Music Reviews

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Music Reviews
Mark Knopfler: Privateering
Mike Mettler  |  Jan 02, 2014
Performance
Sound
Finally seeing a stateside release after being available internationally for over a year, Privateering, Mark Knopfler’s seventh solo offering (and first double album of all-original material) is a showcase of Americana, as innately authentic as anything produced by any artist born on U.S. soil. Somewhere, Chet Atkins, Johnny Cash, John Lee Hooker, and Muddy Waters are all picking, grinning, and haw-haw-hawing their collective approval. (Me, I suspect Knopfler was spiritually born on the Mississippi Delta and then transplanted to the moors of his native Scotland.)
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Music ReviewsReference Tracks
The Band: Live at the Academy of Music 1971
Mike Mettler  |  Dec 24, 2013
Performance
Sound
Besides knocking the psychedelic movement off of its puffy cloud at the end of the ’60s with the seminal roots-based rustic albums Music From Big Pink (1968) and The Band (1969), The Band was also known for being a supernaturally gifted live act, having honed its stagecraft through many arduous but rewarding years on the road. Highlights from a magical four-night stand at New York’s Academy of Music were set in stone—or rather, on wax and disc—with 1972’s Rock of Ages. The album was a critically acclaimed best seller and a triumph in the eyes of everyone it touched. Well, almost everyone.
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Music Reviews
Nirvana: In Utero Super Deluxe Edition
Mike Mettler  |  Dec 05, 2013
Performance
Sound
When I saw Nirvana play Roseland Ballroom in New York City in July 1993, it was three months before the release of In Utero, the band’s explosive follow-up to the game-changing Nevermind. The balls-out, frenzied new songs I heard that night foreshadowed In Utero’s raw power. And this 20th anniversary Super Deluxe Edition not only reconfirms the depth of Kurt Cobain’s tragic genius, it also reminds our collective ear that alternative-rock icons could sound great too, despite the somewhat misleading lo-fi tag hung on the grunge movement.
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Music Reviews
Moondance Deluxe Edition
Mike Mettler  |  Nov 25, 2013
Performance
Sound
How do you make a perfect album even more perfect? In the case of Van Morrison’s seminal 1970 neo-rock Caledonian masterpiece Moondance, you compile a 70-track deluxe edition that includes three discs of sessions, outtakes, and alternate mixes, in addition to a separate Blu-ray Audio disc with a long-lost surround sound mix done by one of the album’s original engineers. Yes, as any good Van the Man fan knows, it’s too late to stop now.
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Music Reviews
The Clash
Mike Mettler  |  Nov 21, 2013
Performance
Sound
Punk. Rock. Reggae. Hip-hop. Ska. Dub. Soul. Jazz. Rockabilly. No, this isn’t a listing of all the sections in one of the only remaining cool record stores left standing; this is the breadth of the genre-bending legacy of The Clash. And the sonic scope of Sound System is set to prove The Clash may very well be The Only Band That (Still) Matters.
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Music ReviewsThis Week
This Week in Music, October 29, 2013: Arcade Fire’s “Reflektor” (or, the trials and tribulations of a rock critic, part 896)
Ken Richardson  |  Oct 29, 2013
Also: Humble Pie expanded, Jethro Tull remixed in 5.1, and much more. Plus: the return of Dorothy Wiggin. (She used to be a Shagg.)

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Music Reviews
Two Ways to Digital
Bob Ankosko  |  Oct 22, 2013
Hands on with Walmart’s Vudu In-Home Disc to Digital Service and Disney’s Digital Copy+

Walmart’s Vudu To Go app (Digital Vudu Revisited), a follow-up to the Disc to Digital service launched last year that lets you unlock digital copies of DVD and Blu-ray movies you buy or purchase digital rights to discs you already own, is now up and running (in beta form as of this writing). Unlike the original service, which required you to bring discs to Walmart (UltraViolet: Building a Movie Library in the Cloud,), the app lets you convert discs from a Mac or Windows-based PC in your home and store them in the cloud so they can be accessed for streaming or downloading on multiple devices.

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Music ReviewsThis Week
This Week in Music, October 15, 2013: Something “New” from Paul McCartney
Ken Richardson  |  Oct 15, 2013
Also reviewed: Pearl Jam. And in revue: many more new releases, as well as classic XTC in 5.1.

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Music Reviews
Tedeschi Trucks Band: Made Up Mind
Mike Mettler  |  Oct 09, 2013
Performance
Sound
The potent combo of married co-bandleaders guitarist/vocalist Susan Tedeschi and slide-guitar maestro Derek Trucks and nine (or so) of their closest friends hits its stride on group album number three, Made Up Mind. Mind shows how TTB has finally forged the right blend of improv interplay prowess and gutbucket roots rock.
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Music ReviewsThis Week
This Week in Music, October 8, 2013: Taking Miley Cyrus Seriously
Ken Richardson  |  Oct 08, 2013
Whatever you think of Miley Cyrus these days, she does have you thinking. In other words, she got your attention. Which, in the current era of Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and elder shockwoman Britney Spears, is the first order of business, and I do mean “business.”

The thing is, what if she’d gotten our attention another way?

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Music ReviewsThis Week
This Week in Music, October 1, 2013: Justin Timberlake Don’t Need No Eye Doctor?
Ken Richardson  |  Oct 01, 2013
Also reviewed: Joan Jett, Haim, Quasi, and the Blind Boys of Alabama. Plus: the scoop on boxes from Rush and Vladimir Horowitz. And much more.

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Music Reviews
The Doors’ Perception breaks on through.
Steve Guttenberg  |  Apr 16, 2007
Wide Open
The Doors’ Perception breaks on through. The Doors’ self-titled first album was in an altogether darker, more theatrical, sinful, and sexual musical realm than anything heard in 1967. It was one hell of a debut, and, 40 years on, it still sounds incredibly unique. The band functioned with a collective spirit, and its four members—Jim Morrison, vocals; Ray Manzarek, keyboards; Robbie Krieger, guitar; and John Densmore, drums—shared songwriting and arranging credits on most of the tunes.
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Music Reviews
The Beatles Love—Apple/Capitol
Steve Guttenberg  |  Apr 13, 2007
We’ve all made mix “tapes” of our favorite tunes, and now the Beatles’ producer, Sir George Martin, has made his—Love was conceived for the Cirque du Soleil Las Vegas stage show. Or perhaps Love was inspired by the infamous Danger Mouse/Jay-Z mashup, The Grey Album, but, whatever the reason, I’m thrilled with Love, it’s all you need, after all.
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Music Reviews
Monster Music
Steve Guttenberg  |  Aug 16, 2006
It's not just cables anymore.

It was in the late 1970s when Noel Lee, a laser-fusion design engineer, started a little company, Monster Cable, which soon spawned, well, the entire high-end audio-cable industry. Over the decades, Monster maintained their dominance in the cable market as it branched into power conditioners and M•Design home theater furniture. Now, with Monster Music, they're jumping into the record business with a line of High Definition Surround SuperDiscs. Noel Lee's passion for multichannel music—and frustration with the stillborn SACD/DVD-Audio formats—pushed him to extract the best sound from Dolby- and DTS-encoded music. Monster Music claims that the SuperDiscs are the first music releases certified by THX for sound quality.

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Music Reviews
Jackson Browne—Running on Empty (Warner Brothers) [DVD-Audio]
Adrienne Maxwell  |  Apr 05, 2006
This DVD-Audio has been a long time coming. Many a planned release date came and went before this one finally hit the shelves back in November, but I assure you that it was worth the wait. The high-resolution, multichannel audio soundtrack allows an already great album to realize its full potential.
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