terrible 2020. Since then she has been Rolling Stone songwriter cover rubbing shoulders with Beatles on the eve of 'McCartney III' (do you think she told Macca she had something else coming?), looking like she's about to complete her own classic trilogy this calendar, dressed to shoot first in Han Solo boots, cargo pants, coat and shirt for this photo shoot. As classic as her Justin Timberlake 'Man Of The Woods' lumberjack pattern coat for the back of this iconic front cover, for a woman between the 'Gladiator' barley who won't turn her back on this year even if we all want to. Reuniting already with Iver for a bon title track that's just the most compelling closer that has us wanting to run deeper into these trees. "Gray November/I've been down since July/Motion capture/Put me in a bad light/I replay my footsteps on each stepping stone/Trying to find the one where I went wrong/Writing letters/Addressed to the fire," Swift sings in this blank space calendar of a diary entry. Before Vernon's verse replies, "Cannot think of all the cost/And the things that will be lost/Oh, can we just get a pause?/To be certain, we'll be tall again/Whether weather be the frost/Or the violence of the dog days/I'm on waves, out being tossed/Is there a line that I could just go cross?" The former Kanye collaborator, permanently on team Taylor like he doesn't need no liquor. Like frequent collaborations let's hope there's more thread to this 'Cardigan' like a Weezer 'Sweater Song' for the one album in the same day release of Kid Cudi's (who must be kicking himself like Kanye) 'Man On The Moon III' surprise album announced at the top of the week, one chosen one that will have you zoning at 4am in the morning like the 'Blue' of KATIE realizing you just missed your chance to watch this week's episode of 'The Mandalorian' that brought back Boba, let alone Baby Yoda. We hope this is the way. 

'Coney Island' like a Wonder Wheel in Starbury's part of New York, "sitting on a bench wondering where did my baby go", trying to win an arcade ring with the fire of the Brooklyn formed, Cincinatti, Ohio made, all-American band The National that worked on her last album, Taylor collaborates on another classic in this instant in a time that could change your world any second in these 12 months, "over and over". "The fast time, the bright lights, the merry go/Sorry for not making you my centerfold" they sing in separating union. "Were you standing in the hallway/With a big cake, happy birthday/Did I paint your bluest skies the darkest grey", National treasure Matt Beringer asks as "and the winner is", Taylor Swift remembers, "when I walked up to the podium I think that I forgot to say your name" (It's Tim). Fans will debate for the ages as which was the better Taylor Swift album this year. 'Folklore' or 'Evermore'. The opening, weeping 'Willow', classic like a Warwick Davis movie, or Buffy character is as warm and good as the old 'Cardigan'. Whilst 'Champagne Problems' could give her the billboard and broadsheet 'Repuation' of the Tay, Tay that said 'Look What You Made Me Do'. As she bad blood could rap battle with any trumped up dropout or even a Champagne Papi. But from '1989' to the candy dreamworld we lived in a million miles away last year, Taylor reverses her fortune like her 13 favourite number this Friday on her 31st birthday with this album. Hitting the 'Gold Rush' like California here in the heartland of real America. 'Happiness' looks like it could be back in style again for the "Midnight" singer who shows you all her, "hiding spots". On testament tracks like 'Dorothea', an ode to a friend like the story of 'The Last Great American Dynasty'. Or 'Cowboy Like Me', with the country singer stepping back to the barn dance even though, "dancing is a dangerous game", especially in a time were we can't get close in a new age were we created cancel culture and then saw everything around us get cancelled in turn. To cut a 'Long Story Short' this is going to be on repeat like, "tried to pick my battles, until the battle picked me". Still, "if the shoe fits, walk in it 'til your high heels break". Because by the mesmerizing 'Marjorie' these letters to you from Swift are compellingly character named like Springsteen songs for her 'Nebraska' and 'Devils and Dust' in the same year. But before this all gets deluxe on the penultimate closer, 'Closure', this artist doesn't need someone else's brush to paint her perfect picture. "I know it's over/I don't need your closure" she concludes...and we concur. Sometimes, "seeing the shape of your name/Just spells out pain." Times change. It only seems like yesterday-not a half decade ago-when late Los Angeles Lakers legend, Kobe Bryant presented Taylor Swift at her concert with a STAPLES Centre banner for most sold out shows that went up in the purple and gold rafters with all those championships before even his 8 or 24 made it up there. But ever since that dark January when we lost the Black Mamba and Mambacita and gained nothing but corona and time, the world has never and never will be the same. But like writing 'Dear Basketball' or saying goodbye to Hollywood like another famous blonde microphone fiend, with cinemas closed and ball games spiked, we're thankful we had New Music Friday to tide us over like Spotify wrapped this yuletide moment. One that Taylor had remade as 'New Album Surprise Friday' to end the biggest weeks of this year. 'Tis The Damn Season' and we now know how to 'Tolerate It' in this advent of December 25th with the holy and the 'Ivy', "in from the snow" with an "incandescent glow". Now what an early Christmas present a fortnight and change before St. Nick and two weeks after the 'Plastic Hearts' of Miley. This is anything but that time we opened up iTunes to discover a U2 album downloading uninvitingly. Do we ever want Taylor Swift to stop surprising us with gift baskets of albums under the tree this Christmas? Never more! Have yourself a merry one. Forever. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'Willow', 'No Body, No Crime (Feat. Haim)', 'Evermore (Feat. Bon Iver)'. 

REVIEW: KID CUDI - MAN ON THE MOON III: THE CHOSEN

 

4/5

Kids See Astronauts. 

If you still believe they put a man on the moon, then Kid Cudi has an album for you. Andy Kaufman in a wrestling match, Jim Carrey, R.E.M or the Rager. Scott Mescudi is back with the third act. 'Man On The Moon III: The Chosen'. The last one to complete the epic trilogy from the "lonely stoner" who has been with us 'Day N Nite' ever since his breakout debut mixtape, 'A Kid Named Cudi' came out. All before his decade and a year ago 'Man On The Moon: The End Of Day' album introduced by Chicago's own Common in nuanced narration after Cudi was signed to Kanye West's G.O.O.D. Music imprint. Guesting on the 808's of 'Welcome To Heartbreak' and the late night 'Creepers' of a 'Cruel Summer' compilation album from Yeezus and his followers before Mr. West and Mr. Mescudi saw ghosts with the kids for a collabo album that went deeper and darker than just watching the throne in all its gold. The first trip to the moon was a classic as Cudi was on a 'Pursuit Of Happyness' like Will Smith, sampling Lady Gaga like he made her say and popping bottles with Drake before the Canadian rapper of all people took shots at the emotion of his depression (not cool). Still, Scott survived all that (and depression itself) and bounced back with his second album and the 'Man On The Moon II' sequel for 'The Legend Of Mr. Rager' in 2010. Its been 10 years since then. Since classics like the rocky 'Erase Me' with Kanye and frets even Lil' Wayne's rock God alter-ego, 'Rebirth' couldn't touch. What more could you expect from a man who formed a rock act (WZRD) with super producer Dot Da Genius who executive's here? Still, the man who has worked with everyone from Big Boi (on 'Sir Lucious Left Foot's' lovely 'She Hate Me'), the group with the album of the year, Haim (on a rocked out 'Red Eye') and Michael 'F######' Bolton (for some real steel bars) has released a flurry of albums since then. The incendiary, 'Indicud', his out of this world, 'Satellite Flight: The Journey To Mother Moon', a 'Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven' in this matrix and his last project, 'Passion, Pain and Demon' Slayin' in the same 2016 as Kids See Ghosts after an incredible half decade of work. Cudi still has been putting it in though. Working on his craft...and his self. The cult, sci-fi, neo-psychedelic, trip hop rapper has also moved into direction, including other producer and executive ventures. He even acted in this years new 'Bill and Ted' reunion movie like 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' that faced the end of the world like this terrible 2020 as on a truly bogus journey and excellent adventure he faced the music. 

"I mean this with no disrespect Kidi, but we only have four and a half minutes," Keanu Reeves told Cudder in the most classic line of the nostalgic movie. The same can be almost said for the time we have left in this year we want to see the back of like the one walking away. But still with almost less than half of four weeks left on the calendar, Kid Cudi releases a play for album of the year and the best in his classic catalogue, let alone his magnum opus trilogy as the next gens Lord of the Rings. With this and 'Face The Music' this Kid could be having a year like the 56 Keanu did last year, killing the competition with his pencil like John Wick in a time of parabellum. This is how to make it in this year's America. "Look what I have created...I have made fire" a Tom Hanks sample from the time he rubbed two sticks together alone with a volleyball on 'Cast Away' says at the end of '4 Da Kidz' like Wu Tang as Kid creates like the album artwork of 'Indicud'. Take note like the Utah Jazz. His voice is like a musical instrument. Bringing so much talent on board his rocket ship, but taking off all on his own. With Part III and the sisters of Haim celebrating this year of 'Women In Music' by collaborating 'Everymore' with Taylor Swift on a not out of the woods superstar singers second surprise album and the terrific track of murder mystery, 'No Body, No Crime', Cudi brings the artist with the second best album of the year on board. As 'Punisher' Phoebe Bridgers gives pleasure to all the pain in this skull and crossbones year with, 'Lovin' Me'. As the chosen one raps, "Please, Lord, hear me now, hope you’re listening/It’s been centuries, it’s what it seems to me/I’ve been on this road, my eyes glistenin’", next to Bridgers', "I’ve been going, going in circles/Reoccurring dreams, talkin’ in my sleep/Then I’m floatin’ up to the surface/I can finally breathe, I could do anything/And I don’t know why/It’s alright, and it’s not at the same time/Then I look up at a blue sky/And I know", before they come together like a Beatle for the classic chorus. Continuing the classic collaborations, he gets grimey with Brit Skepta and homegrown Pop Smoke as they 'Show Out' louder than Scott's weed. All before tripping with Trippie Red, lyrical jousting on these 'Rockstar Knight's' for this night's tale. But still nothing sounds as good or as outstandingly original and in our socially anxious corner like when K Pop juggernaut and rapping BTS just 'Be', as this man's snare and lyrical glare like when he raps as alone as Macualay, going 'Solo Dolo' again for 'Part III'. 

The moonbeam levels on this one. This is a bigger hit than 'The Scott's' for your billboard number one. Or 'The Adventures Of Moon Man and Slim Shady' with Eminem when this album was first lyrically teased. As like Marshall Mathers going to 'Stan' battle with his bleached blonde alter-ego, these four acts are all about Scott Mescudi waging war with Mr. Rager for his soul. Peace and happiness and all. Just like the flesh and blood of the albums amazing artwork is vibrant, out of this world capillary colours as Sam Spratt makes the paint splat. In Act 1 this 'Return 2 Madness' makes for a 'Beautiful Trip' and inspired intro before we drink to 'Tequila Problems' and lyrical shots...at his own alter. Living for 'Another Day' this multi-talented and faceted rapper raps, "Oh no, hit 'em out and I'm rippin', rippin' in it (Yeah)/And I'm comin' full blown to the tombstone (Yeah)/How I'm livin', gotta push it, gotta set the tone (Yeah)/It ain't nothin' to me, baby, say I'm livin' long (Livin' long)". Before 'She Knows This' sounds like another classic we can't wait for our playlists to get to know. 'Dive' takes us even deeper before the darkness of Act II shows us everything that's been 'Damaged' by 'The Rager, The Menace' like the Lakers changing of the guard, Dennis Schröder. Imagining like John Lennon a 'Heaven On Earth' amongst all the brimstone of this hell, Rager rages, "Heaven on earth, I am curious/Yeah, I'm livin' until I'm gone (Right?)/The stronger, the men catch us on the throne (Right?)", but will you show sympathy for the devil like a Rolling Stone before the 16 plat, double Grammy winners third act? Because this ones for all the 'Sad People' with a 'Heart Of Rose Gold' like the time he faced himself in the mirrors of a toilet cubicle after a drunken pursuit, soaked in the misspelled happiness of glitter. On a flashback to 'Elsie's Baby Boy' he gives us his 'Brenda's Got A Baby'. Then marking 'Sept. 16' in a year we're everyday is the same he stares into 'The Void', quarantine rapping, "Oh man, oh man, takin' me home/When you awake in bed and I'm alone/In my memory/Runnin' through my brain and I'm searchin' for you, you know/In my memory". Before locking us down with, "Heyo, need to free my mind, ah yeah, this a little ritual of mine/As I head home, head up high, get some, hello, sailing by/Now we say open the day, let it out alive/Let go, they say I survive, if you say so, please don't lie/My days are low, I give it a try/Seen new things in my soul when I'm just sittin' in my room all alone/This is as real as I'll ever be", bars as he gets to know himself better in all this worse like everyone else at a social distance. But it's the final act of 'Powers' going fourth where this cult hero really gets his cape, making sure no one else will stand on it for a man who made his own way to the moon, shooting without hanging on to anyone's coatatils. Not even a King who walks with Jesus and runs next to Trump. Stepping with us and Mr. Rager for one last dance like Wade or Batman and The Joker in 'The Pale Moonlight'. Four acts deserves another part of this series right? "To be continued" a voice whispers into our earwormed headphones like a shout at the end of 'Lord I Know' and another neon heaven in space sent album in this year of our not so great depression. We hope it will be. The soundtrack to his life keeps scoring. When it comes to genre bending on an interstellar, intergalactic (the epic 'Entergalatic' comes next, next year to enter 2021) scale in a year of new, best yet albums from Jay Electronica, Childish Gambino, Nas, Common, Busta Rhymes and Big Sean, this kid is a beast boy like Adam Yauch. That's one small step for rap... TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'Tequila Shots', 'Elsie's Baby Boy (Flashback)', 'Lovin' Me (Feat. Phoebe Bridgers)'. 

REVIEW: KATIE - OUR TIME IS BLUE EP

4/5

Blue Seoul. 

Times like these have been hard in 2020. Echo that. But going 'Blue' like Joni Mitchell, our KATIE-in a year dominated once again by the 'Dynamite' of BTS (who could just 'Be' and break streaming records) and South Korean sister act BLACKPINK (always needs to be shouted in their signature style of call and response) with their Netflix movie and 'The Album'-shows that K Pop is more than just their two top tier acts like Twice or the haze of Heize the deeper it gets. The Far East nation dominating this still in quarantine revolving world of entertainment, taking the lead from Hollywood, even to those trumped up idiots who think it's just a 'Parasite'. Get the big picture like you missed the best game and name changing one. There's nothing foreign or lost in translation about kids in the West singing along in Korean like Beatlemania in reverse or the world getting beautifully smaller and closer even at an isolated social distance. Oh and those people that didn't show up at your rally Donald?! You can thank the ARMY for that. The only time going to war and trolling does some good. Swashbuckling in a Brooklyn subway, guerilla live performance in the New York City King Kong, thumped his chest and owned. Remembering that duet with Ty Dolla $ign and the dolphin like, echoing beat. We're still thinking about that like zoning at 4am in the morning to 'Thinkin About You' or the one that middle of the night neon vibe atmospherically reminds us of (I'll never tell). Or those great Khalid ('Talk'), Lil Nas X ('Old Town Road') and Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello ('Senorita) reworked covers we wish were still on Spotify like we wish that service would pay its artist more, forget an end of the year wrap (that's how you really say thanks conglomerates). The singing idol and K-Pop Star 4 contest winner has already logged an incredible EP with last year's 'LOG', featuring soulful songs like 'Future Love', 'Love Kills' and the incredible 'Instructions' that you need to follow like her playlist page or a Jermaine Dupri one. But now after the science fiction 'Echo' of an incredibly cinematic classic hit single in April for an artist who like her Korean genre takes pop even deeper than its polished production with actual movies instead of music videos for its actual poetry and not just songs, Katie gets even deeper and darker in a soulful stride into the personal. Especially for the epidemic levels of suicide levelling South Korea, the Far East and the wide world in solitary confinement right now. 'Our Time Is Blue' and her time is now. 

Ghost In The Shell (original...we love you Scarlett and Netflix's computer animated '2049', but this is where it's at) plugged into some anime amazing artwork, Katie Kim (who dropped the last name to become a Google search nightmare like fellow R&B singer Joe, but All CAPS worthy of carrying that common name all by herself) strokes some soulful resonance for your radiating speakers. Even track-by-track, hot take offering more inspired insight on Instagram, storytelling how each song on her most personal project yet came to be. 'Classic' which is exactly that to its name was inspired by neo soul star Jill Scott and her 'Long Walk' as Katie herself made her way to the Subway, headphones on like "do you want it on you collard greens". As this neo K Pop (is she that or have we just coined that?) says this 'Classic' takes her back to her college days for the yearbook. Singing, "picture us Sonny and Cher/your hands in my hair" like it's in his kiss for this Polaroid moment whilst you put your hands in the air. As in a snapshot Kim tells us her young adult upbringing was surrounded by R&B, jazz and soul music. Imagining she'd be making this type of "ear music" years later that she really is. "Taking it back to the classic one time." On the lead single to 'Our Time Is Blue', 'Our Time' KATIE pulls up on the streetlight on a blue anime street surrounded by her billboards for a track that is inspired by movies and books that talk about our love like Brandy and Kanye. "Reminiscing on our time" for an ear candy chorus as smooth and sweet as walking the street, hand-in-hand, to the touch of skin. "Trying to find the magic in the moments" with Leven Kali for the other half of this EP's title track, 'Blue', K tries to "find what's more important" for these clubbed Saturdays and church Sunday's, "Neon lights or coffee in the morning". Compelling classic Dolla $ign affording chemistry with Kali that you could just taste it as he speaks on it, "show me all your colours your an artist". That's 'Blue' for you. A track this singer cherishes so much it makes her want to cry, "from the moment the guitar starts arpeggiating". Alone in the zone in LA in colours of orange, pink, purple and of course...ocean blue. 

Plugged into what's real on the 'Faux' of a leather strong track, the Korean Kim goes genuinely hard on a situation with a record label that reveals just how shallow they are, as artists barely treading water in where they deserve to be spiritually and financially search for new depths to their character and craft. "I trip on my trust/A bit of a mess/My worst and best/Yeah you caught it/But if you know me/I'm more than you see/So somber and sweet if I'm honest". Offering more vision behind "the chrome on your sunglasses" she asks, "tell me what you see, when you look at me"...the future and right now not in the rearview like the radio of her 'Love Kills' Lo-Fi remix lyric video for the singer who recorded some of this extended play quarantined in her parents car. This is my kind of blue Miles. Tune into more behind why everything fell through on this deal right before the ink dried on the paperwork for a world that needs to be handshake stronger than oak, but right now sanitizes anything that comes close. For the record we should only keep a distance physically and only wear masks that protect us from corona, not mental ones that hide a villain behind what we really see. "They were looking for a K-Pop artist and I wasn't really K-Pop" the K soul star (by jove I think we've got it) says in a "don't judge me on preconceived notions and don't try to make me into who you think I am" (amen...Korean music is more than K Pop and we were sorry to paint you with the same brush. We will leave our mistake and apology in here for posterity) before she helps 'Teach A Man' like Haim's 'Man From The Magazine' c### on a track that she says isn't quite like her classics 'Thinkin' Bout You' or 'Remember', but is just as sassy and vulnerable. And in this honest 'Women In Music' year of big guns like a 'Chromatica' Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus last week and Taylor Swift surprise releases of 'Folklore'. And of course the greatest record of these terrible 12 months in the Valley Girls and sisters 'Part III'. What's great records from greats like Norah Jones (her solo 'Pick Me Up' and Puss N Boots supergroup), Alicia Keys ('Alica' to go with the autobiography), Lianne La Havas ('Lianne La Havas') without this? All 'Punisher' Phoebe Bridgers has done from 'Kyoto' and all 'Iris' Goo Goo Dolls cover co-singer, Maggie Rogers is about to do with her 'Past Life', 'Notes From The Archives' this month. And of course here in Japan, Aimyon and South Korea's own Blackpink ("BLACKPINK!"). In all of this, what's a year of the power or women in music without its future like, "ready for a change of mind" for "somebody to give me a vibe"? "I could write a book/I could write a poem/If you want to read it/Baby there's no harm/I might ring you up just to see if you're around/'cause lately I've been stuck with my thoughts inside the house" she 'Lullaby' sings to us tonight on the blue evenings classic closer on what she says is a "super soothing" 'Rockabye Baby'. Now what could be more comfortable in a year most vulnerable? One we need one time in our year of blue. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'Our Time', 'Blue (Feat. Leven Kali)', 'Faux'. 

REVIEW: THE SMASHING PUMPKINS - CYR

 

4/5

Twenty-Twenty and the Infinite Sadness.

Zeroes! Wanna go for a ride? Halloween may be over like Thanksgiving in the fall of the most tragic year, but the Pumpkins are back with spice, ready to smash mouths like lattes this season at Starbucks. All with the 'CYR' of some album artwork you'd kind of find in New York's Rockefeller building with a striking God like figure in all its promethean, muscular glow looking like Dr. Manhattan himself. The same blue man group hero their 'The End Is The Beginning Is The End' classic track epically introduced in the trailer for Zack Snyder's 2009 'Watchmen' graphic novel of a movie after the 'Batman and Robin' soundtrack song deserved to score better. The Smashing Pumpkins aren't the type of band that need to spread one track thin over two movies though. They have more hits than the page that checks the cases this year. With more line-ups then LeBron James and the Californian champion, Los Angeles Lakers. But here's 3 of 4 D'Arcy. Even if it has felt like '1979' since their last album. It hasn't. It just everything feels 30 years ago, quarantined in lockdown right now. Think of this new album 'CYR' as a companion piece to the 2018 Rick Rubin produced tenth album, 'Shiny and Oh So Bright, Vol. 1 / LP: No Past. No Future. No Sun.' With its similar strokes of artwork, coming after 2012's outstanding 'Oceania' and the 2014 momumental 'Monuments To An Elegy'. Their last Hollywood heavy metal album being the 2007 idea of the Statue of Liberty and Paris Hilton covering, 'Zeitgeist' which even had greatest hit single worthy b-sides ('Death From Above') to their 'That's The Way (My Love Goes)' and 'Bleeding The Orchid' super singles. Back when histories spirit and mood was a little brighter and not actually that conspiratory...well, not like it is now anyway. Lady Liberty now 'Cloverfield' green (that was my choice of album colour shade) looking like something out of Kurt Russell's 'Escape From New York' this Christmas chronicle...or a Paris reality show. And let's not forget their biggest records off some of their signature sets 'Today'. Like the 'Quiet', 'Soma', 'Rocket' 'Disarm' off a iconic 'Siamese Dream'. To 'Tonight, Tonight', 'Jellybelly', 'Here Is No Why', 'Bullet With Butterfly Wings', 'To Forgive', 'Love', 'Muzzle', 'Bodies', 'Thirty-Three', 'In The Arms Of Sleep', 'We Only Come Out At Night', 'Beautiful', 'By Starlight' everything off the 'Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness' double disc classic that plays like a greatest hits from dawn to dusk and twilight to starlight. The only album in had back in those Sony Discman college CD changing (disc two was my other choice) days...and the only one I needed. Not the only Smashing Pumpkins album, but the ONLY album I had. Welcome to life before Spotify streaming and cherry picking kids! Now I'm talking to my generation in baggy blue jeans and chains nostalgia...feel old yet? And how about the 'Widow Wake My Mind', star 'Spangled', 'Astral Planes' of the 'Teargarden By Kaleidyscope' web series they gave their fans for f###### free like a Timbaland Thursday or Kanye G.O.O.D. Friday (remember that time?) when fans fickly said they were done? Now with 21 tracks as atmospherically neon smooth as 'TheFutureEmbrace' of a criminally underrated Billy Corgan solo album for your 1 hour and 12 minutes. So much so 10 of these albums tracks came as singles before last weeks release. That's what happens when you whittle the track list down from an epic 35 count (we'd have taken all of them) as Jimmy Chamberlain says. When it comes to us and Smashing songs we 'Adore'. We shall never be apart. 

Untouchable. You should still take this golden era band seriously in their Springsteen years, still able to write a 'Letter To You' under these 'Western Stars' this year and the last ones. Even if the same Corgan who once without taking his eyes off his mark, Capone threatened a stage bum rushing fan with violence, has been seen on the cover of dog magazines, smiling with puppies (amazing). Or if better than a classic 'Simpsons' joke, the internet took his "weeee don't even care" from '1979' and turned it into a roller-coaster reaction Vine, Tik Tok, or whatever the f### it's called, more hilarious than the one down with whatever those noises Lady Gaga made when she was close to the epic end of 'Shallow' from her 'A Star Is Born' Hollywood remake with Bradley Cooper. Far from done and quarantined from Rubin's Hollywood Hills production home, Corgan produces this one perfectly. Featuring soulful backing vocals for their middle of the night tones from touring members Sierra Swan and Katie Cole that gives this synth pop, prog rock a 70's feel to the future. Now how about those top ten tracks? Released back-to-back, taking it back to those B-Side nostalgic days, but still mostly serving double A's like Duracell. This band will never Energizer bunny run out of records now. Like the title track and 'The Colour Of Love', kaleidoscope bright as the wheel turns and Corgan sings, "whomever wants you alone/whomever wants you atones/it's with this prayer I've sewn/whomever wants you alone," about this, "vast amount of the time slipped away." This and the storytelling 'Ashes' of 'Confessions Of A Dopamine Addict' came with the 'In Ashes' animated short that served as more than music videos, but more Hollywood for their lyrical screenplays. This all came to a pre-COVID, next third episode of 'Ashes' and the double single release of 'Anno Satana' and 'Birch Grove'. All before the flowers for 'Ramona' and the Friday the 13th, lucky for some fans special edition video of 'Wyttch' that furnished the Pumkins' Halloween like Carpenter. Then came the 'Purple Blood' like the Lakers King and the 'Dulcet In E' as Corgan gets classically compelling with his couplets, “from a tree swings an apple/a pear or a candle/and once caught/Captive of your love.”  Heavy metal poetry. 

Rhyming on 'Starrcraft' and then 'Save Your Tears', Billy let's the pain rain from ducts like aqua as he says, "swoon/Swoon in spirals phased/Swoon in chorused grays/Won't you go?/Won't you freeze?/Please although/You're asked to still/Swoon in somber haze/Swoon by haste," in a new classic chorus. But then how about the chorus of 'Telegenix', taking mental health to task as we all work on ourselves, trapped with out demons at home, scratching the door like a monster under the bed as we sleep? "Then I will bet on your life/From sodden vale and hell's divide/That wind says rain/As blossoms fell for live TV/The ghosts we slay come ours to reap/Upending what's land's end/If they say it's not suicide, then what is/At the bottom of a boot black sea?" If you thought you were drowning, adrift in this sea alone then think again. Here's a hand. Like the one he lends, leading you through the 'Black Forest, Black Hills' for the darkest year for mankind since the great depression or the black plague. Knowing somehow we will make it together. As long as we have the 'Adrennalyne' like this shot to the speakers, or more personal headphones. Echoing through these chambers to Chamberlain, nothing is as haunting as 'Haunted' this season, howling at the moon for a real thriller. This really could be chapter and verse in harrowing harmony as Corgan chimes, "Along the banks of rivers Zion/Sang a fallen and forsworn/The chain/Of human rage/And let between an ocean rain/And lambs so led, I stayed." But still they aren't done like, 'The Hidden Sun'. Then on 'Schaudenfreud' Corgan mentally takes apart anyone who drives pleasure from anothers misfortune with Sigmund Freud smarts. All before growling over guitar to the stripes of 'Tyger, Tyger' and the majestic, 'Minerva' closer. Ending on a high for us saints and feints marching in, singing, "So kinetic, electric waterloo/In vitro, in shadow Xanadu/Perfumed papers that say that we'll mend/Let's dance around again/Let's dance around again." Sometimes fools win...but not you Trump. Our carriage may have turned into a pumpkin this year, but once we rocked the vote it was record breaking smashing. And here's one Pumpkin that won't rot later when it's brought to your porch. Even if the world has gone to a heavy, Halloween horror, handbasket hell. At least we have the metal. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'The Colour Of Love', 'Confessions Of A Dopamine Addict', 'Minerva'. 

REVIEW: MILEY CYRUS - PLASTIC HEARTS

4/5

Cyrus vs the Virus

Double plastic like Dolly. That's what artists albums go these days with the surge of Spotify and streaming. But not Miley. She can go a little bit country ('Younger Now' in 2017). Or you know, a little bit rock-n-roll. Moving millions like units. Pink punking out in a Sex Pistols cropped top that if it was on a dude that said "never mind" to jeans would end up revealing the bollocks. She's the dogs. But back on the dance floor in this age of 'Plastic Hearts', Billy Ray's kid is back to her 'Bangerz' best, whilst everyone else is still twerking in the club. The former Disney Princess, Cyrus can't be tamed like ten years ago. 'She Is Coming' again too, back like last years EP and one of the biggest and best songs of not only her career, but pop as a whole. What more could you expect from this 'Mothers Daughter' who made it because she was always told she would and can Charlie around with Ariana Grande and Lana Del Rey like 'Don't Call Me Angel' and still go ten rounds in the ring with both? Licking at their heels like she does Miss 'Thank U Next's' cheek. Following Grande's grand surprise album and whenever we'll see 'Chemtrails Over The Country Club' from the Del Rey, gangster Nancy Sinatra (does that make Miley a gangster Madonna?), Queen of Staten Island's new home in the Hollywood Hills. Back up, back up, back up back up boy like a brother of Thor. You can't f### with her freedom corona. She came to get her some as she sings 'Gimme What I Want'. Following her most introspective, inspired single like reflection of bottles in the swimming pool ('Slide Away') after telling us with Mark Ronson, 'Nothing Breaks Like A Heart', the biggest alternative pop star is back with her first full length in three. No longer a 'Prisoner' as she uncages a dynamic duet of the same name with the biggest breakout pop star of the last few years, Dua Lipa, before Plastic Ono owning these hearts and bringing legends from Billy Idol ("no way") to the Queen of Fleetwood Mac along for this Gambit ride. Forget the rumors, there's never a dull moment with Miley under the neon of this 'Midnight Sky'. Work Miley, Miley. Work. 

Wrecking balls wreak havoc on everything. Even COVID-19 in 2020, as this has been the year to fight like a girl again with these 'Women In Music' like the 'Part III' of Haim's greatest, Grammy nominated record and our album of the year for sure. This is a calendar that has seen more collections from Norah Jones than her last half decade, or even generational great of this one Phoebe Bridgers' work like a 'Punisher'. A 'Copycat Killer' EP new version of her own Grammy family nominated album came out last week, not to mention a Christmas cover that proceed benefits homeless women looking for shelter. And we haven't even begun to talk about her vote rocking campaign downloading cover of 'Iris' by the Goo Goo Dolls with the one and only Maggie Rogers. The 'Alaska' singer who had the best album of last year right out of the January gates of you 'Heard It In A Past Life' (with all due respect to the 'Cheap Queen' runner up of King Princess who already has a a sick, second album, sophomore single with 'Only Time Makes It Human') and will close out this one with some 'Notes From The Archives' B-sides and rarities (oh, please let us see 'James' again Maggie). Quarantined in a space like isolation, Lady Gaga, a star reborn took us out of this world and back to the dance floor with 'Chromatica'. Best Coast returned for some California love like a hotel on the Hollywood hills telling us in this year of despair that there's 'Always Tomorrow'. Taylor Swift took it back to her roots, locking down 'Folklore' at a a social distance. Whilst 'Lianne La Havas' and 'Alicia' Keys got even more personal with their beautiful, self-titled namesake albums. All this and more with J-Pop singer Aimyon and South Korea's Blackpink taking over the world like BTS with their album. And we're still yet to hear the 'Echo' from the new EP from KATIE coming next week for 'Our Time Is Blue'. Even Aussie Jezabel Hayley Mary went solo for her 'Piss and Perfume' extended play. But pissing on all the competition with her own scent is Miley Cyrus marking her own territory and pop style that grunges genre together like Cobain and Courtney were still in a Hole of Nirvana. 

Prisoners you only have to see it in the new video with Dua Lipa for an underground, quarantined party that goes dirtier than Christina Aguilera and Redman smashing something. Determined to get you moving even in sweatpants as Dua and Miley both sing together, "Strung out on a feeling, my hands are tied/Your face on my ceiling, I fantasize/Oh, I can't control it, I can't control it (I can't control it)/I try to replace it with city lights/I'll never escape it, I need the high/Oh, I can't control it, I can't control it (Oh)" in a time were longing for neon, we're just saying "hello walls" like Willie Nelson. Still, it's the stunning single, 'Midnight Sky' that's really evocative disco pop. Yearning for the American lights of Springsteen singing, "I was born to run, I don't belong to anyone, oh no/I don't need to be loved by you (By you)/Fire in my lungs, can't bite the devil on my tongue, oh no/I don't need to be loved by you/See my lips on her mouth, everybody's talkin' now, baby." In that same neon vain, there's amazingly atmospheric tracks like the tears of, 'Angels Like You', storming Los Angeles like circling the drain of a bar tab. Or the classic couplets breaking up on 'Never Be Me', before she takes us top of the city 'High' with her studio chronic for her ashtrays and heartbreaks like her duet with Snoop Dogg back on that one day he called himself Lion. Then as she says, "Go ahead, you can say it's my fault/If it still hurts at all/I thought one of these days you might call/When you were feelin' small" on 'Hate Me' she takes to task the haters or anyone that doesn't know hot to mind their business to all the gratuitous gossip. But it's the 'Golden G String' that's really the diamond as she primal scream sings, "There are layers to this body/Primal sex and primal shame/They told me I should cover it/So I went the other way/I was tryin' to own my power/Still I'm tryin' to work it out/And at least it gives the paper somethin' they can write about." Aiming for something higher than the spotlight of headlines. 10 million and change. Bringing out the big guns in this time of hearts made of plastic and glass, she pistol whips with Billy Idol, 'Night Crawling' like Jake Gyllenhaal stalking a Steel Panther in Hollywood. All before having 'Bad Karma' but a classic collab with Joan Jett and The Blackhearts, as this young idol more than a Hot Topic t-shirt, knows the greats like she knows how to party. 'WTF Do I Know' she asks on the outstanding opener of this pure pop album that's f###### fun. Apparently...everything. Especially when it comes to making and taking inspiration from great music. Even the 'Plastic Hearts' title track is a platinum smash, gold standard record. Now if this Sex Pistol rocking with punk idols like Billy wasn't enough, then just wait until the 'Edge Of Midnight' and Fleetwood's Stevie Nicks remixes her 'Midnight Sky' like a brand new day. All before Miley herself takes it back to the golden 80's to 90's, rocking covers of classics live with love for a set we miss. Gigging greats from The Cranberries 'Zombie' in her head, paying tribute to the late Dolores O'Riordan, to a Blonde 'Heart Of Glass', rocking like Debbie Harry. Blonde on blonde this artist is as real and raw as it gets. Plastic fantastic. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks : 'Prisoner (Feat. Dua Lipa)', 'Midnight Sky', 'Angels Like You'. 

REVIEW: BTS - BE

 4/5

BE-TS

Exploding like 'Dynamite' just when you thought they couldn't blow up anymore, the only thing that breaks more records than BTS is the Guinness Book. Streaming into the multi-millions on Spotify and YouTube. Even with South Korean sister act Blackpink (there's room for both Big Hits and YG's) in your area with 'The Album' and the movie, 'Light Up The Sky' on Netflix, these boys still burn the stage, despite their worldwide sold out tour being locked and shut down due to coronavirus' quarantine. They still move millions like donating that much to the Black Lives Matter movement and then having their ARMY of fans up the ante by raising and matching that million dollar pledge, all whilst shutting down any racist troll that came Twitter or social media's way with anything to say that didn't support George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and every black person's life that matters today, yesterday and tomorrow, forever more. BTS are no stranger to movements, telling everyone to 'Love Yourself' and making us all idols in the process. Giving love and hope to a world in depression and the epidemic rates of suicide, especially in the Far East and South Korea. This groups dynamic helped save my life...as the kids say FACTS! Showing matter and pride in your race in what is no longer and never really was a white man's world. Especially in a time were Hollywood and the great American songbook no longer rules the entertainment planet like it once did. You only have to look at this year's Academy Award acclaimed Best Picture and foreign film category changing, script flipper and game changer, Bong Joon-ho's 'Parasite', Oscar. Or just what the Bangtan boys and "BLACKPINK" are doing to music and foreign fans in the one direction of the West singing along in Korean, akin to Beatlemania for the cute ones like an Ed Sullivan bowl-cut and tailored tribute on Colbert. Put those two fingers together everybody. South Korea rules and these are the spokesmen. Covering TIME magazine and speaking at the United Nations like not only the world, but the generation we're talking about is theirs. 

2020 has been the worst. Welcome to the understatement of the year. It's been tragic when it should have roared old sport. From losing the Black Mamba and Mambacita, to the Black Panther. And then being infected with COVID-19 and police brutality. But we as a people, brothers and sisters, united in solidarity together have shown fight and togetherness in this struggle. Like voting Trump out and bringing Obama's hope back and doing all we can to still stay embraced at an arms length social distance. Or how we can find ourselves and a new way to work, Zooming across the world from the comfort of our living room and sweatpants, staying as safe as houses at home which we should still do if we can, when we're not taking to the streets in face masks and sanitizer. BTS have had quite the calender too. That is also quite the understatement, but during these times the most respectful one. Back in February they were 'On' with an ARMY 'Louder Than Bombs' with their seventh seal and a road map that looked to pave the way for an epic year of entertainment to set off the new roaring twenties, 'Map Of The Soul' like a boy with luv for the biggest boy band ever from these in sync backstreets that have fans from everyone from Halsey to McConaughey (and me). Spreading their wings like a Natalie Portman 'Black Swan' in a year that has seen studio success for artists going back to the drawing board with their strokes, from Taylor Swift's 'Folklore' wilderness roots to the 'pink 'Sour Candy' of Gaga's out of this world planet 'Chromatica', despite cinemas being closed and sports shut down until they bubbled like we'll never shut up and dribble. "Jump up to the top LeBron" as these young Kings take the throne like James Lakers gang or a Colman crown on Netflix with a young dirty Diana dancing like an M.J. not named Jordan in this last dance. Hot off the heels off this 'Map', Suga took it back to his D-2 rap roots with his own alter-ego album like a Rap Monster 'Mono' mixtape of 'Forever Rain', or a J-Hope 'Chicken Noodle Soup' with Becky G and a soda on the side and shrine to all that and Korean culture video, 'Daechwita'...which still remains the banger of the year and these boys collective career. Even with all this 'Dynamite'. 

Now as we just 'BE' to end this year we want to see the back of like watching her walk away, BTS release their latest 8-track in a year were they stayed gold with another big single and a Japanese version of 'Map Of The Soul: 7' for their Far East neighbours who think Twice when it comes to choosing Spotify streams over the Tower Records of actual albums (salute!). Sharing the name with the 'Let Love' amazing artist and Coltrane of hip-hop Common's classic and conscious genre game changing album, this soulful affair is set to bring the love back in a time of hate too for part two to their own beautiful revolution, televised and smartphone vlogged. Consider this a victory lap in what should have been an Olympic year for these idols with love who released their biggest hit and first English language single with 'Dynamite' that is blowing up so much, so many people who used to fail to understand are now lacing their boots for the army. Stranger things have happened. Just like the 80's fairground like America's Got Talent live performance that saw Junkook pass the mic to a roof rocking RM ("ladies and gentlemen I got the medicine, so you should keep your eyes on the ball"...now how do you like that?) who passed it back to a gas station dancing J-Hope in a red shirt, classic Coca Cola Americana in this firework carnival of choreography step and note perfect. In what would have made the perfect music video if it wasn't for the B'pink 'Ice Cream' like pastels of the outstanding official one for their candy coated anthem that stopped fans in their tracks with Tune Squad, 'Space Jam' throwback too even if they were eating donuts. Dunking all over the competition BTS are "rolling on like a Rolling Stone", bigger than King Kong in what's now their Empire State. Diamond glow up. "Dy-na-na-mite" like Chappelle, rocking and dropping mic's on Saturday Night Live. The pop stars still able to rock them like the rapping roots of who they really are. Like the delight of the 'Dis-ease' track they dias with ease and no need for translation like the fun feeling of their 'Skit' that laughs like a Nelly '5000' when 'Pimp Juice' was hot in heeere, welcoming us to 'Nellyville'. Showing us that just going full English for a one off gimmick, this extended play is more than a spark to set 'Dynamite' off, but instead another firecracker of a collection to ass to their classic catalogue. Like the sublime second single 'Life Goes On', as in matching white suits, sitting on stage in black chairs for a black and white movie, music video these boys shows us this band is still on the run, mixing music hallmarks and their own testimony to the tradition. Showing rhyme for rhyme they still have that kinetic 'Telepathy', before the beat goes on and these Bangtan bangers 'Stay' in the club like their dance moves were made for. But 'Fly Me To My Room' as that very track and the beautiful ballad, 'Blue and Grey' may be the pick of these eight wonders like 'Your Eyes Tell', mapping their way home. As getting persona personal they sing, "I don't know where it went wrong/Since my youth, I've had a blue question mark in my head/Maybе that's why I've been living so fiercely/But whеn I look back, I'm all by myself/That hazy shadow that swallows me up/The blue question mark still exists/Is it anxiety or depression?/How am I so regretful?/Or is it just me, one that loneliness gave birth to/I still don't know, the ferocious blue/I hope I don't erode away, I'll find the exit", showing that in the deepest depressions and the most inspired impressions this collective like the whole K-Pop genre know how to take it deeper than bubblegum rhymes, swallow their pride and reveal who they really are behind all they've made up and fashioned in gender and idol fluidity. Fighting the darkest feelings head on. Now if that isn't original and outstanding, I don't know what is. Let's hear it for the biggest influencers who wouldn't even need an Instagram to be double tapped into. "What's good Korea?" These idols are even bigger than Nicki Minaj, or Cardi B rhyming with Blackpink. Now everyone knows what a BTS is like a WAP. Get the Grammy ready. TIM DAVID HARVEY. 

Playlist Picks: 'Dynamite', 'Life Goes On', 'Telepathy'. 

BOOK REVIEW: LENNY KRAVITZ - LET LOVE RULE

 

4/5

Let Words Rule. 

Eluthera, quarantined. Socially isolated at a distance, there's worse places to be locked down in this weary year than the bountiful beauty of the Bahamas and this inspired island. The perfect place to pen your memoirs as Lenny Kravitz's let's his autobiography story by the book rule like love. Quarantined in paradise like stuck in the studio most singers are finding solace in right now in the vision of this terrible 2020 in hindsight, we haven't heard from Kravitz since 2018 when he 'Raised Vibration' with the Eluthera magic hour tide coming in like the night shore of the background, 'Johnny Cash'. Not to mention classic tracks like the drum roll and video for 'Low' which vibrating on another level really took us higher like 'Gold Dust', 'The Majesty Of Love', or 'I'll Always Be Inside Your Soul', because 'Here To Love', 'We Can Get It All Together'. 'It's Enough'. Although we also saw him go all around the world like daft punks can't anymore with the 'Assemblage' of his beautiful black and white Don Perignon perfect portrait collection. Popping bottles with the likes of Harvey Kietel, Susan Sarandon and his own daughter Zoe Kravitz from back home in his New York to here in Harajuku, Tokyo, Japan. He's also been quarantined in the Louvre of all places like French act Christine and the Queens performing this years anthem, 'People, I've Been Sad' Live for James Corden's 'Late Night', in love like Paris with his socially distanced muse for this year's video of 'Vibration's' 'Ride'. Getting a minute with Mona, riding with France in all it's hallmark, traditional beauty that will always stand strong and tall like Notre Dame forever. But are you going to go his way again? As the 'American Woman' and 'Fly Away' singer isn't staying away from you now like the 'It Ain't Over' Till It's Over' of 'Stand By My Woman' no matter how many tears you cry this calendar. Sittin' on top of the world, like view from a freedom train for the flower child who let's his story bloom over pages of prose like building this garden for us. Taking it back to 1989 for his debut in the same 12 months Haim's album of the year ('Women In Music Pt. III') features the 'Mr. Cab Driver' like discrimination protest song of 'Man From The Magazine', Lenny 'Let's Love Rule' like we all should for his first book named after his first album. Picture perfect portraying a coming of age story in black and white America like 'The Jeffersons' that leads up to the albums original 90's eve release for the chronicles of his volume one.

"Loooooove!" The audiobook opening sings like the first note of Lenny's signature song this very book is named after. The perfect company to fall through this Autumn like leaves as the pages you leaf through turn as smoothly as 'Black Velveteen', or are just told to you like a bedtime story (ladies!) by the 'It Ain't Over' Till It's Over' man himself. Just like 'Me', this time last years memoir by Elton John, prelude and postscript introduced and closed by the 'Tiny Dancer', before the 'Rocketman' who played him himself, Taron Egerton told the rest of his story like a beautiful, bohemian biopic he starred in. As an aside I wouldn't recommend listening to Sir Elton's autobiography if your apartment as thin walls, as every other chapter your neighbor will think you are telling him to shove something up his arse. Just saying. Right now, 'Let Love Rule' will find itself like life's way on your bookshelf next to Alicia Keys' amazing autobiography, 'More Myself: A Journey' next to her latest, first namesake, self-titled, acclaimed album and the space reserved for the audacity and hopeful fathers dreams of President Barack Obama's latest book, 'A Promised Land' coming soon like the place we as a people are getting to now. Coming of age and of stage, this before they were famous, behind the scenes book look is like 'Acid For The Children' by the bass for your face Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers also released at this time last year just in time for under your tree like away in a manger. The chicken before the egg story before the history. You don't get to this destination of his in concert today without this musical journey. From family to rocking like Sly Stone, all the way to the Hendrix covers of a Rolling Stone, just like a black Beatle with Jagger swagger.

Father and son stories like Cat Stevens. A mother's love like our reason for breathing. Gossip folks won't have much to talk about when it comes to the book version of 'Let Love Rule', but adding this album to the singers catalogue offers us a more deeper portrait of the man with those eyes behind the iconic, signature shades that could even make Bono blush. You too will be impressed with the Joshua Tree rock roots of a true hero for songwriting juxtaposition and social justice, especially in these times were Black Lives still Matter in black and white America. Raised my parents from different races, young Lenny faced all types of trouble in a land that still needed to reach the promised one we're still climbing of being judged by the content of your character and not the color of your skin. Still Kravitz let's it and the upbringing of all his uplifting life experiences that counter, to bleed his way into the culture and the arena of mainstream music from New York bars with guys and dolls to selling out stadiums like Guns and Roses, all before performing on the 'Blueprint' of a track by Jay-Z of the same name. Before the Grammy's came a famous family like the one he and former wife and actress Lisa Bonet gave birth too in the flowers for Zoe. The first 25 years of this man's life explored and recounted in just a leaf shade under 300 pages is one many would wish to only live in centuries. Its just that inspirational and iconic in all its influence. Last week in the European like Jiyūgaoka of Tokyo, Japan I masked up to go out for a date with a women I'd been talking to for weeks. As we looked for a place to eat and drink we walked past a coffee store come book shop that echoed down the cobble streets with the words, "so many tears I've cried, so much pain inside, so many years we've tried, to keep this love alive." The lyrics to Lenny Kravitz's sweetly soulful, huge hit, 'It Ain't Over 'Till It's Over' that lost far from family and friends in the Far East needs no translation like Sofia, Scarlett or Mr. Murray. Words and sentiment that right now have so much pure poignancy amongst this perplexed and punctuated year of peril and perspective. Hand-in-hand walking along and carrying on we ain't done yet. It's not over. We've only just begun. Now after letting this book in to our quarantined home this 2020 of COVID-19 lockdown, we can't wait for love to rule again like the embrace of joining hands. Now like waiting for a new year and day, let the needle drop as we turn the page on volume two. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

“I mean, let love rule. That's the statement — and it has been for 30 years,” he says. “And that is the way I try to live my life every day.” - Lenny Kravitz. 

#TAPEDECKSHUFFLE - OutKast #Stankonia20 Special

Stanks For The Memories.

2020 has really smelt like poo-poo-oh, but at least 20 years ago we had something that stank good. Thank you smelly much! On a great Friday in hip-hop this weekend gone, the most "Woo-ha", energetic rapper of all-time, Busta Rhymes returned after a wonder eight years to release the sequel to his 1998 classic 'Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath Of God' for the end of the world as we know it. The same time Common surprised us with another album full of hope for part one of 'The Beautiful Revolution'. Part two begins after the election this week. And if that wasn't enough OutKast released a deluxe edition of their masterpiece 'Stankonia' two decades later. A record that featured both 'Ms. Jackson' and 'So Fresh, So Clean' on the same damn album and so much more. One so black and white American flag legendary before ASAP Rocky that Houston Rockets dynamic duo James Harden and Russell Westbrook rocked the exact Sir Lucious Left Foot and Three Stacks look for a GQ Magazine cover feature for the former Oklahoma City Thunder teammate reunion return last year. So in its honour let's bring back out old 'Tape Deck Shuffle' (which also feels like 20 years ago...nobody uses tape decks anymore...except hip-hop that inspired this series) feature to celebrate. You remember how it goes? Side A is the original definitive tracks. Side B is the best of the deluxe. All to give stanks.

SIDE A

MS. JACKSON - I'm sorry competition. But this is for real. Never mean to make you cry, but I won't apologise a thousand times.

SO FRESH, SO CLEAN - Popping tags like Big did on Jay-Z's 'Blueprint' too, Boi did these two from the A floss on everybody again all in mink. Stepping to the club in the video and stepping over everybody with that Lucious Left Foot long ballet, pointed toe dip to the puddles of the curb. Even Pennywise couldn't f### with this sidewalk killing with Andre 3000 pulling off the yellow slicker like he was about to lose an arm.

B.O.B. (BOMBS OVER BAGHDAD) - You want to talk about an explosion? This song doesn't let up from the first lyrical detonation from Andre 3000 to the final burst, "bob your head, rag top" call and response. BANG!

GASOLINE DREAMS - But if you want to really talk about igniting a track, or even a whole album from the moment you set it off, this fuse throws everything on the fire. "Burn motherf#####, burn American dream." Now how d'ya like that slice of apple pie? BOOM! 

HUMBLE MUMBLE (Feat. Erykah Badu) - People say Erykah does something to rappers. From Common's 'Electric Circus' (actually an epic, experimental, underrated classic), to Andre 3000 taking it out of this world. We say she's the best thing to happen to H.E.R. since the 'Love Of My Life'.

SIDE B

SO FRESH, SO CLEAN (Feat. Snoop Dogg, Sleepy Brown) - What beats a remix that is so original it doesn't even sound like the original? One with the original P.I.M.P., legend and best guest feature rapper of all-time spelling his name, Snoop Dogg. Permed and pimpin' since pimpin' been pimpin'. Chuuuuch!

B.O.B. (BOMBS OVER BAGHDAD) (Zach De La Rocha Remix) - What more can we say about this remix, like what more can we say about 'Bombs Over Baghdad'? Well how about this? This Zach De La Rocha remix is as good as the Puff Daddy and the Family rock remix of 'It's All About The Benjamins' that rages against the machine.

MS. JACKSON (Mr. Drunk Remix) - Get drunk to this one...that is all. Or is that get crunk?

SO FRESH, SO CLEAN (Acapella) - Want to know how fresh? Want to know how clean? Let them spell it out for you, no beat, all acapella. 

MS. JACKSON (Acapella) - Or what better way to apologize and show you are for real? TIM DAVID HARVEY.

REVIEW: ELVIS COSTELLO - HEY CLOCKFACE

 

4/5

Costello Music.

Spectacle stuck between the rock and roll of fellow Liverpudlian's The Beatles and a first namesake, King crowning Presley place, Elvis Costello still makes legendary music (oh and as an aside, for the record we know he wasn't born in Birkenhead, but instead London's Paddington like the bear...but this Sandgrounder so close from Southport will take it). So much so the icon spins a wheel of fortune of songs at concerts (remember those?) for fans spoilt for choice when it comes to his greatest hits. The man in black like Cash and the reason I buy bifocals has more albums than he has prescription lenses under those stetsons. From the drums that sound like nothing else, stampeding in like elephants with his band The Attractions. Or The Imposters of last years almost album, 'Purse' EP. To even cutting a record with Jimmy Fallon's 'Late Night' house band and hip-hop legendary Roots crew (the wonderful 'Wise Up Ghost' back in 2013), between 'Alison's' and 'She', his own talk show like Letterman back in the day and an 'Austin Powers' cameo. Now one of the greatest of all-time comes back alive out of quarantine with an album as big as the new Busta Rhymes bang (the super sequel 'Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath Of God') and surprise EP from urban legend Common ('A Beautiful Revolution (Pt.)'). Not to mention the 20th anniversary deluxe release of OutKast's 'Stankonia' ("stank love" forever. Forever ever? Forever ever!) and that Rage remix of 'Bombs Over Baghdad (B.O.B.)' for the machine now this great with hip-hop Roots moves in rap circles. One big weekend after last weeks letter from alumni, luminary, Boss, Bruce Springsteen and the wordless reply from this generations greatest, Ben Harper because 'Winter Is For Lovers'. No longer staring at the clock on the wall like Willie Nelson, Costello turns his new album 'Hello Clockface' (clockface people...clockface) just in time in the fall of the truly, terrible 2020 that was supposed to be Gastby old sport. But the party's not over yet people. With his 31st album and his first full-length since 2018's 'Look Now' take a gander at the Guggenheim worthy album artwork and see Elvis is still painting perfect pictures even in the obliterated outlook of this calendar. Thank you very much.

Poetry prose opens this clock with 'Revolution #49' for fans of the fab four. Elvis evokes compelling narratives as he "cold as stone" says, "the land was white, the wind a dagger/Life beats a poor man to his grave/Love makes a rich man from a beggar/Love is the one thing we can save." All before rip roaring raw into the best song off the album and his in years to get us started. Waving 'No Flag', but tearing through the strings as he sings," I've got no religion/I've got no philosphy/I've got a head full of ideas and words that don't seem to belong to me" in protest. All for an anthem that could march the streets of a million men from Selma to Black Lives Matter. Adding, "Here's a line in the sand/A word or two in the aftermath." Chortling in chorus, ""You could shake my hand/If I could unfold my fist/If I were a gentleman/If I were a Christian/But I wouldn't risk it/Why would you?/You know my name now/And it's "Mister" to you," for the last laugh in the, 'They're Not Laughing At Me Now' for the haters in this generation of division. A tonic for our troubled times, Costello rhymes," "To keep out the nonsense/And block out the needing/To keep up her spirits/With improving reading/But the ink from the columns/Dissolved down into the stain/On the bare wood floor/That extended to the door", on the headlines of the organ haunting and grinding 'Newspaper Pane' for our news of a coronavirus stricken world like a Queen album or new Tom Hanks Western. But just you wait for the back of the paper, closing 'Byline' that lyrically you should really read all about. "You'll see my photo beside the article/"That's just some guy I used to know/I was never his/He was always mine/But I wrote him off by line by line"/By line by line by line by line by line by line." Stop press! Now how's that for a closing statement? But like the beauty of 'I Do (Zula's Song)' in a time where, 'Radio Is Everything', he and we ain't done. 

"We're All Cowards Now' Costello chides in a Trump time that has turned all our piss and vinegar into brine. "The emptiness of arms/The openness of thighs/The pornography of bullets/The promises and prizes can't disguise/We are all cowards now", he tells is like it is during a perplexing period were likes have replaced love and we continue to shoot and f### each other to death. 'Hey Clockface/How Can You Face Me' he asks on the alt album title track that just goes around and 'round like these quarantined days and the hands we have over our eyes, even though we're holding up a smartphone as we idly swipe past genuine and genius all for the Apple we shouldn't Adam bite on the eve of the end of the worst year. Helsinki, Paris and New York held home for the recordings of this 14 track EP, at the same time as his wonderful wife, Canadian jazz singer Diana Krall released her latest classic ('This Dream Of You') this year. It's been 'The Whirlwind' like he storms on that twister of a track before giving us the storytelling, 'Hetty O'Hara Confidential', journaling journalists again with his second single. "She could kill a man with a single stroke/She's not the one you want to provoke" he warns, "if you can't take the heat/or if you can't take the joke" in classic Costello tones. This all newspaper rolls into 'The Last Confession Of Vivian Whip' changing roles as Elvis tell us all about it in epic eulogy. "Hear the last confession of Vivian Whip/If you're reading this/"My life was lonely/Never hurt a fly/Or spared a kiss/Never killed a soul/Except my own."" Storytelling hasn't been this stellar since Dylan went in on what happened to JFK in '63 behind the knoll with 'Rough and Rowdy Ways'. 'What Is It That I Need That I Don't Already Have' he asks in solitary solace on one of the last tracks, finding comfort at home in inspired isolation, quarantining with the one he holds dear. Diana. But still wondering if woe will befall him before the calendar turns. "Some glasses for my eyes and an hour or two of speed/My hands don't blister/My hands don't bleed" he closes all before he finds the words to this wonder on 'I Can't Say Her Name'. "How can I show my face?/I'm a mess and I fear I may confess/I'm a fool with or without her/Make up what you will about her/It's part of the game/I can't say her name." Our narrator looking for love, but trying to find himself as he loses, as Elvis gives us another rock and roll winner 'round the clock that will keep us ticking over like that face on the wall. Oh hey! Far away and East in Japan, isolated from my friends and family back home (although I am living the life, I can't complain), there's an autobiography from Elvis Costello ('Unfaithful Music') waiting for me back at home near Liverpool, like 'Carol' or a warm embrace. But at 688 pages long and cinder block, hardbook big, I have book, but can't travel with it (can't travel light anyway). But that's OK, one day I'll return to it like a bookmark and far more important things I hold close. Until then Elvis and the story of ourselves, is still being written. No matter the byline or time. Face that clock on your wall. TIM DAVID HARVEY. 

Playlist Picks: 'No Flag', 'We Are All Cowards Now', 'Byline'. 

REVIEW: COMMON - A BEAUTIFUL REVOLUTION (Pt. 1)

 

4/5

The Beautiful Struggle. 

The Revolution will be more than televised. It's been a great Friday in hip-hop. Kind of like a G.O.O.D Friday for a man who still shows love for his Chi-town brother Kanye, despite his Trump endorsement running for President like 'Tha Carter' Lil' Wayne. Despite Weezy F. Baby (please don't say that baby), this has been a week in rap that has finished strong like Mister Cee. Wrapping up the seven days we have Busta Rhymes' first album in 8 years and a return to Woo Ha form with the sequel to his 1998 classic, 'Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath Of God' for end of the world starters. All whilst those ATLiens OutKast came back down to earth to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their stellar 'Stankonia' album like an ASAP black and white American flag that rocks like those Baghdad guitars. As Big Boi and Andre 3000 added more 'So Fresh, So Clean' classic cuts to their catalogue collection like a Snoop Dogg remix. Even Elvis Costello ('Hello, Clockface') has an album out...and we thought last week was big with Ben Harper's instrumental move and the Boss, Bruce Springsteen's letter with the E Street band. Costello may not be rap, but he once rocked with The Roots on the collaborative album, 'Wise Up Ghost'. So has rapper slash actor Common, who has continued to consistently create classics ever since he decided to just 'Be', looking for love and 'Finding Forever'. He feels like raps Coltrane on a love supreme. The Roots rapper Black Thought beats the drum on one of these tracks, whilst Com also rocks with guitar God Lenny Kravitz like Busta ('Make Noise'), Diddy ('Show Me Your Soul') and Jay-Z ('Guns N Roses') all once did. The rock legend who has been writing his just released memoirs named after his first album, 'Let Love Rule' quarantined in Eluthera. Just like Common did last year when he 'Let Love Have The Last Word', all whilst releasing a classic CD in conjunction with 'Let Love'. That was just over a calendar ago and Sense is already back like he was on stage last week which really isn't common right now. And he's not done as like Lenny's 'It's Time For A Love Revolution' back in the day, Common's 'A Beautiful Revolution (Pt. 1)' hints at another classic chapter to come soon in this beautiful struggle called life. 

Revolutionary warfare, halfway housin' between an extended play and LP, the cover of 'Revolution's' silk print, art deco, best yet artwork decoration could be something straight out of the Mardi Gras of New Orleans for you Pelicans like the road to Zion. Featuring three boys in shorts trumpeting with three raised fists for Black Power that will always matter. It could almost be the black gloved salute of the podium of the 1968 Olympics. It's most certainly a homage. And a jazzy look at the most soulful Common Sense has been since we tasted 'Like Water For Chocolate' in his Soulquarian days right before his criminally underrated and epic, 'Electric Cirus' late career catalyst that should have never been critically disregarded like 'Universal Mind Control'. Its experimentalism at it's best in a genre that discriminates this gesture, treating it like 'The New Danger' of a Mos Def rock album that rolls. Common has more classics than your favourite rapper as hip-hop's purest and most amazing artist. We all know about 'Be' and 'Finding Forever', or even the days he had the Sense to ask 'Can I Borrow A Dollar' before the 'Resurrection'. 'One Day It'll All Make Sense' like his first book. Or the last decade of the 'Selma' uplifting 'The Dreamer/The Believer' glory, the call to end Chicagoland violence on 'Nobody's Smiling' and the rise and return of  'Black America Again'. The Oscar winner and actor has so many classics in his catalogue like the Chris Rock named "human iPod" Busta Rhymes that you almost forget. But you shouldn't. Like former beau Badu (find yourself an ex who) getting up emphatically to applaud Lonnie Lynn as he shone 'The Light' on Dave Chappelle's Mark Twain award night this year on stage. As we need artists like him now more than ever before in this truly terrible year of losing Black Mamba's, Panther's and loves in this fight against police brutality and coronavirus. Now like 'Let Love' last year, you can put this 'Beautiful Revolution' and hopefully it's second part next to this musical movement. 

Beauty begins with 'Fallin'' like Alicia (who after her own amazing album tweeted how "sick" this one was) after the, "ain't it beautiful. When we smile it's a musical" spoken word self-titled into with the "revolution within'. As Common bootcut raps, "Confront the day, I want a way to make sense of it/Yeah, it's a maze-ment/The turn of the world and how they see you/Ye already said they see us as black Beatles/Black people, open Hebrews/Let it speak to the saviour inside/You'll see why the world needs you/Black bodies fallen in the hands and the clutches of/Descendants of the Dutchman - Anglo motherf#####s/That don't love us, wranglers, it's in their genes to cuff us/We the tribe of Levi, cut them jeans knee-high/I think that it would be wise to read the book of Eli-jah Mohammad," the kind of lines they used to bootleg before release dates back in the day. As he talks about racism, sexism and "Americanism" never stopping on the jazzy slow flow. Whilst on 'Say Peace' with the rhyme roots of Black Thought he raps like 'The Show', ""Knew I had to pull it, the bullet or the ballot/It's like the parable of the story of the talents/Want my people to get paper, with no margin/Turnin' ghettos to gardens like Ron Finley/Through stages of life, the world's my Wembley." Whilst Thought replies in mind kind, "In dystopian ground zero from xenophobia/They love to trope me and misquote me, they even wrote me/Out of all accounts other than shoulderin' small amounts/'Til I called them out, I'm what this story is all about/My arrival wasn't willingly, nah, but that's chillingly/The truth, now I fear from shots from cops killin' me/They on the hunt for the blood, and we the auxiliary/The Black power and love, I'm all the above/We'll find peace in the culture I'm responsible to save/And every piece of the puzzle, every article, the page/I'm at peace in the struggle, I'm awake and not afraid." Powerful lyrics for a critical time of protest. But don't call it like that. They've been socially conscious and doing this speaking about it for years. Speaking out for those who didn't have a voice before they could take to Twitter or the streets. All for what matters. The biggest collaboration here however belongs to the one with Lenny Kravitz which raises all vibrations as the rock star who right now is letting words rule has never played the guitar quite like this as Common gives us lyrics over the licks. Starting 'A Riot In My Mind' over the sirens as he says, "my brainstorm reigns supreme/black superhero with the Cape and wings" and "the minority report said we major" as Kravitz sings, "it's a war outside/when it's quiet it's a riot in my mind." But for all the classic collaborations (is that Stevie's harmonica?) on the seven seal and a bordering intro and outro of this 9 track innervision, it's the fantastic four with PJ that really shouldn't be slept on. The smooth 'What Do You Say (Move It Baby)', the heart of 'Courageous' and her heartfelt opening chorus, you'll recite by midnight. Her 'Place In The World' and 'Don't Forget Who You Are' like you shouldn't who this amazing artist is on what's her born star debut like Common was acting again as Dave Chappelle's friend Jackson Maine. You have to love it when a veteran mentor and protégé with potential catch lightning in a bottle and refuse to stop pouring, no matter how many tracks it hits. This EP to album almost feels like a collaborative one. Perhaps by part 2 for PJ it will be. As for now, yesterday when all my troubles used to be so far away, Busta, Big, 'Dre, Com'. A fab four in hip-hop for the big-three of New York, Chicago and the ATL reminded me of how much I still love H.E.R. The Revolution will be continued. TIM DAVID HARVEY. 

Playlist Picks: 'Fallin'', 'Courageous (Feat. PJ)', 'A Riot In My Mind (Feat. Lenny Kravitz)'.