Word: riffs
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Cheever, 69, has sensibly not tried to top himself. Oh What a Paradise It Seems stakes out neutral territory. Too long to be a story and too short to be a novel, it seems instead a coda to other works, a spontaneous riff on some people, places and things that have appeared elsewhere in Cheever's fiction. The hero could be (but is not) one of those stubborn old Yankee Wapshots. The settings range from New York City to a declining country village, with the hint of suburban Bullet Parks and Shady Hills sprawling in between. And the plot...
...four notes, which lead singer Bono produces with an almost yodeling quality to his voice. In "Is that all?" Bono seems to be rejecting pat classification. "You think this song makes me angry...Is that all?" But the guitar played by the Edge sounds distinctly like the Clash riff from "Running," and the guitarist's name follows the tradition of the Police's Sting. Their respective riffs and even bass line give away U2's origins, nowhere else but New Wave. Yet, the drums Larry beats so maniacally in "I threw a brick" echo, and Adam Clayton's piano filters...
...Stones absolutely tore up the Hartford Civic Center Monday night with a slashing two-and-a-half-hour set that was simply too magnificent to be broken down and analyzed song by song. From the opening riff of "Under My Thumb" to the final grunt of "Satisfaction," the old men of white R and B proved that they still command the most powerful live punch of anyone on the concert hall stage...
...never knew in the first place where these guys actually came from. As Dalton quickly proves, you can't understand the group unless you're aware of a history that goes back beyond "Brown Sugar," beyond "Honky Tonk Woman," into the murky period before "Satisfaction" was even an embryonic riff ringing from Keef's Stratocaster...
...been so lyrically biting. Give the People What They Want works on many levels; the fast songs reflect the harried mood of Davies' self-destructive persona--"Yoyo" delineates the internal discombobulation of a typical businessman. In "Destroyer," Davies rips off his own famous "All Day and All Night" guitar riff from 15 years ago and instead of mearly declaring love, the power chords represent the "Little man" always in his head, paranoia. The title song applauds humanity's affection for seeing sex and violence: "We all sit glued while the killer takes aim...hey ma, there goes a piece...