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29 items by Arion Berger

  • Millennium

    Millennium | ALBUM REVIEW

    Prefabricated, too pretty, suspiciously well choreographed — such objections to the Backstreet Boys wither in the face of singles like the undeniable "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" and the sweet soar of "I'll Never Break Your Heart." The Boys...

    June 10, 1999 12:00 AM ET
  • The Soft Bulletin

    The Soft Bulletin | ALBUM REVIEW

    Once you've labored in cult obscurity, fielded rumors that John Tesh wanted to cover one of your songs, appeared on Beverly Hills 90210, composed an orchestra for forty automobile tape decks and enjoyed a minuscule Top Forty...

    May 27, 1999 12:00 AM ET
  • Motley Crue

    Motley Crue | ALBUM REVIEW

    "Power to the music in the streets," demand the Crue on the kickoff tune of their new album. But they're really celebrating the power of the Zeitgeist, the minute changes in the musical winds that have kept...

    April 21, 1994 12:00 AM ET
  • A Single Woman

    A Single Woman | ALBUM REVIEW

    Incomparable and unfathomable, Nina Simone is in her finest form when tearing into the guts and pathos of unlikely songs — by the likes of Bob Dylan, Kurt Weill and Screamin' Jay Hawkins — songs that no...

    November 11, 1993 12:00 AM ET
  • Westing (By Musket and Sextant)

    Westing (By Musket and Sextant) | ALBUM REVIEW

    Imagine a world in which Sonic Youth aren't smug, the Fall don't think they're literary, Tommy James has had it with playing to the kiddies and Iggy Pop hits all the notes. Now imagine they're all one...

    September 2, 1993 12:00 AM ET
  • Songs of Faith and Devotion

    Songs of Faith and Devotion | ALBUM REVIEW

    Being the least self-reflective outfit in musical history may have earned Depeche Mode its status as a bluechip singles band, but it has also rendered the group's frequent conceptual forays moot. Electronically generated post-Goth dance pop isn't...

    April 15, 1993 12:00 AM ET
  • Erotica

    Erotica | ALBUM REVIEW

    It took Madonna ten years, but she finally made the record everyone has accused her of making all along. Chilly, deliberate, relentlessly posturing. Erotica is a post-AIDS album about romance — it doesn't so much evoke sex...

    November 26, 1992 12:00 AM ET
  • Niggaz4life

    Niggaz4life | ALBUM REVIEW

    N.W.A's debut, Straight Outta Compton, from 1989, proved that Los Angeles rap could be the hardest rap going. It also upped the cachet of street hustlers who had a way with words: No suburban rapper, regardless of...

    July 11, 1991 12:00 AM ET
  • Behind The Mask

    Behind The Mask | ALBUM REVIEW

    The joke goes something like this: Lindsey Buckingham was such an integral part of Fleetwood Mac that the band needed two guitarists to fill his space. What's really funny, though, is that the addition of Rick Vito...

    May 31, 1990 12:00 AM ET