John Mellencamp and Stephen King may receive higher billing on ‘Ghost Brothers of Darkland County,’ but the album really belongs to T Bone Burnett.
Dee Snider recently appeared on Joy Behar's 'Say Anything' TV show, and he had a few choice words for former vice president Al Gore, whose ex-wife Tipper led a crusade against Snider's music back in the '80s. "I was stunned and very happy," the Twisted Sister frontman said of the Gores' 2011 divorce. "They went after me big-time in the '80s, pointing a lot of fingers."
Back in 1976, when Paul McCartney & Wings’ live album ‘Wings Over America’ was released, the band was coming off a string of four No. 1 records. The triple-album set, culled from various concerts the group performed on their 1976 U.S. tour in support of ‘Wings at the Speed of Sound,’ soon became their fifth straight No. 1. (The last three-record LP to reach the top spot was by one of McCartney’s old bandmates: George Harrison’s ‘All Things Must Pass.’)
What do you get when you combine severed eyeballs, two stars from 'The Dark Knight Rises,' whiskey-swilling holy men and bloody stigmata? Duh -- it's the new David Bowie video.
‘Let It Be’ was supposed to be the album that would bring the Beatles back together. After an increasingly fractious couple of years that culminated in 1968’s self-titled (‘White’) album, which was basically four solo records for the price of a double LP, the four Beatles holed themselves up in London’s Twickenham Film Studios, and then at Apple Studios, during the first month of 1969 to re-spark their dying flame. No outside visitors, no BS -- just four guys hanging around playing music. Just like the old days. They called it ‘Get Back.’
After eight albums and almost as many years kicking around just outside of mainstream success, Bob Seger finally had a hit record with 1976’s ‘Night Moves,’ a moving, soulful and rocking look back on the people and places that shaped him. After so much hard work and sweat put into his music over the past decade, the Michigan native was starting to see it all pay off. So why turn back now? Why change what works? Why, for that matter, would Seger want to test any new ground on ‘Night Moves’’ follow-up? He wouldn’t.
Since 2002, Rod Stewart has released eight albums. Each and every one of them includes songs that were written before ‘Maggie May’ hit No. 1 in 1971. A lot of them, in fact, were written before the 68-year-old rock legend learned to walk. Five ‘Great American Songbook’ albums, a rock oldies collection, an R&B oldies collection and a Christmas album – that’s pretty much how Stewart has spent the past decade.
A year and a half after Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ self-titled debut album fooled some music fans into thinking that the Los Angeles-based classic rockers were maybe a New Wave act, the quintet doubled down. ‘You’re Gonna Get It!,’ which was released on May 2, 1978, loaded up on Byrdsian jingle-jangle, classic-rock guitar crunch and a few meathead riff-based songs that made it clear that Petty and his band had little in common with the skinny-tie kids and their synthesizers.
The last time Fleetwood Mac made an album together, they were minus Christine McVie and enough good songs to fill its 75-minute running length. They’re still without McVie on their new four-song EP, but they fixed ‘Say You Will’’s biggest problem by keeping ‘Extended Play’ at an economical 17 minutes. And if it sounds more like a Lindsey Buckingham record than an actual band one at times, at least ‘Extended Play’ is the best thing released under the Fleetwood Mac moniker since 1987’s ‘Tango in the Night.’
Doors drummer John Densmore has been making the publicity rounds for his new tell-all memoir, 'The Doors: Unhinged -- Jim Morrison's Legacy Goes on Trial.'
