Album Reviews

There's something deeply offensive to me about picking apart the sound on the David Bowie [Five Years 1969-1973] box set. The guy is gone, the sadness lingers and maybe it's time to just enjoy and celebrate the music.

Paul Kantner RIP. When is this parade of dead rock icons going to end? Can we at least have a short break?

Like Paul McCartney's Kisses on the Bottom, The Eagles' Glenn Frey's standards album was produced with requisite class, though Frey's song choices range wider, covering everything from the 1922 Al Jolson classic "My Buddy" to Brian Wilson's soothing Pet Sounds solo turn "Caroline No" written with Tony Asher.

A description of this record in Twitter-like brevity: "Sandy Bull meets Michael Hedges in a church."

Of course that short-changes everyone involved, especially the only living artist among the three: guitarist Patrick Higgins.

A recent sales blurb from UMe's "The Sound of Vinyl" website reads: "Using the original analog master tapes this artisan process results in cuts that have superior high frequency response (treble) and very solid and stable stereo images. In short, a very high quality master that helps to create a very high quality record."

Chad Kassem's got a vinyl selling website, a reissue label, a pressing plant and well-oiled licensing deals so what's left to do but a self-produced double vinyl Christmas compilation pressed on red and green?

No doubt Elvis Costello knew he was no George Jones or Merle Haggard when, in the spring of 1981 he stepped before the microphone in CBS's Studio A in Nashville under the direction of veteran producer Billy Sherill (who passed away this past August), but he wanted to record an album of country covers in Nashville and following the cleansing craziness of the Trust sessions, this probably seemed like the right time.