Reviewing your parents' music collection
How can a white, salt-of-the-earth rock musician from New Jersey, obsessed with the metaphoric potential of car brands, his father's working class heritage and the ideal of rock music as a proletariat/political genre not only have a career spanning 20 albums, but make music that still sounds good to a 20-something arts student living in… Continue reading Chevys, Camaros, and Cadillacs or Meet me at the Lost & Found – Bruce Springsteen’s “Darkness on the Edge of Town”
I don't know how to write about Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here. I've been staring at my laptop for more than ten minutes, trying to find the words to describe how I feel about this record. Trying to capture when I first listened to it, how it became the most important record in a… Continue reading Sing me a Song of Hope and Despair or Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here”
Before passing away in 2016, Leonard Cohen had released over 20 albums and written hundreds of songs and poems, painting worlds of love, lust, and loss. A poet and a musician, but always a storyteller, Cohen's songs capture the ears, forcing them to listen to the words he has spun in perfect patterns, allowing them… Continue reading “I heard of a saint who had loved you” or how to reach the heart – “Songs of Leonard Cohen” by Leonard Cohen
Cindy Lauper was 30 years old when she released her solo-debut album, 1983's She's So Unusual, a record packed to the brim with finest sparkly 80s synth pop. A youthful record that zooms in on the female experience, placing her protagonists at the centre of more than love and heartbreak: euphoria, carefreeness and reflection. Her… Continue reading Fun, Free, Female – Cindy Lauper’s “She’s So Unusual”
Rock songs can often be categorised into specific types: the I've-met-the-girl-of-my-dreams-song, the classic heartbreak song, the upbeat let-me-tell-you-a-story-song, the she's-a-nice-girl-but-will-never-notice-me-song, ... the list goes on and on, usually circling around either the concept of love, lost or found or the urgent desire of telling a story; stories of unbelievable nights or stories of runaways and… Continue reading Getting the Band Back Together – “The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1”
The Dad Anthology 