Pop Quiz: Shelby Lynne

Pop Quiz: Shelby Lynne

Aidin Vaziri | In 2001, Shelby Lynne won a best new artist Grammy. The only problem is that she has been making music since 1988. Whatever. The good news is that, with that logic, she just might win the trophy again next year with her new album, "Just a Little Lovin'," a shimmering tribute to the late Dusty Springfield, produced by Phil Ramone. The disc includes Lynne's take on nine classics, including "The Look of Love" and "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me," plus one original. So what if it's only January? We're calling this the best album of the year ... at least until the new Def Leppard arrives.


Shelby Lynne
Q: Out of all the people who have ever made records, why Dusty?
A: Well, you know Barry Manilow?
Q: Depends.
A: Well, he suggested I do this. He mentioned it to me way before I even considered it. So I put it back in my brain, and after my last record, I thought, "What should I do? Maybe it's time I did covers." Everybody loves Dusty Springfield, but maybe they've forgotten a little bit. So I thought, what the hell? It was a great idea from Barry.
Q: You know Barry Manilow?
A: We're just acquaintances.
Q: How do you relate to Dusty as a person, other than thinking she has a really cool first name?
A: I didn't know her. It's difficult. You can pick up as many books and articles as you like, but without knowing a person you don't know if you can relate to them or not. Paper will be still for anybody to write anything on it. You can't believe anything you read. I always tell people not to believe anything they read about me. Continue reading.

Review: Johnny Cash

Review: Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash 'The Best of the Johnny Cash TV Show 1969-1971': Aidin Vaziri | Forget sailing with Columbus or playing golf on the dunes of the moon, if you ever get the opportunity to travel back in time, head straight for the summer of 1969 to watch all 58 episodes of Johnny Cash's short-lived weekly ABC variety show from the very beginning. This newly minted compilation of musical highlights offers slight compensation for not having been there, but every live performance is ceiling-punching great: Ray Charles' glorious take on "Ring of Fire," Tammy Wynette's peerless "Stand by Your Man," even Joni Mitchell's lovely duet with the host on "Girl From the North Country." Incredibly, Eric Clapton doesn't mess things up, offering his first and possibly last stellar performance with Derek & the Dominos' "It's Too Late." And while it rankles to think about who got left off to make room for James Taylor, it's hard to complain with George Jones, Roy Orbison and Waylon Jennings all present and accounted for in vintage form. There's also a separate four-hour DVD set available for those who prefer to watch.

Under The Covers With Foo Fighters

Under The Covers With Foo Fighters

Foo Fighters' favorite covers: Aidin Vaziri | While Foo Fighters' by-the-numbers arena rock has mostly made us shrug over the past decade, there's no knocking the band's favorite source material. We hunted high and low (OK, mostly low) and came up with what we consider the 10 best cover tunes Dave Grohl and his ever-evolving cast of band mates have knocked out over the years. If you care to disagree, you know where to reach us. Here's the list:

Band on the Run (Originally performed by Paul McCartney and Wings.) Foo Fighters bravely face down the multi-part Wings epic and dutifully rock its world. Look for it on the BBC Radio 1 anniversary compilation "Established in 1967."

Holiday in Cambodia (Originally performed by the Dead Kennedys.) With System of a Down's Serj Tankian sitting in with the band, Foo Fighters detonated their hotel room at last year's MTV Video Music Awards with this primitive punk throwback. Kanye? 50? Grohl was the clear-cut winner. Continue reading.

Get Your Sleeveface On

Get Your Sleeveface On

Trend takes off as music fans take cover: Aidin Vaziri | Carl Morris was merely bored when he held the cover of an old vinyl copy of "McCartney II" up to his face while playing records at a club in Cardiff, England, making it appear as if the former Beatle's heavily mulleted head had briefly replaced his own. "I thought it might be kind of childish actually," he said. "What sensible grown adult would do such things?"But it was a moment so hilarious to those that witnessed it that soon other DJs across the United Kingdom started repeating the trick at their own parties, finding record sleeves of just the right dimension and comedic proportion to give their sets an ironic visual kick: Ted Nugent's "Cat Scratch Fever," Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life," Joni Mitchell's "Clouds." Then a couple photos hit the Web, and things went seriously insane. Now the phenomenon has a name: Sleeveface. And on the rudimentary Web site Morris started after it caught on, it's defined in a roundabout way as, "one or more persons obscuring or augmenting any part of their body or bodies with record sleeves causing an illusion." Continue reading.

Pop Quiz: Ingrid Michaelson

Pop Quiz: Ingrid Michaelson

Aidin Vaziri | You don't even have to like music to love Ingrid Michaelson, whose independently released music has found its way into episodes of "Grey's Anatomy," MTV's "The Hills" and CW's "One Tree Hill," not to mention that Old Navy sweater commercial that featured her song "The Way I Am" and aired nonstop during fall premiere week. If that doesn't do it for you, she also wears great glasses. And if you happen to be a fan of multilayered piano ballads sung in a theatrical voice, that also helps. The 28-year-old singer-songwriter, who still lives at home with her parents in Staten Island, is currently driving herself across America playing songs from her self-produced album, "Girls and Boys."

Ingrid Michaelson
Q: MySpace helped get your music out there. Has it also helped you get dates?
A: No, I don't use it as a dating service. But it's made it possible for me to befriend people I'm going to be touring with.
Q: Has Lisa Loeb contacted you about stealing her look?
A: Please! The worst is when people tell me I sound like her just because I wear glasses. I don't get it. Does no other woman in this world wear glasses?
Q: Not really.
A: There's no other female musician who wears glasses?
Q: Madonna? No. Beyoncé? No. Shakira? No.
A: Oh, I fit perfectly right in there. I'm the one who comes stumbling out, right? Well, I've been wearing glasses forever. I'm not getting surgery, and contacts feel like fingers in my eyes. As long as people don't say I sound like Lisa Loeb, then I'm fine. Continue reading.

Review: Cat Power

Review: Cat Power

Cat Power 'Jukebox': Aidin Vaziri | Listening to the second album of covers by Chan Marshall is a bit like going for a nice stroll off the edge of Niagara Falls. One minute you're looking over the clouds, feeling the air sucked out of your lungs as she transforms Frank Sinatra's signature "New York, New York" into a sleepy Southern blues romp; the next you find yourself caught in the longest, most boring freefall ever, as the neurotic indie-rock pinup listlessly vamps her way through Bob Dylan's "I Believe in You." Only you don't end up wet. Following the course set out by Cat Power's previous release, 2006's woozy "The Greatest," this is an album dominated by subdued pedal-steel guitars and dusty keyboards, with Marshall's bourbon-soaked drawl merely floating in the mix. She takes on some pretty amazing songs - from James Brown's "Lost Someone" to Joni Mitchell's "Blue" - but rarely gives them the paranoid-but-pretty quality of her own work. In fact, it's a revamped version of "Metal Heart," from her 1998 album "Moon Pix," that jumps out of the procession with its stark arrangement and crushing emotional punch. For some reason, hearing her sing Hank William's "Ramblin' Man" as "Ramblin' (Wo)man" just doesn't have the same effect. Neither does her stony take on George Jackson's "Aretha, Sing One for Me." All the elements for a great album are in place - amazing voice, stellar songs, organs - but in the end it all just seems to limply collapse.

Live Review: Kate Nash at Popscene, 01/12/08

Live Review: Kate Nash at Popscene, 01/12/08

Review: Kate Nash follows Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse to Popscene: Aidin Vaziri | There's a very good reason Kate Nash is everywhere you turn these days, from magazines and blogs to late-night talk shows and MTV. It's early winter, and there's absolutely nothing else going on in pop music. Not that the 20-year-old British singer-songwriter isn't entirely worthy of all the attention. But it wasn't until close to the end of her hourlong set that Nash and her scruffy four-piece band finally began to validate the hype with a handful of songs that skillfully skewered ex-boyfriends while bouncing gloriously on wobbly beats and perky piano melodies. "Foundations" and "Mouthwash" are near-perfect pop tunes, with towering choruses and true sentiments: "My fingertips are holding onto/ The cracks in our foundation/ And I know that I should let go, but I can't." Because she's so young, you know she means it when she sings about the end of a relationship like it's the end of the world. You just wonder that if given more time, she could have come up with more songs like that. And then you wonder if you'll even remember her name in March. Continue reading.

The Great 'American Idol' Quiz

The Great 'American Idol' Quiz

The Great 'American Idol' Quiz: Aidin Vaziri | Ready for the new season of "American Idol," which returns for a seventh round this week? Find out by taking our scientifically researched trivia test. Score one point for each right answer.

1) Former "Idol" contestants Julia DeMato, Jessica Sierra and Corey Clark have all been arrested for what since being on the show?
A) Singing in public
B) Playing "keep away" with Elliott Yamin's fake teeth
C) Drug possession
D) Eating out of the Dumpster behind Food4Less

2) In Canada, "American Idol" is called:
A) "The Jerry Lewis Telethon"
B) "Canadian Idol"
C) "Chappy Chanukah"
D) "Canada Dry"

3) Pick the transvestite stripper among the "Idol" contestants
A) Fantasia
B) Mandisa
C) Tila Tequila
D) Sanjaya

Continue reading.

Pop Quiz: moe.

Pop Quiz: moe.

Aidin Vaziri | Of all the bands that are likely to get trailed by the patchouli-scented masses and jam just a wee bit much when they climb onstage, moe. could very well be the least annoying. Yes, even though it insists on spelling its name in lowercase letters and flouting grammatical laws with that misplaced period. For its forthcoming album, "Sticks and Stones," the New York band did away with the frills, bunkering down in a rented church to write and record a set of songs in just three weeks - before the tendency to turn them into rambling psychedelic epics kicked in. Hurrah! We spoke with bassist Rob Derhak by phone from his home in Maine.

Rob Derhak of moe.
Q: All the reviews I read about moe. say that the band is better live than on record. Are you?
A: I don't think it's true. I look at it as two different things. If people like to see live music and don't like albums, then that's the case. I like albums. I like hearing what people can do in the studio.
Q: Plus, maybe the drugs aren't as good at home.
A: Right. Sometimes it's scarier, too. I guess it depends on the show.
Q: What's the most annoying thing about moe. fans?
A: Um, they love us too much? I don't know. I'm not annoyed by our fans. I feel lucky to have them, honestly. I get to do cool stuff because of them. Sometimes it's tough to live up to their expectations, but otherwise they can surprise you with what they'll let you pull off compared to some other so-called "jam-band" fans. They have given us a lot of freedom to do what we want.
Q: Are you sure you don't want them to stop playing Frisbee at your shows? Continue reading.

Review: Spice Girls

Review: Spice Girls

Spice Girls 'Greatest Hits': Aidin Vaziri | Of all the comebacks last year, the Spice Girls' was the most baffling, considering that people stopped caring about the group when it was still around. Listening to all their hits (and misses) in chronological order, you can see why. After an exuberant run out of the gate with delicious pop fodder such as "Wannabe" and "Say You'll Be There," things go horribly wrong midway through the set. All of a sudden, Ginger goes missing, self-awareness kicks in and the girls start playing catch-up with Destiny's Child, using songs that sound like that band's castoffs. Is it any wonder the fearsome fivesome had to pad out its recent reunion concerts with karaoke staples such as "We Are Family" and "Celebration," while Posh wordlessly walked up and down the runway during her solo? And what of the two new songs? They're enough to make you want the Spice Girls to break up again.

Pop Quiz: Sia

Pop Quiz: Sia

Aidin Vaziri | Despite making among the most beautifully ruminative hair-salon music ever with Zero 7 - as well as in her own solo work, which went supernova with the "Six Feet Under"-endorsed single "Breathe Me" - Sia Kate Isobelle Furler has had as much trouble hanging onto record labels as she has had hanging onto men. But judging by the determined songs on the trilling Australian singer's latest, "Some People Have Real Problems," she's no worse for wear. Get past the cheap cover art, and the disc contains some sparkling tunes, such as "Day Too Soon" and "Academia," which features good friend Beck. But, take it from us, that's harder than it sounds.


Sia
Q: Can I take five minutes and design a proper album cover for you?
A: No. It's beautiful.
Q: It is beautiful, if by beautiful you mean it's a total eyesore that nobody is going to buy.
A: Can't you read the message?
Q: That you took a beginner's Photoshop class at community college and failed?
A: That's not even Photoshop. It's a program called Apple Art.
Q: It's worse than I thought. These songs deserve better.
A: Maybe the message is I've got better things to do.
Q: You do not have better things to do. You just take a nice picture and slap your name on it in a pretty font like Arial Rounded Bold.
A: I apologize. I made a cover you don't like. But I've got good news for you: We've got a slipcover with a picture of me. The good thing is you can swap it because there are eight other images that are childlike inside, and there are two photos. So you can choose from 16 different covers.
Q: What if I don't like any of them?
A: Why didn't you submit your artwork for the competition?
Q: There was a competition?
A: Yes. There were 20,000 entries.
Q: And that's the best you got? Continue reading.

Review: Kate Nash, U2

Review: Kate Nash, U2

Kate Nash 'Made of Bricks': Aidin Vaziri | Like Lily Allen, British songbird Kate Nash has a talent for making ordinary life seem, well, even more ordinary. Consider the lyrics to her recent hit "Mouthwash": "And I use mouthwash/ Sometimes I floss/ I got a family/ And I drink cups of tea." Still, that's an improvement over the kicker to "We Get On": "Saturday night, I watched Channel 5/I particularly like 'C.S.I.' " Why should you care? Because the cute-as-a-button 20-year-old has got a fantastic accent and uses it with a simple concoction of cheap pianos and homespun beats to turn out songs that are deceptively addictive. The best on her debut album is "Foundations," a teenage relationship drama that begins with Nash blasting her boyfriend for picking on her faults. Let's just say you wouldn't want to date her, but spending the night with her music isn't bad.

U2 'The Joshua Tree': Aidin Vaziri | Paying $60 for an album already embedded in your DNA might seem excessive, but what price to pay for previously unearthed photos of Bono's mullet? That's not all that's included with this deluxe edition of U2's landmark 1987 album, "The Joshua Tree." As hard as it is to justify listening to songs such as "Where the Streets Have No Name" and "With or Without You" one more time, it's worth revisiting the group's delicate angst before it became unavoidable. Even most the B-sides on the bonus disc ("Spanish Eyes," "Silver and Gold") are as familiar as the Edge's dusty leather hat - a testament to the magnificent creative powers at work here. The DVD is pretty much a throwaway live recording filmed at the Hippodrome de Vincennes in Paris on July 4, 1987, that's likely to make you cringe. But that's irrelevant. Toss out the grating "Bullet the Blue Sky," and this is genius in a box.

The Ones That Got Away

The Ones That Got Away

Best overlooked albums of 2007: Aidin Vaziri | Think Maroon Five and Fergie were the best things 2007 had to offer your headphones? We've got the antidote. Here are all the amazing albums you missed.

Fionn Regan:
"The End of History"
Spellbinding folk songs cut with occasional rays of pop sunshine from a tousle-haired Irish troubadour with a serious knack for conjuring Nick Drake's chilly moods.
Download: "Be Good or Be Gone," "Put a Penny in the Slot"
Listen: www.myspace.com/fionnregan

Jens Lekman
"Night Falls Over Kortedala"
This Swedish singer-songwriter has got Morrissey's wry lyrical eye and Scott Walker's schmaltzy brass section, resulting in an album full of horns and heartache.
Download: "The Opposite of Hallelujah," "Friday Night at the Drive-In Bingo"
Listen: www.secretlycanadian.com

Sharon Jones & Dap Kings
"100 Days, 100 Nights"
Those who fell for Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black" would be advised to check out her backing musicians in their natural habitat, turning out muggy retro soul with a true powerhouse R&B singer.
Download: "100 Days 100 Nights," "Tell Me"
Listen: www.myspace.com/sharonjonesandthedapkings

Continue reading.