The Besnyo crew almost sound like they’ve been in a laboratory using precise measurements and scientific knowhow to concoct Worry.

When Mark Olson exited the Jayhawks, he not only left musical partner Gary Louris to realign the beloved Minneapolis country-rockers but left fans missing the tenor harmonies the pair conjured. Olson’s rich, reedy tone and Louris’ sparkling, warm and honeyed lilt remain unmatched in recent music.

Sometimes album reissues are little more than curios that cash in on a capitulation to taking the listener to the specific glory days of that release. I will be the first to admit It’s a Shame About Ray does indeed do that for me, but there’s much more to this record.

A new Diamanda Galás disc is always an occasion for joy and terror. Few musicians are more prodigiously gifted than Galás, who has a unique ability to transfigure any song with her three-and-a-half-octave voice and hyper-muscular piano playing, but she also possesses an equally unique ability to locate the dark matter in the recesses of any song and bring it to light.

For his debut on the Nashville-based Universal imprint Lost Highway the maestro of Belfast soul is… How can it be put without the cliche?

It’s loud. It’s chunky, sneering, glorious rock and roll as it was meant to be. Pairing nervy garage bombast with the heaviest blues rock the law will allow, the Found tear it up across the 10 cuts on a self-titled debut that sets them apart from the sea of Sabbath and Stooges wannabes.

There are very few music aficionados in Western New York who hold a candle to Gary Zoldos. A regular on local music scene for three decades, Zoldos has been in bands, spun records as a club DJ and rarely missed a good concert that has come within spiting distance.

Thriller is that beautiful rarity of an album—like Sgt. Pepper’s or Nevermind, it’s both emblematic of its time and remarkably fresh-sounding.

Gary Louris—along with Twin Cities brethren Mark Olson and Marc Perlman—carved a path far different from the ragged likes of locals like the Replacements and Hüsker Dü with his sunshine-kissed country balladry with a certain rock grit and a never-flagging pop sense.

Check out Artvoice's top list of best albums of 2007.

In fact, yes. ESP Disc, known for its pioneering free jazz recordings in the 1960s, has managed to assemble five CDs of lesser-known live recordings, interviews and rehearsal sessions that manage to throw a new light on Holiday’s career.

I feel like I completely understand the weirdness of Donald Fagen. In the fall of 2007, on a truly strange Saturday night, I visited the campus of Bard College—the place that inspired the ire of “My Old School” and the oddball outsider feel of “Barrytown,” to name just a couple among Steely Dan’s pathos-laden catalog.

Listening to Tracy Morrow’s last CD, Morning Is the End of the Day, conjured a dramatic impression of eavesdropping.

In the world of rock music, the rejoinder “But you should/should’ve seen ’em live…” is used far too frequently.

Those who have been keeping score on Toronto’s Broken Social Scene—a bolstering, mucho member collective that stands like the indie rock analog of hip-hop’s multi-headed Wu-Tang Clan—can easily bust off the names of the Sceney superstars that have fallen in among its ranks: Leslie Feist, Stars’ Amy Millan, Jason Collett Metric’s Emily Haines and Mr. Apostle of Hustle Andrew Whiteman.

Pop superstar Britney Spears commences her newest album, curiously titled Blackout, with the proud proclamation, “It’s Britney, bitch!”

In “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?”—one of his bitter, indicting gems of poison-penned songwriting—Bob Dylan takes aim when he sings of one who “looks so truthful, is this how he feels?/Trying to peel the moon and expose it.”

James Blunt is a genius. No song in the last decade has exploited the fragile psyches of young American females more successfully than his smash hit, “You’re Beautiful.”

Over the last few years, the successful comebacks of rock icons have become old hat. Dylan, McCartney, Simon and Waits are just a few that have showered us with unexpected brilliance.

Though she’d likely be modest about it, as you’d expect any good Alabama-born, Carolina-bred lady would be, Emmylou Harris has got what’s probably the greatest voice country music can claim these days.

The brothers Seth (vocals, acoustic guitar, hi-hat) and Scott (vocals, banjo, harmonica, kick drum) along with upright bassist Bob Crawford are behind a shaggy but wholly honest, hearty, hardy and real brand of modern bluegrass that adds to the staid mountain music’s soul the vigor of rock and roll and a particularly punk spirit with a “throw the rules out the window” attitude.

New York City-based Kasseem Dean—better known to the world as Swizz Beatz—is dead serious about making it known that he is a one-man band, a super producer who can do it all. Known for his quick, dirty and headbob-banging rhythms, he’s been an in-demand remixer and producer who gave DMX and the Ruff Ryders their trademark sound and who has been called in by Usher, Britney Spears, Beyonce, Chris Brown, TI and Madonna to lend the streamed and streetwise gravitas elemental in his beats and hooks.

Stay tuned! This index is under construction - in the mean time, please use our search feature to the right, or Back Issues link at the top of the page for more!

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