1,960 words
Laurie Anderson
Big Science
Warner Brothers, 1982
In the Seventies, Laurie Anderson made a modest name for herself in the “performance art” scene. (more…)
Counter-Currents
Tag: music reviews
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1,236 wordsSimple Minds
New Gold Dream (81/82/83/84)
Virgin UK/A&M USA, 1982New Gold Dream is arguably Simple Minds’ greatest album, the other leading candidate being 1985’s Once Upon a Time. (more…)
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1,740 wordsSee part 1 here
Dreamin’ My Dreams (1976; re-released in 1978 as Faithless) ***
Imagine Lotte Lenya singing Patsy Cline’s greatest hits and you’ll get a sense of Marianne Faithfull’s first comeback, Dreamin’ My Dreams. Faithfull’s voice had changed strikingly from her Sixties albums. (more…)
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1,789 wordsWhen Marianne Faithfull died on January 30, 2025, it hit me that I had been a fan of her music for most of my life. Such milestones are occasions for what I like to call the Full Life Audit. We have grown up immersed in propaganda and decadence, and even though we might consciously reject them, they are still inside us and come to the surface in surprising ways. (more…)
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724 wordsThe song “Aqualung,” the title track on a Jethro Tull album from 1971 bearing the same name, is quite familiar to those such as myself who were born in the middle of the Pleistocene epoch. Although it’s one of the best-known songs in Jethro Tull’s repertoire owing to its striking riff, its full meaning isn’t obvious. From a superficial reading of the lyrics, it seems to be about a bum checking out girls from a park bench while suffering from chronic bad health. (more…)
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1,586 wordsFive years ago I wrote an essay called “Rediscovering a Song” in which I discussed my mistaken initial assessment of “Cat’s in the Cradle,” the famous 1970s hit by Harry Chapin. I had put that assessment in a box in my mind, sealed it up, and never bothered to reopen it until many, many years later: (more…)
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2,732 wordsI knew an older British lady many years ago with whom I got along rather well. We bonded over our shared conservativism as well as our similar takes on various cultural touchstones in the English-speaking world. On one topic, however, we seemed to differ more than she let on. I shared with her my naïve opinion that Winston Churchill should be considered the man of the twentieth century. (more…)
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2,252 wordsIn rock ’n’ roll it wasn’t the winners but the losers who made for the most compelling stories. — English rock journalist Nick Kent (more…)
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Christian Thielemann
Christian Thielemann
519 words
Vienna Philharmonic
Christian Thielemann, conductor
Anton Bruckner, Symphony No. 8 in C Minor (Edition Haas)
Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley, California
March 9, 2023Anton Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony was presented at Zellerbach Hall on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley last Thursday evening, during an uncommonly intense northern Californian rain storm. (more…)
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John Foxx
John Foxx
2,632 words
Listening, they were listening. — John Foxx, The Quiet Men
Ultravox! were a band out of time. — My brother
Genres in music, like genders elsewhere, keep multiplying. But there is one which seems particular to England: art-rock. Founder members of bands often met at art college, if they weren’t getting together at Pistols or Bowie gigs (which often meant they were already at art college), and the results of visual arts students transferring their visions to a musical canvas produced a rewarding school of rock music. (more…)
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Le Poème Harmonique
Le Poème Harmonique
1,333 words
Le Poème Harmonique is an early music ensemble founded by French lutenist and conductor Vincent Dumestre. The group is known for its recordings of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French and Italian music, which have received several accolades. In Aux marches du palais and Plaisir d’amour, the group turns to traditional French songs, some of which are still widely known and sung today. (more…)
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2,896 wordsI am the last of the famous international playboys. — Morrissey, song of the same name
Reggae music is vile. — Morrissey, 1980s interview
It began as one of those pub conversations about culture and art. You know how it is: Four or five guys (no chicks, please; they tend not to know much about music, and they are a distraction) not so much shooting the breeze as machine-gunning it. (more…)
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863 wordsThe famed Ukrainian black metal band Drudkh has returned. All Belong to the Night (“Всі Належать Ночі”), released on Friday, is Drudkh’s first studio album in four years and one of its strongest albums to date. Its potent blend of sorrow and defiant aggression provides a fitting soundtrack to the Ukrainian people’s fight against Russian imperialism. (more…)
