May 2012
14 posts
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It’s just a crosswalk: a few stripes of white paint on a quiet stretch of suburban asphalt. But meaning has a way of seeping into otherwise mundane places over time, and the pedestrian crossing outside Abbey Road Studios was crowded with excited Beatles fans when we stopped by on our last afternoon in London. There were dozens, young and old, smiling and laughing and inconveniencing local...
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Paul and Linda McCartney’s RAM was always one of my favorite old LPs to pluck from my parents’ record collection growing up. Later, when I read about the reviews it had gotten back in 1971 (including Jon Landau’s legendarily vicious pan in RS), I remember being baffled. How could an album with so many sweet melodies and gorgeous arrangements, so rich in sunshine and love, be so...
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There’s something incredible about seeing Shawn Carter cough up a lung for Marcy as 20,000 young Britons scream along. Tonight was the fourth of five shows Jay-Z and Kanye booked at the O2 Arena, and they were in superb form. The crowd went absolutely nuts (not least when Ye made his little Wills and Kate joke four times in a row). Still more proof that hip-hop is universal, and these guys...
Standing in the airport, I am waiting for a plane Goin’ east to London, want to be back there again
“Get to You” is one of the Byrds’ loveliest ballads, and it’s been in my head all day as Sarah and I pack for a much-needed London holiday of our own. Related listening: the Byrds’ earlier classic “Eight Miles High,” of Montreal’s “My British Tour Diary.”
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WatchI spoke with NBC Nightly News (above) and CBS’ The Insider (not online yet) about Donna Summer’s sizable legacy. Her loss was sad and unexpected, but the near-universal outpouring of love for her music yesterday felt like a final victory over all the cranks and bigots who have ever tried to deny disco.
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One year ago, Rufus Wainwright was very excited about the album he’d just started recording with Mark Ronson in New York: “We’ve been in for three days, and I already look 20 years younger,” he told me. “I have to start looking around for motorcycle outfits or something, I feel so damn cool!” Those sessions led to his new LP, Out of the Game, my favorite thing...
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A new report shows that the NYPD subjected over 168,000 African-American men between the ages of 14 and 24 to “stop and frisk” searches last year. That’s about 10,000 more searches than the total number of young black men in that age range living in New York. I’d expect a statistic like this to appall most reasonable people – but not, apparently, New York’s deputy...
A lot of my favorite new music lately seems to be about how awesome it is to live in California: Kendrick Lamar’s “The Recipe,” Best Coast’s “The Only Place”… Either I’m having an identity crisis or these are just really great tunes. Whatever the case, I love the new Best Coast album, whose cover art features a friendly brown bear hugging a map of...
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WatchCBS This Morning interviewed me briefly about the late, great Adam Yauch (or, as they spelled it, “Adam Yaunch”). Yesterday’s news still doesn’t feel totally real, does it? Too soon, too sad.
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