The Best Music Album

Speak Now

2010-09-21T04:25:00.000-07:00

By Rudy Palma "The Writing Fiend"

With "Speak Now" Taylor Swift ups the singer/songwriter aspect of her art and turns down the radio-ready emphasis a notch. It is a little less calculated and a little more comfortable than her last two, especially 2008's non-stop hit factory "Fearless."

It is also less focused and tight, but since this is Swift's debut effort without any co-writers, her melodies and lyrics composed independently, this was inevitable. The result is akin to comfort food - unpretentious, honest and warm. She has the natural talent and flair for catchy song craft to make a less precious recording - which "Speak Now" certainly is - work especially well.

Because Swift was clearly given more leeway to do as she pleases both her strengths and excesses are more prominently on display than previously. A few of her melodies sound simple and similar to one another, and she is often bursting with lyrics, with every other tune or so a bit overwritten. However, this is also one of the strengths of "Speak Now." It shows that Swift is the real deal - an artist from whom strong songs flow naturally.

Much has been made of the men whom Swift has written songs about, and that transparency shows her age, but "Speak Now" proves she does not need the controversy to validate the music. From the inventive, shrewd, near power-pop of "The Story of Us" and "Enchanted" to the elegant, apologetic "Back to December," these songs stand on their own.

Accents of country remain, but Swift is transitioning into pop/rock territory, and she cannot be blamed for it - at 20, she is, in spite of her major success, still finding her voice. "Mean" with its cheeky, smartly executed humor, is the only outright country tune.

"Someday I'll be living in a big old city and all you're ever gonna be is mean," she forecasts.

Her eye for detail and sense of levity are prominent. In the classy, tuneful title song she paints the picture of a wedding - which she hopes to put a stop to - in delightful detail:

"...and she is yelling at a bridesmaid somewhere back inside her room wearing a gown shaped like a pastry."

She also plays the role of big sister on "Innocent" and "Never Grow Up," affectionate odes to the importance of childhood. The latter especially demonstrates her depth as she sings of the importance of love, family and innocence.

"But don't make her drop you off around the block," she affectionately sings to her younger listeners about their mothers. "Remember that she's getting older too, and don't lose the way that you dance around in your PJs getting ready for school."

In an industry with plenty of flesh and flash and little substance, Taylor Swift remains refreshing and real, and "Speak Now" is just the right record for her to be releasing now - a collection of songs that proves the validity - and sincerity - of her still-burgeoning talent.

2010-08-04T20:00:00.000-07:00

Product Description

Regarded as one of the greatest albums in rock 'n' roll history and one of the most defining of the Stones' catalogue. Upon its release more than three decades ago, 'Exile on Main Street' innovatively wove varying musical genres, instruments and even artists into a compelling rhythmic masterpiece. The original 18-track double-album was recorded in various stages at multiple locations, including Olympic Studios in London, Keith Richard's mansion Nellcote in France, and in Los Angeles where the literal "Main Street" influenced the album title. These atypical circumstances surrounding the recording process greatly affected the album's outcome which was highly reflective and influenced by the sociopolitical turbulence that marked the late `60s and early `70s. The Stones nixed the influences of a flower-child era and directed their creative process with the edgier, excessive, "more is more" approach of the `70s. Exile reveals a sprawling mix of genres with undertones of blues, country, R&B and gospel mixed with lyrics that fervently demand for release and liberation. The 2-CD version is a 3-panel digi-pak, 2xCDs with a 12 page booklet. The Digipak is printed in reverse board double white to keep an 'uncoated' feel like the original LP release. The 2nd disc features 10 tracks originally recorded during the Exile era including 'Plundered My Soul', 'Dancing in the Light', 'Following the River' and 'Pass The Wine' plus alternate versions of 'Soul Survivor' and 'Loving Cup'.

Customer Review
By John Stodder "a.k.a. Juan La Princi"

For decades, it has been a truism that Exile on Main Street is the greatest album the Stones ever made, and that after this album, their career has gone slowly but exorably downhill. Lately I've seen posts on this and other sites challenging "Exile," saying essentially that the album is wildly overrated, and doesn't have the songs that other Stones albums have--"Beggars Banquet," "Let it Bleed" "Sticky Fingers" "Some Girls" and even "Goats Head Soup" getting the nods from these revisionist thinkers.

They have half a point, these folks. There is nothing that hits the incredible highs of "Gimme Shelter," "Street Fighting Man," "Brown Sugar," "Angie," "Beast of Burden," "Wild Horse" or "Shattered" on this album. The two hits that this album generated, "Tumbling Dice" and "Happy" are much-loved, but didn't have the impact of the above singles. And against their earlier 60s hits like "Paint it Black" or "Satisfaction"--forget it.

All that's granted. If someone wanted to be very reductive, much of "Exiles..." just sounds like a boogie album typical of its era--in the early 70s there was sort of a roots revival going on, so lots of bands were doing a sort of combination of blues and gospel with lots of tambourines shaking, pianos rolling, and backup women singers. Stretches of "Exile..." certainly have that Delaney and Bonnie feel. Other songs sound like attempts to emulate early Little Feat, or Gram Parsons, who famously partied with Keith throughout the making of some of this album.

So what makes this album their greatest?

It's hard to describe, but here's my best shot: It's about "feel." Never before or since did the Stones manage to create such a consistent and compelling mood that lasts from the first song to the last. It is a very naked album, both musically and lyrically. I know it was worked and worked, but the result is an album that sounds like the Stones are playing not in some French basement, but in YOUR basement. And, on this album like no other, they are singing their lives. The songs are grooves over which Mick and Keith simply testify as to what's rattling around their heads--encounters with women, thoughts on life as a rock and roller, spiritual, moral and political questions, from the sublime to the obscene. In its own way, this is a "confessional" album like Joni Mitchell's "Blue" or Neil Young's "Harvest," except unlike those two artists who equate honesty with a quiet and stripped down musical approach, the Stones say what's in their hearts to a rocking beat. And, they don't glorify it. "I only get my rocks off when I'm sleeping." They are nostaglic, isolated, scared, bored, tired, loaded, wondering what will happen to them, recognizing that this life they are leading is artificial and perhaps even dangerous, but a mystery. So they lean on that backbeat and those fat chords, and seemingly just spill all of it, in an almost stream of consciousness way.

To me, "Exile on Main Street" is really just one long song that carries the album's title, a self-contradicting phrase (like "Hide in Plain Sight") that evokes a peculiar sense of paranoia that only a bunch of guys who became international superstars would feel, that sense that here you are in plain sight for everyone to see, but you're gone, you don't live in the same world as your fans anymore, the pleasures of ordinary life have been ripped away and replaced with something that may be much better in some ways, enviable, yes, but also frightening and hard to decipher.

Musically, when you compare "Exile..." with other Stones albums, the main difference I find is that most other Stones albums are highly eclectic. Take "Sticky Fingers." You get some great rock songs, but you also get a jazzy, Latin-tinged jam, some country songs, some orchestral numbers--the mood changes radically several times, and in the end, it's just a collection of great songs without any particular theme. Ditto with "Let it Bleed," "Beggars Banquet" or "Goats Head Soup"--Fantastic albums with lots of great songs, but somewhat randomly assembled musically. I go to those albums for songs that I want to hear, and don't always track them all the way through. But lovers of "Exile..." usually start at the beginning and just follow it all the way through, like a movie. And man, it delivers. And today, 30 years on, it still sounds very fresh.

In my personal little list of the greatest rock albums, this is one of the top 10, along with "Revolver," "John Wesley Harding," "London Calling," "St. Dominic's Preview," "Pet Sounds," "Songs in the Key of Life," "Blood on the Tracks," and the aforementioned "Blue." And like all of them, "Exiles..." comes from the heart, and that's what makes it great.

Laws of Illusion

2010-06-20T03:09:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Mike Steeves

Finally, after another long seven year wait between albums we're treated to a surprise by Sarah McLachlan!

I've been a huge Sarah fan most of my life, and honestly thought everything since Fumbling Towards Ecstasy has been a little bit of a let down. I'll never understand why Surfacing was Sarah's Opus as I regard it as perhaps her least inspired disc (perhaps due to the fact that it was overplayed TO DEATH by everyone and their dog). Afterglow was a nice solid progression, with excellent lyrics, but I always felt it was too 'one flavour', though it was tasty.

With Laws of Illusion, Sarah gives us a few surprises! The horrible break-up from her husband obviously gave her excellent emotional fodder to carve out the gems on this disc. Great art comes from pain and it's evident here.

However, if you're to pick apart the lyrics of a few songs line by line they do sound quite cliche. For example how many times have lines almost exactly like this appeared in some banal song: 'I've been down a long road / I shout it from the rooftops / You light me up you take me higher / Now every time I see you I can't help but look away / I don't care what people say I'm ready now to face this day . . .' ?

Regardless of this these lyrics still work and for most of the rest of the songs are great at delving up imagery and emotion. Awakenings, Love Come and Heartbreak are stand-outs tracks for me. Her cover of Bring On the Wonder, while not written by her, is another favourite.

The big surprises come with the actual Music! It's a breakup record for sure, but it's upbeat and positive. The overall tempo of this album is much quicker than I was expecting! There's a cadence to this disc that was lacking on Afterglow. The positively happy, if corny, lead single "Loving You is Easy" doesn't sound like anything the Sarah McLachlan of yore would have ever done. It sounds like a Randy Newman tribute, but it works (I feel like I shouldn't like it, but I do)!

This is a feel-good CD that showcases both Sarah's innocence and maturity.

I will probably always think Fumbling Towards Ecstasy is her best album, and Solace will always be my personal favourite, but Laws of Illusion is right up there as another great Sarah CD. Finally. :)