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10 items by Ira Robbins

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  The Oceanic Concerts | ALBUM REVIEW

  In his complex and often confounding career, Pete Townshend has proved himself a master of apparently contradictory impulses. Around 1980, while regularly leading the Who through bruisingly loud expressions of adolescent fury in massive sports arenas, he...

  January 8, 2002 12:00 AM ET
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  Sacrilege: Remixes | ALBUM REVIEW

  Even in the wild whorl of kraut rock — as Germany's progressive psychedelia of the late '60s and '70s was known — Can stood apart. As older academics steeped in neoclassical, free jazz and electronics, they came...

  May 27, 1997 12:00 AM ET
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  Loveless | ALBUM REVIEW

  As the world's record-company giants consolidate into the mythical OmniVox Unicorp, pockets of independent-label resistance endure, even thrive, on the strength of artistic vision rather than unlimited capital. Since the mid-Eighties, London's Creation Records has wielded a...

  March 5, 1992 12:00 AM ET
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  Nevermind | ALBUM REVIEW

  Despite the hand-wringing the fanzines do each time an indie-rock hero signs a major-label deal, righteous postpunk stars from Hüsker Dü to Soundgarden have joined the corporate world without debasing their music. More often than not, ambitious...

  November 28, 1991 12:00 AM ET
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  Mall | ALBUM REVIEW

  Unlike most of the defunct groups that have reunited lately, the Gang of Four conveys a positive sense of purpose — unfinished business rather than unpaid bills — on the bracing Mall, the innovative band's first new...

  August 8, 1991 12:00 AM ET
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  Layla Sessions: 20th Anniversary Edition... | ALBUM REVIEW

  As a near fatality of the Woodstock Generation's holy trinity — love, music and drugs — Eric Clapton was more than qualified to sing the blues by 1970. Guitar-god superstardom had left the twenty-five-year-old legend disillusioned and...

  October 4, 1990 12:00 AM ET
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  Human Soul | ALBUM REVIEW

  Ever since he brought British soul punk to songwriting in 1976, Graham Parker has been working on the difficult second act of his career. Lacking Elvis Costello's ingenuity or Joe Jackson's ambition, the more simply talented Parker...

  February 8, 1990 12:00 AM ET
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  Don't Tell A Soul | ALBUM REVIEW

  When The Replacements left the indie world to sign with a major label four years ago, fans of the Minneapolis quartet wondered if the corporate music industry could somehow subvert the rock underground's most feckless heroes and...

  February 9, 1989 12:00 AM ET
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  Lap Of Luxury | ALBUM REVIEW

  Employing a variety of producers and stylistic retreads, Cheap Trick has spent the Eighties in a vain attempt to regain commercial and creative momentum. The Tricksters can't have failed to notice that, coincidentally or not, their fortunes...

  June 2, 1988 12:00 AM ET
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  Freaky Styley | ALBUM REVIEW

  After nearly two decades of racial division, popular music is in the midst of an overdue and exciting (if modest) effort to integrate itself. One particularly happy result is the pairing of George Clinton with the Red...

  October 24, 1985 12:00 AM ET