Word: songe
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Mogwai have always been one of the most accessible bands in the post-rock camp, in no small part because they're as much rock as post-. While they've progressively shed the structures of the traditional rock song, they don't abandon the primal guitar/bass/drums combination, and they've been influenced as much by the Smiths and the Pixies as by My Bloody Valentine. Their newest release presents four new compositions and two tracks previously released on the import-only No Education = No Future (F**k the Curfew). A more restrained, ambient Mogwai emerges here: on four...
...rest of the album is. Affirmation deals not only with romance, but also with the real-life consequences of love and the pain that follows it. As their titles indicate, "I Don't Know You Anymore" and "The Lover After Me" aspire to this more reality-based love song, even though the soft beats and harmony make the melody very pretty. But it's "Two Beds and a Coffee Machine" that truly establishes a connection with the listener, depicting as it does a housewife in an abusive relationship dealing with the emotional and physical trauma of trying to raise...
...best thing though is that Savage Garden still rocks. "The Animal Song" (previously released on the soundtrack for The Other Sister) is an amazingly entertaining song. Its colorful lyrics and jungle-like drumming makes you want to jump up and prance around like a little kid. The album opens with the title song, which is chock-full of fast beats, dance rhythms and excellent use of electric guitar. (Or, as Jones calls it, "'I Want You" on an adrenaline rush.") It also has clever lines. My favorite: "I believe that junk food tastes so good because...
DIED. HOYT AXTON, 61, folksy singer-songwriter best known for the 1970s Three Dog Night hit Joy to the World; of complications from a stroke; in Victor, Mont. The sometime actor's offbeat tunes--with titles like Boney Fingers and The No No Song--were recorded by Ringo Starr, Linda Ronstadt and John Denver...
...American art song is still alive and well, judging by this lovely CD, on which a studioful of opera stars, including Renee Fleming, Sylvia McNair and Frederica von Stade, performs 26 songs by Californian Heggie, who is currently adapting Dead Man Walking for the San Francisco Opera. Heggie sets poems in English by poets old (Emily Dickinson) and new (Philip Littell) in the Samuel Barber/Ned Rorem manner--agreeably lyrical, unambiguously tonal--and his big-league cast responds with obvious relish...