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At 50, Madonna has a golden opportunity
Madonna turned 50 this year. That's a watershed for a woman and a pop star, the incontrovertible borderline between youth and what comes after. For some it's a time of reckoning and reflection. For others it's time to hit the panic button. Madonna celebrated by giving herself a new body and another dance record.
Does that sound familiar? Blame it on John Mayer.
In August I dutifully arrived at the Rod Stewart show at the Comcast Center in time to catch the opening act, Josh Kelley. Kelley, known to gossip hounds as Mr. Katherine Heigl, is a singer-songwriter. He writes pop-rock tunes, plays the guitar and the piano, and sings well. He's attractive and personable. His songs are sturdy and pretty. And he ...
Behind the sound of Dylan's late revival
Rarities collections are windows on the creative process, and the thoughtful ones offer illuminating glimpses of songs in raw demo form, alternate versions that didn't make the cut, an obscure live performance, or a tune that's never been released. With a musician as important as Bob Dylan, our appetite for fresh material and new insights is as deep as the ...
Take 5
Joan Anderman's picks for live music this weekend.
TV on the Radio shines on 'Dear Science'
"The lazy way they turned your head into a rest stop for the dead and did it all in gold and blue and gray/ The efforts to allay your dread," go the opening lines of TV on the Radio's new album, over joyful bah-bah-bah's and perky hand claps. Several bouncy, fearsome minutes later the singer announces: "I know too much. ...
Randy Newman shares pointed words and wit
Randy Newman is a successful film composer, respected singer-songwriter, and pop's most incisive, sharp-witted satirist. His new album, "Harps and Angels," includes such signature tuneage as "Korean Parents," "A Piece of the Pie" (a morality tale starring Bono, Jackson Browne, and John Mellencamp), and a jaunty ditty about the end of an empire - ours - titled "A Few Words ...
Botti and Sting party with the Pops
Reprinted from late editions of yesterday's Globe. There is something so fabulously not magical about attending a concert being taped for later broadcast during a PBS pledge drive. It's where you get to see a harried makeup guy jog on stage to powder the star's face between songs, and where the surprise guest isn't some local yokel but John Mayer ...
Botti brings A-list artists together
There is something so fabulously not magical about attending a concert being taped for later broadcast during a PBS pledge drive. It's where you get to see a harried makeup guy jog on stage to powder the star's face between songs, and where the surprise guest isn't some local yokel but John Mayer - doing Frank Sinatra. It's definitely the ...
A lighter pop from Sigur Rós
Sigur Rós, the Icelandic art-rock band known for its sprawling, otherworldly soundscapes, has just released an album that's startling not for its sweeping washes or dark enchantment, but for its happy pop songs. "Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust" ("With a buzz in our ears we play endlessly") builds on the group's recent experiments with sweetness and light by ...
Mann delivers a perfect performance, despite all the flaws
FOXBOROUGH - How loose was Aimee Mann's concert at Showcase Live on Thursday? She stumbled through a good third of the set, replaying false starts, chasing forgotten lyrics, and bungling chord changes.
Singer Laura Marling's refined songwriting defies her youth
Earlier this year, at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, a blond wisp of a girl with an acoustic guitar accomplished the incredible feat of making drunk people in a trendy bar shut up. This wasn't Laura Marling's main order of business, to soothe the rowdies with mesmerizing folk songs; the British singer-songwriter was here to introduce ...
Ryan Adams fills his country rockers with extra helping of jam
Ryan Adams's microphone was set up on the side of the Bank of America Pavilion stage on Sunday - the universal symbol for rock star-turned-band member. Adams, the one-time enfant terrible of alt-country (and rampant dabbler in glam, jam, mope-rock, hip-hop, and punk), is pointedly sharing his spotlight with the Cardinals, his backing band of three years. Recently Adams has ...
Ryan Adams fills his country rockers with extra helping of jam
Ryan Adams's microphone was set up on the side of the Bank of America Pavilion stage on Sunday - the universal symbol for rock star-turned-band member. Adams, the one-time enfant terrible of alt-country (and rampant dabbler in glam, jam, mope-rock, hip-hop, and punk), is pointedly sharing his spotlight with the Cardinals, his backing band of three years. Recently Adams has ...
Farm aides cross generations, genres
Madonna is coming to town this fall. So are Janet and Tina. But in difficult times, thrilling to the pop divas doesn't seem quite as monumental as the need to put healthy food on kitchen tables. And keep farmers on their farms. And help save the planet while we're at it.
DeGraw has soul, star power to please the ladies -- and men
If you are a single guy, the Wilbur Theatre was a good place to be on Thursday. So noted Matt Wertz, the opening act, a cute guy with an acoustic guitar, a sweet falsetto, and a slew of pretty pop songs that were born to waft through teen dramas. The similarly endowed headliner, Gavin DeGraw, has already been anointed by ...
Actor Terrence Howard's passions shine through on debut CD
Movie stars who make albums are a dime a dozen these days, and the songs often aren't worth much more. The real challenge for the actor-musician is getting past the knee-jerk (and mainly accurate) assumptions: He was signed because he's a celebrity. Talent or no talent, she's rich enough to bankroll a first-rate vanity project. Isn't it a little greedy ...
Phair, but middling
When alt-rock icon Liz Phair launched her extreme pop makeover in 2003, she made it clear to anyone with a reporter's notebook that the disgruntled indie-nation could take their business elsewhere. She had changed. Phair didn't want cred; she wanted a hit. Whatever you made of her value system, her candor was refreshing.
Take 5
Joan Anderman's picks for live music this weekend.
Sweet Fenway night with Diamond
Neil Diamond, the old-fashioned showman, and Neil Diamond, the contemplative songwriter, teamed up over the weekend at Fenway Park for a concert that split the difference between the two.
Juliana Hatfield charts her progress
Pop music is a young person's game. Graph the typical trajectory, creative or commercial, of a musician, and you'll see a handful of slow burners and a boatload of downward spirals.
In Sugarland, love has many forms
COHASSET - There is no backstage at the wonderfully homespun South Shore Music Circus, so Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush, the duo that performs as Sugarland, had to stride down the aisle and climb up onto the stage like eager entrants at a community talent show. A bright, bustling set of anthemic country-rock followed, and so did the deliciously odd ...
Take 5
Joan Anderman's picks for live music this weekend.
The dirt on Crue: They're still smokin'
The hard-living, heavy-metal Energizer bunny known as Motley Crue is in fine form this summer, with an ironically titled new album ("The Saints of Los Angeles") based on the band's super-literal 2001 autobiography ("The Dirt") and an Ozzfest-style tour called - wait for it - Crue Fest, which rolls into the Comcast Center today.
Amidon and friends make beguiling music
Just when we thought we had heard every scintillating, supernatural, and sumptuous variant of post-millennial folk music, Sam Amidon appears with an album called "All Is Well" and a musical strain that's beguilingly resistant to the usual adjectives. Technically, Amidon, a 27-year-old singer, fiddler, and banjo player, takes traditional songs and gives them fresh, surprising life. As with all of ...
Stewart still wears it well
Reprinted from late editions of Saturday's Globe MANSFIELD - Many thanks to whoever persuaded Rod Stewart to take a break from the standards and revisit rock 'n' roll. Friday night's show at the Comcast Center was a big, wet kiss for the fans who predate his wildly successful and dreadfully bland American Songbook series - a hit parade peppered with ...
Neil Diamond preps for concert at Fenway
There's something almost mystical about the prospect of Neil Diamond singing "Sweet Caroline" in the flesh at Fenway Park next Saturday. The song, which blasts from the speakers at every home game, has become the team's unofficial anthem and more: a rousing eighth-inning singalong-turned-musical totem whose propitious properties remain a mystery - even to the songwriter who the folks at ...
An indie songbird with substance
CAMBRIDGE - Back in April, in the thick of a squall that has deposited one young British songbird after another on our shores, a Scottish musician named Amy MacDonald made her debut US appearance at Great Scott in Allston.
Stewart gives another reason to believe
MANSFIELD - Many thanks to whoever persuaded Rod Stewart to take a break from the standards and revisit rock 'n' roll. Last night's show at the Comcast Center was a big, wet kiss for the fans who predate his wildly successful and dreadfully bland American Songbook series - a hit parade peppered with feel-good karaoke, Scottish pride, and plenty of ...
A Wilco crescendo at Tanglewood
LENOX - If it had been any other band, the opening stretch of Wilco's much-anticipated show at Tanglewood on Tuesday would have seemed insanely temperate. Who greets a pumped, rabid crowd with a laid-back soft-rocker ("Either Way"), a gentle pop tune ("Hummingbird"), and a winsome country-folk song ("Remember the Mountain Bed")?