Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros, 'Streetcore' (Hellcat)
Punk legend ponders death and glory.
By Jon Dolan 12.15.03 4:00 AM
It’s a testament to the life of Joe Strummer that he never figured out what to do with his punk-god gravitas. The Clash assumed that rerouting one’s own little corner of human history was a lifelong responsibility. But unlike some of his punk/new-wave peers, Strummer didn’t take it upon himself to solve third-world debt or teach Chaucer to soccer moms when he hit middle age.
SHARE THIS:
The Libertines, 'I Get Along' (Rough Trade)
By Jon Dolan 10.31.03 4:00 AM
The “British Strokes” can be as tradition-bound as their U.S. counterparts--they’ve got the Clash’s ear for riff vandalism and a Sex Pistols jones for tabloid-punch-line excess.
SHARE THIS:
Serj Tankian and Tom Morello
Radicalizing Metal One Head at a Time
By Jon Dolan; Spin Staff 07.23.03 3:00 AM
Radicalizing Metal One Head at a Time
SHARE THIS:
Soundtrack of Our Lives, 'Behind The Music' (Universal)
By Jon Dolan 07.21.03 3:00 AM
The great left-field discovery of the Hives boomlet, Swedish hippie revivalists the Soundtrack of Our Lives spin post-millennial apprehension into AM-sing-along gold. "Everyone's been cheated for the 21st century," shaggy shaman Ebbot Lundberg contends on the band's third album, Behind the Music.
SHARE THIS:
No Satisfaction: The Replacements, Reissued
If the Get Up Kids got low-down, if the Hives had bad teeth, if the
Strokes had ever worked at Denny's, they'd still look pretty weak
up against the Replacements. Punk rock of the 1980s produced some
magical responses to Reagan-era alienation, but no one ever
bellowed into the void like these Minneapolis miscreants. Soft boys
in hard shells, they drank too much and treated their instruments
like annoying ex-girlfriends. Yet when existential benchwarmer Paul
Westerberg would uncork a lyric like "Wanna be something / Wanna be
anything," and Bob Stinson's guitar would start to wail,
these schlepps became superheroes. Alienation melted into empathy
like Lake Minnetonka in spring. And beneath the ice, the six-pack.
By Jon Dolan; Spin Staff 07.21.03 3:00 AM
SHARE THIS:
Slack Gold: Pavement's Slanted & Enchanted
If you weren't aware that the tenth anniversary of Pavement's
idyllic indie-rock masterpiece Slanted & Enchanted is
upon us, don't worry. There was no VH1 special, no bank holiday, no
legal battle over the master tapes--just a richly appointed
reissue. In a way, it's the kind of enthused yet low-key fanfare
that this grad-school Nevermind demands: A decade later,
Slanted still feels more like a shared secret than a
cultural revolution. Its anniversary is a mini Big Chill for
a generation that never quite got theirs.
By Jon Dolan; Spin Staff 07.15.03 3:00 AM
If you weren't aware that the tenth anniversary of Pavement's
idyllic indie-rock masterpiece Slanted & Enchanted is
upon us, don't worry. There was no VH1 special, no bank holiday, no
legal battle over the master tapes--just a richly appointed
reissue. In a way, it's the kind of enthused yet low-key fanfare
that this grad-school Nevermind demands: A decade later,
Slanted still feels more like a shared secret than a
cultural revolution. Its anniversary is a mini Big Chill for
a generation that never quite got theirs.
SHARE THIS:
