Blogcritics The critical lens on today's culture & entertainment
The big news this week is of course the 25th anniversary edition of Michael Jackson's landmark album Thriller. While many of us today think of Jackson as the baby-tossing human mannequin, and all-around, one-man freak show he's admittedly become, it's still just a little too easy to forget the incredible achievement that Thriller actually was.
At the time Thriller was first released in 1982, pretty much everybody involved with it expected it to be huge. But no one could have predicted the monstrous phenomenon it eventually became. Thriller was one of those once-in-a-lifetime events that completely rewrote the rulebook for everything about the way music was recorded, produced, and marketed at the time.
Thriller systematically kicked down all of the remaining racially polarized barriers that existed in music even a few months before its release. Everything from the British New Wave syntho-pop of the time, to the post-disco R&B of artists like Prince and Rick James was affected by it. Radio playlists and even MTV — who up to that time wouldn't play black artists, claiming they didn't fit the video channel's "rock" format — were forced to adjust their playlists accordingly. Nothing was ever the same after that.
Blogcritic Donald Gibson has a particularly poignant article about just how profoundly this album affected him in his youth. There are doubtless millions of similar stories about Thriller out there as well.
I'm not sure how jazzed I can really get about all of the extras included on this new 25th Anniversary Edition — new versions of classics like "Billie Jean" featuring today's stars like will.i.am and Fergie just don't excite me that much. But there is no doubt that Thriller warrants the treatment. The album remains the biggest seller of all time even now.
Being a Neil Young fan, one album that does excite me this week though is Cinnamon Girl: Women Artists Cover Neil Young for Charity, which is pretty much exactly what the title describes. Tanya Donnelly's take on "Heart Of Gold" oughtta be worth the price tag all by itself.
Some of this week's other highlights include Free Somehow, the latest from jam band extraordinaire Widespread Panic. There is also a compilation "best of" package from Guru's Jazzmatazz series, where the hip-hop producer and sometime Gang Starr member gives classic jazz tracks by people like Ramsey Lewis and Donald Byrd a hip-hop makeover.
One of the greatest stoner-rock bands of all time — think Blue Cheer crossed with Motorhead on acid — is also back as Monster Magnet delivers its latest opus, 4-Way Diablo. The onetime Georgia Satellites frontman Dan Baird — who had a very fine, but sadly overlooked solo album in the nineties with Songs For The Hearing Impaired now has another new solo release called Out of Mothballs.
This is a certified jazz/funk/power trio bomb. With Vernon Reid on guitar, Jamaaladeen Tecuma on bass, and G. Calvin Weston on drums, there is not a flabby moment on this record. Many people know Reid from his fire-spitting days with Living Colour. If you weren't paying attention though, you might be lead to believe that Reid was only capable of those tangled rock solos. Not true. The man has soul. Tons of it. Mountains of it! Tecuma and Weston (great names in their own right) have joined forces with Reid to produce this spectacular funk assault.
Since Guided By Voices split on New Year's Eve, 2004 (and even long before that) some fans have pined for the old days – back when Robert Pollard and company crudely recorded in a basement on cassettes into a boombox, throwing caution to the wind and making lo-fi masterpieces that confounded standard song-writing practices. Pollard's become something of an off-kilter, oddball-pop genius over the years, but he hasn't forgotten those days, and with his latest album, as always just the first of several this year, he returns to those old techniques to see what turns up. 20 years of old tapes+new vocals and other goodies=a good time for willing ears.
Here are all of this week's new album releases courtesy of All Music Guide:
Antietam
Opus Mixtum
Carrot Top
Alternative Pop/Rock, Heavy Metal
British Sea Power
Do You Like Rock Music?
Rough Trade
Indie Rock
Michael Jackson
Thriller [25th Anniversary Edition]
Epic
Pop/Rock, Urban, Funk, Dance-Pop, Club/Dance
Widespread Panic
Free Somehow
Widespread
Jam Bands, American Trad Rock, Rock & Roll
Alarm Will Sound
Michael Gordon: Van Gogh
Cantaloupe
Contemporary Chamber Music
Dan Baird
Out of Mothballs
Jerk
Rock & Roll
Joe Beck & John Abercrombie
Coincidence
Whaling City
Post-Bop
Marco Benevento
Invisible Baby
Hyena
Avant-Garde Jazz, Noise Pop, Experimental Rock, Post-Rock/Experimental, Modern Free, Urban Folk, Instrumental Rock
Blue Highway
Through the Window of a Train
Rounder
Progressive Bluegrass, Contemporary Bluegrass
Jack Bruce/Robin Trower
Seven Moons
Evangeline
Hard Rock, Blues-Rock
The Buckinghams
The Greatest Hits and More
Fuel 2000
Sunshine Pop, Pop/Rock
Deaf Pedestrians
And Other Distractions
Virgin
Hard Rock, Alternative Metal
Flo & Eddie
The Phlorescent Leech & Eddie/Flo & Eddie
Manifesto
Pop/Rock, Power Pop, Satire
Front Line Assembly
Tactical Neural Implant/Millennium
Roadrunner
Electro-Industrial, Industrial Dance, Industrial
Guru
The Best of Guru's Jazzmatazz
Virgin
Underground Rap, Jazz-Rap, Hip-Hop
Gladys Hardy
I Love Jesus But I Drink a Little
Warner Bros.
Prank Calls, Country Comedy
Buddy Holly & the Crickets
Not Fade Away: Buddy Holly 1957 Complete Recordings
El Toro
Pop, Rockabilly, Rock & Roll
Idiot Pilot
Wolves
Reprise
Indie Rock, Indie Electronic
Wendy James
Racine, Vol. 2
Jungle UK
Alternative Pop/Rock
Simone Kermes
Amor Profana: Vivaldi Arias
Archiv Produktion
Baroque Opera Arias
The Kingston Trio
Once Upon a Time
Collectors' Choice Music
Folk-Pop
The Kingston Trio
Twice Upon a Time
Collectors' Choice Music
Folk Revival, Folk-Pop, Traditional Folk
Dave Koz
At The Movies – Double Feature [Bonus DVD]
Blue Note
Smooth Jazz, Standards, Instrumental Pop, Crossover Jazz, Contemporary Jazz
Jenny Lin
Bloch: Concerto symphonique; Concerto grosso; Scherzo fantasque
Haenssler Classic
Modern Orchestral Music
Madball
Demonstrating My Style/Look My Way
Roadrunner
Hardcore Punk, Thrash
Karita Mattila
Fever
Ondine
Light Music for Voice & Orchestra
Monster Magnet
4-Way Diablo
SPV/Steamhammer
Stoner Metal, Alternative Metal, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal
Carrie Newcomer
The Geography of Light
Philo
Contemporary Folk, Country-Folk, Roots Rock, Rock & Roll
Tonus Peregrinus
Anthony Pitts: Alpha and Omega
Hyperion
Contemporary Choral Music
Robert Pollard
Superman Was a Rocker
Happy Jack
Indie Pop, Indie Rock, Lo-Fi, Alternative Pop/Rock
The Puppini Sisters
The Rise & Fall of Ruby Woo
Universal Jazz
Harmony Vocal Group, Vocal Pop, Alternative Pop/Rock
The Rumble Strips
Girls and Weather
Universal/Island
Indie Rock
Tom Scott
Cannon Re-Loaded: An All-Star Celebration of Cannonball Adderley
Concord
Contemporary Jazz
Sepultura
Against/Nation
Roadrunner
Alternative Metal, Heavy Metal, Death Metal/Black Metal, Thrash, Speed Metal, Progressive Metal
Simple Plan
Simple Plan
Lava
Punk-Pop, Punk Revival
Supreme Beings of Leisure
11i
Rykodisc
Downtempo, Downbeat
Sworn Enemy
Maniacal
Century Media
Punk Metal, Hardcore Punk
Tuxedomoon
7707 tm: 30th Anniversary Box
Cramboy
Experimental Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock, New Wave
Tuxedomoon
Vapour Trails
Cramboy
Experimental Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock, New Wave
Type O Negative
Dead Again [CD/DVD]
SPV/Steamhammer
Goth Metal, Alternative Metal, Heavy Metal
Various Artists
Bippp: French Synth Wave 1979-85
Everloving
Post-Punk, New Wave
Various Artists
Cinnamon Girl: Women Artists Cover Neil Young for Charity
American Laundromat
Adult Alternative Pop/Rock, Alternative Country-Rock, Roots Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock, Folk-Pop, Country-Rock
Various Artists
The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 9: 1969
Hip-O Select
R&B, Pop-Soul, Motown, Soul
Various Artists
Droppin' Science: Greatest Samples from the Blue Note Lab
Blue Note
Soul-Jazz, Jazz-Funk
Yukmouth
Million Dollar Mouthpiece
Rap-A-Lot
West Coast Rap, Hardcore Rap, Gangsta Rap
