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| Variety.com - Music Reviews |
RSS Feed URL : http://www.variety.com/rss.asp?categoryid=34
Category : Fun & Entertainment
Total Views : 16 |
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Ludovico Einaudi
Music Reviews: A solo pianist whose music is as tender and soulful as his family tree is distinct and impressive, Italian composer Ludovico Einaudi concentrates on song forms first, mood-setters second in his uplifting instrumental excursions.
Jeffrey Steele
Music Reviews: Songwriters don't come any bigger or more successful in Nashville than Jeffrey Steele, who has picked a perfect time to unleash his country-hard rock amalgamation on recordings under his own name.
Motley Crue
Music Reviews: You don't go to a Motley Crue show looking for depth. There's very little subtext to the Los Angeles quartet; when Vince Neil sings "Shout at the Devil," the song is literally about shouting at the devil, and "Wild Life" is a list of decadent activities.
AC/DC
Music Reviews: If any hard rock band embodies the spirit of Branson, Mo., it's AC/DC. The Aussie raunch 'n' rollers have been serving up variations -- to use the term loosely -- on their bludgeoning, unabashedly adolescent formula for more than three decades. The band hasn't changed its live show appreciably since the mid-point of that run.
Brian Stokes Mitchell: Songs… I Like to Sing
Music Reviews: Brian Stokes Mitchell bounds into Feinstein's at the Regency with high spirits and high talent, treating the customers to one of the finest night's entertainment presently on view in Manhattan.
Boz Scaggs
Music Reviews: While the Great American Songbook has turned out to be the last refuge for far too many aging rockers, it's only ended up providing a comfort zone for a few -- none of whom have made themselves more at home than Boz Scaggs.
Beck
Music Reviews: Beck was an appropriate opening-night choice for Club Nokia -- and he delivered a concert perf that brought out the potential for intimacy as well as potential flaws of the room.
In the Attic With Pete Townshend
Music Reviews: In a short private conversation prior to the start of the acoustic song-swap led by Rachel Fuller, Pete Townshend said one reason the Who has only slightly changed its setlists in the last two years is to limit the number of mistakes.
Tangerine Dream
Music Reviews: The music began before the curtain rose at Tangerine Dream's marathon (two-hour set plus half-hour encore) show at UCLA's Royce Hall Friday night.
Madonna
Music Reviews: The concrete images Madonna proffered during her 24-song show on a balmy night at Dodger Stadium elicited critical responses that were equally compact and unwavering. Colorful. Athletic. Celebrational. Single words were doing the trick rather than sentences, and, when it was finished, there was only word remaining: Bravo.
Carrie Underwood
Music Reviews: Carrie Underwood is reaching something entirely different than her route to fame in 2005 as an "American Idol"-winning country girl. Her concert at the Nokia Theater wasn't always successful, but one has to admire the attempt.
Florence Henderson
Music Reviews: Charm, song and forthright honesty are hallmarks of Florence Henderson's lite-biographical show "All the Lives of Me." The enjoyable 80- minute "musical journey" from one of America's favorite TV moms moves into Feinstein's at the Regency with ease.
Django Reinhardt New York Festival
Music Reviews: For the annual Django Reinhardt festival at Birdland, producer Pat Phillips introduced the young lions of gypsy jazz in tribute to the legendary Belgian guitarist who died in 1953.
The Last Shadow Puppets
Music Reviews: Given Brit-rock's propensity for irony, it's fitting that the Last Shadow Puppets -- a collaboration between Arctic Monkeys' majordomo Alex Turner and Miles Kane, who leads new wave revivalists the Rascals -- would title their Domino debut "The Age of the Understatement."
The 88
Music Reviews: Don't you worry, baby," Keith Slettedahl sang early in the 88's Troubadour show. And that sentiment pretty much sums up the Los Angeles quintet's attitude: celebrating the release of their third album "Not Only … But Also" (Island Records), the 88 is determined to keep hard times at bay.
Jenny Lewis
Music Reviews: Early in her show at the Orpheum Theater Thursday night, Jenny Lewis introduced "Carpetbaggers," a rousing duet that's a highlight on her new album "Acid Tongue" (Warner Bros.) as a song about "a treacherous woman."
Milton Nascimento and the Jobim Trio
Music Reviews: Antonio Carlos Jobim, the late pioneering bossa nova composer, once defined Milton Nascimento as a "true songbird."
The Felice Brothers
Music Reviews: Sin and salvation were never far from the surface at the Felice Brothers Troubadour show. The Woodstock, N.Y., quintet's wonderfully raucous, two-hour set included tales of murder, sex and alcoholic sloth.
On Broadway!
Music Reviews: "On Broadway!" was prefaced with a rush of film clips that recalled the theatrical legacy of such dazzling choreographers as Agnes de Mille, Bob Fosse, Gower Champion, Jerome Robbins and Michael Bennett, with Jerry Orbach in a filmed benedictory summing up the preceding montage "with the most glorious words in the English language -- musical comedy!"
New Kids on the Block
Music Reviews: In tough economic times, you'd think that clothing budgets would be tight -- but you'd never guess that from the number of bras and other undergarments that rained down on the Madison Square Garden stage upon the appearance of this old-school boy-band juggernaut.
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