If It's Too Loud...

Photo by Jason Rothenberg October 2 will see the release of Contra-ICA Vol. 1: ICE OUT , a benefit compilation put together by Build Art Make Change. It's a whopping forty-seven tracks long, and the first single is out now. It's from Katheen Hanna (Bikini Kill, Le Tigre, The Julie Ruin), who teams with Ad-Rock (Beastie Boys), Money Mark, Fredo Ortiz, and Frank Figueroa. I would expect it to be a highly political song, but instead it's a cover of Justin Bieber's "Let Me Love You." I'm completely familiar with the original, but this cover is a lot of fun. It's the kind of song that people will first listen because they're fans of the artists involved, or just curiosity, but they're going to stay since it's a fun song. I doubt the original is as disco centered as Hanna and friends' version, but it also doesn't have the same indie cred. BAMC founder Dali Colorado says of the upcoming compilation: “ Contra-ICE is not only an album. It is...

Neither Jeff or I could get fully into Lydia Loveless's 2016 album Real . It was just a change in style that didn't work for us. One of the bigger disappointments for me was that the album didn't include "Desire," a song that featured prominently in the documentary Who is Lydia Loveless? Luckily, we can finally get a copy ourselves since "Desire" has been released as a digital single. It's a great mid-tempo song that fits snugly in between her older country rockers and her newer, more pop sound. The B-side of "Desire" is "Sorry," which is apparently a Justin Bieber cover. I may have heard the original version of "Sorry" since I do go out in public every so often, but I've never knowingly heard the song. I'll assume it's an overproduced pop nightmare, but in Loveless's hands it's an intense acoustic rock song, sung with a heartbreaking intensity. It reminds me of the way Evan Dando can take the mos...