If It's Too Loud...

Photo by Sam Resetarits Al Green is unquestionably a music legend. The man is seventy-eight years old, has been making music since 1966, was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame back in 1995, and has won eleven Grammys. Green just released a cover of R.E.M.'s iconic song "Everybody Hurts." Soul legends covering more modern classics has been done before, but no one is doing it quite like Al Green. "Everybody Hurts" as a soul song sounds exactly like how you'd expect it to sound, and this version is absolutely perfect. It's much more uplifting than the original, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Any time you get new music from a legend like Al Green is a good thing, especially when it's this great. Al Green says of his new single: “While we were in the studio recording ‘Everybody Hurts,’ I could really feel the heaviness of the song and I wanted to inject a little touch of hope and light into it. There’s always a presence of light t...

Photo by Jason Thrasher The Bad Ends (aka the Athens, GA band featuring Bill Berry of R.E.M. and Mike Mantione of Five Eight) has released a new single that isn't going to be what you expect. "The Ballad of Satan's Bride" is a freaky, psychedelic song that's a lot heavier than you think it will be. The song sounds a little unhinged at times (in the best possible way) and even dances along the lines of being a noise rocker. It sounds a lot like a preacher losing their mind during an acid trip set to music. Despite being just four and a half minutes, "The Ballad of Satan's Bride" is an absolute epic track, and has us even more intrigued to see what this supergroup will get up to. Mike Mantione says of the new song: “‘The Ballad of Satan’s Bride’ was the first song we recorded together as a band. It has the worst villain in it of any song I’ve ever written. The song embodies total despair and tragic grief, yet I sang it with wild abandon over Bill’s soc...

Photo by Jason Thrasher The big draw of The Bad Ends is that it's an Athens, GA supergroup that features R.E.M.'s Bill Berry on drums. It feels like it's been forever since Bill Berry had a musical project, so it's definitely worth our attention. Luckily, their first song lives up to the hype. "All Your Friends Are Dying" is an absolutely perfect alt-rock power pop song. The song is meant partially as a tribute to Big Star, and that's very obvious. It's filled with fuzzy guitars and vocals that seem a bit too abrasive at first until your ears adjust. And then they're absolutely perfect. Of course there will be R.E.M. comparisons, but to me it has more of a Big Star meets The Replacements sound. Mike Mantione (singer/guitar) says of the band's new single: “The song and the video are a celebration of Athens. The song is also a tribute to Big Star and The Glands. I'm really singing it to a friend who missed this special performance of the Big ...

Artist : Lorde Album : Solar Power Quick Thoughts : Lorde has made some seriously iconic songs over the years, which makes Solar Power largely a confusing affair. It's not that the album is bad - in fact, on first listen, I might like it more than Melodrama - but that it's very unassuming. It gives a definitive inluenceresque summery vibe, and that was somewhat unexpected from someone who presents as a more oddball dark pop star. Regardless, this album is likely to be divisive, but put me fully on team Solar Power . Songs of Note : "Solar Power," "Stoned at the Nail Salon," "Secrets From a Girl (Who's Seen It All)" Artist : Warp Trio Album : Warp Trio's Pandemic Disco Fantasy Quick Thoughts : I'm pretty sure this contemporary classical act hit my radar thanks to the amount of Attacca Quartet I've been listening to, and this is apparently a concept record that goes along with a multimedia effort. The music, for what it...

Percussionist Bill Rieflin passed way last week after a battle with cancer. He is perhaps best known for his work with Ministry, but he was also a session/touring musician with a number of bands in the later part of his career, perhaps most notably with R.E.M.. R.E.M. is my favorite band, and Rieflin was the drummer for their final studio albums along with the late tours. I have a pet theory that Bill Berry, the band's original drummer, was the true glue that held all the pieces of R.E.M. together, and when he left after New Adventures in Hi-Fi the band's catalogue became less focused and cohesive as a result. We'll never know for certain how much of an impact Rieflin had on R.E.M.'s sound in those later years, but I can't help but think that a drummer of his caliber and style brought some energy to a band that, in retrospect, may have needed it. So, for Monday Mix this week, the best of the Bill Rieflin R.E.M. years. My favorite tracks from their last two ...

With First Aid Kit's cover of R.E.M.'s "Walk Unafraid" coming out in the last couple weeks, it inspired me to look into making a mix of covers of my favorite band's songs. I've gotten countless cover albums over the years (most notably landing a copy of Surprise Your Pig something like 15 years ago, and I know how rare that can be), so I thought compiling a mix would be easy, but so many of the best covers aren't on Spotify, so we do lose out on some of the greats, like Tori Amos doing "Losing My Religion" or Editors performing "Orange Crush." With that said, I was able to find 20 interesting/different/good(?) covers of R.E.M. songs on Spotify that are worth a listen. I'd like to send a special shout-out to the fine folks over at the R.E.M. Fans United group on Facebook. I've been a member for a few years and a call out for some help got some great ideas that I hadn't already dug up from Eric Hutchinson, Paul Cottre...

Embracing the theme of "...you're too old" a bit here at the blog, welcome to a new feature that I hope we can keep up with a bit. The rise of digital and streaming has really cramped the one thing I spent a ridiculous amount of time doing, and that's making mixtapes and mix CDs. Yes, now I have a rotating Spotify playlist for myself, but the days of trading mixes on CD and such are long, long behind us. So Spotify makes it easy to share mixes and make mixes, so why not? It's goofy, but maybe you'll find something new and enjoyable. Either way, it's scratching my itch, so at the very least this is a harmless indulgence, right? On occasional-to-every Mondays, we'll share a 20 track mix of something, whether it be a collection of new tracks or some silly themed mix. Have a mix you've been working on? Let us know, and maybe we'll let you feature it here as well! Today's inaugural mix concerns the recent digital dump of rarities R...

The good news is that the new releases were a day early this week and have a lot of fun nuggets. The bad news is that at least three of them are well over two hours long. Ah well. R.E.M. - Unplugged 1991/2001: The Complete Sessions : R.E.M. is far and away my favorite band of all time. Previously only available in bootleg form, and R.E.M.'s contribution to Record Store Day this year, the Unplugged collection is one of those completest things that will be of interest to R.E.M. fans and perhaps fans of the now-basically-useless Unplugged brand, but beyond that it's going to be filled with a lot of songs you probably don't know on the first disc, and a lot of songs you only know if you're a hardcore fan on the second. One thing I always enjoyed about the Unplugged shows were the ways they kind of exposed the songs for what they were - a reason the 10,000 Maniacs session was so solid was because their songs translated well to an acoustic landscape. While the 1991 U...