There are few moments that can’t be improved upon by a good song from a girl group. Happiness is magnified, heartbreak is more monumental, a pretty summer day shines with sweet harmonies, “yeah yeahs,” and fantastic hairdos. I’m pretty sure that’s a scientific fact.
By Emily Carney
Some context on Carole King: This singer songwriter, who is rather unfairly relegated to oldies radio stations in the US, had serious credibility within the world of girl-groups in the 1960s. At age 18, she co-wrote “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” with her then-husband Gerry Goffin, which was performed by the Shirelles. This song was covered beautifully in recent years by the late Amy Winehouse.
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By Jemiah Jefferson
This is Paul Weller’s eleventh solo album and “The Modfather” shows no signs of becoming complacent, stymied, or anything less than a phenomenal songwriter and musician. Sonik Kicks contains almost too much variety in style and approach, and while it doesn’t necessarily smoothly flow from track to track, there is excellence aplenty to admire.
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I believe that there are Dean Martin people, there are Frank Sinatra people, and that they are rarely the same sort of people. I love Dean Martin for the thread of good humor that runs through his music, but I’ve always thought of Frank Sinatra as immensely talented, yet a bit dour. The Concert Sinatra changed my mind.
By Danny R. Phillips
There are many things in life that I find perplexing, things that occur or don’t despite what the world thinks or needs. Why did MTV give Pauly D. from The Jersey Shore his own show while still ignoring videos? How can someone listen to Skrillex for more than two minutes without committing ritual suicide? How in the world is Keith Richards still alive? Why aren’t the Minneapolis, Minnesota band The Melismatics famous yet?
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By Kai Shuart
The Hobart Brothers and Lil’ Sis Hobart is a collaborative effort between Jon Dee Graham, Freedy Johnston (whose song “Bad Reputation” I really enjoyed back in the day), and Susan Cowsill of the Cowsills musician family and the Continental Drifters (a band which included, among others, Vicki Peterson of the Bangles). The group’s debut album, At Least We Have Each Other, is finally available after being in the works for a couple of years thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign.
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“So fair, yet so cold like a morning of pale Spring still clinging to Winter’s chill.”
—The Two Towers, 2002
Althouth the name of the band is from a “mythical South American school for pickpockets,” School of Seven Bells could just as easily reference singer Alejandra Deheza’s magical vocals. On Ghostory, the band’s latest release, Deheza’s voice is crystalline, like ice fragments melting and freezing, re-melting and re-freezing. From a musical standpoint, too, Ghostory has a much chillier sound than the band’s previous albums. However, it is anything but off-putting. Ghostory is so marvelously seductive that I have listened to nothing else for the past week. I am in love with this album. It is the perfect soundtrack to the spring and perhaps even the rest of 2012.
By J Howell
It somehow doesn’t feel like it, but Toward The Low Sun marks the first proper full-length from Dirty Three in seven years, as well as the Australian trio’s first record for Drag City. For better or worse, it may be exactly what fans of the band were expecting: It sounds . . . well, pretty much exactly like a Dirty Three record—any Dirty Three record. After such a long wait though, it’s surprising how predictable a record it is. While there’s no denying that Toward The Low Sun is an achingly beautiful piece of work, it doesn’t expand much on the band’s aesthetic or break any particularly new ground for them.
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By Kai Shuart
There’s a lot familiar in Amy Ray‘s new release Lung of Love. The urgent lyrics and heavy guitars that have long marked her as the more rock-oriented half of the Indigo Girls are very much present. The emotional territory of this album is also familiar, dealing with interpersonal relationships (such as in the opening track “When You’re Gone, You’re Gone”) and politics (such as in “From Haiti”).
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By Chelsea Spear
One could pinpoint 1975 as one of the first years of “The Woman in Rock.” Patti Smith’s Horses had just hit the racks; Heart released their first single and began recording their debut album; and The Runaways and Blondie had just formed. All these artists and bands created fierce and highly idiosyncratic rock, and their various images—tough, cathartic, slightly cartoonish—would inspire many girls to start making music.
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