Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

A tone-deaf version of The Calling meets a less talented Matchbox 20. This is what comes to mind when I listen to 34 Satellite's album "Stop". This album was incredibly bland and boring. It lacked feeling and well, to put it bluntly, talent. The music itself was rather good until ...

There's a school of thought that proposes that Jim Morrison didn't die of a heart attack in a bathtub, but instead staged his own death to see what the reaction would be. This rumor was a lot more prevalent in the early 1970s than it is now. There was, in ...

I never really got Badly Drawn Boy, mostly, I think, because of the context of my heretofore limited exposure of him. Last year I would catch a glimpse of a video from the ABOUT A BOY CD in the (very) early morning hours while waiting for the coffee to percolate, ...

Playing in the theory of musical calculations, Beth Hopkins (d.m.a.) Bif Naked is the arithmetic equation of the three laws of musical motion: singing, writing and musicianship. A gun-singer with rhythmic hip action and voice activated perfect aim; PURGE is the vocal abreaction of a dissident alternative angel singing within a ...

Just when one though that ol' J Lo was gonna dip permanently into the hip-hop domain that garnered the massive success of last years "I'm Real" and "Ain't It Funny," she surprises with a disc that is something she never has been: Dull! Save for the contagious "Jenny From The ...

Mythical, soothing, relaxing, and serene. These are words that come to mind when I listened to "Woman Wisdom". Every song takes you on an empowering journey through your subconscious where your soul is cleansed by the beautiful waterfalls of tranquility. I have never heard a more peaceful album in my ...

Here's a band that's let their music do the talking for a number of years, clubbin' the club-goers with their Heavy Rock, zip-jack defiance, throwin' back to the likes of The Allmans, Foghat, Free, Zeppelin, and early, early Coverdale with an indispensably "classic" Marshall- soaked, assumedly "analog" sound that's simply ...

If you don't have an open mind, then this album is not for you. Nana's music style is so diverse and different that some people may not be secure enough with themselves to actually hear the music for what it is; music. I found it very comforting and interesting. Tracks ...

Murdock Scott and Shawn O'Neill comprise Payne's Grey. They formed the group in 1992, after kicking around with a number of bands in the Dallas, Texas area. Their music, however, sounds more L.A.-based; it's a dark mix of Trent Resnor meets the Electric Prunes in a black mass of D ...

The story goes that Phil Mann loved Neil Young's music and wanted to be a rock star, but couldn't sing and couldn't really play. He bought some gear and started writing songs and assembled some musicians. He recorded a CD called DAMN GLAD TO MEET YA that attracted the attention ...

Smashing Pumpkins is no more, but their music lives on forever.  Earphoria is a collection of live performances from concerts and TV shows, but is not the album for those hoping for a live version of their greatest hits.  The mishmash of songs is mostly Siamese Dream fare but the ...

Vibrant, viscous, and altogether charming… they're Blink 182 exchanging pleasantries with Slade, meeting Mike Peters, "Boy" era U2, then a welcoming douse from The Waterboys.  Stiff Kittens are a four member Welsh phenomenon that rides on the coattails of the Big '80s Modern Rock takeover with a well collected angst ...

This Ann Arbor quartet's sophomore effort find things a bit toned down from their initial offering, and, perhaps, needing to take better control of their own destinies. WELCOME was produced by Toby Wright, who has produced the late, lamented, and to this day underrated Alice In Chains, as well as ...

My business takes me to Nashville every couple of weeks for three days. I don't fly, so it's a six hour drive, which means that I keep lots and lots of CDs in the car. I've got to have new music, good, bad or indifferent, when I'm traveling. Sometimes I ...