Contributor
402 items by Jon Dolan
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It'll Be Better | ALBUM REVIEW
Francis Farewell Starlite is a smart 28-year-old songwriter in love with Eighties R&B at its slickest, whitest and oddest — he sings a little like Peter Gabriel and mixes cutting jazz-piano chords and clever pop constructions like...
August 2, 2010 2:57 PM ET -
Lazers Never Die | ALBUM REVIEW
White-beat pirates can come home from Jamaica with riddim realness, or sand in their shorts. Producers Diplo and Switch, a.k.a. Major Lazer, definitely do JA right. Recorded at Kingston's legendary Tuff Gong studios, this EP twists dancehall...
August 2, 2010 2:13 PM ET -
"Angel Dance" | SONG REVIEW
Plant is a Zen master who has always marched to his own flute. So it's almost fitting that he's forgoing a much-rumored Led Zeppelin reunion tour in order to revive the band he fronted in the mid-Sixties....
August 2, 2010 12:30 PM ET -
"Crossfire" | SONG REVIEW
In the genius video for the first single from Flowers' solo debut, Charlize Theron rescues him from evil ninjas, showing off her throwingstar chops and flashing him a brilliant, you-are-so-high-maintenance glare before she cuts him free. Sadly,...
July 21, 2010 12:00 PM ET -
"Bonus Track #77" | SONG REVIEW
Having declared the Internet "over," Prince is releasing his new disc by giving it away in copies of European newspapers and magazines, such as Rolling Stone's German edition and Belgium's enticingly named Het Nieuwsblad. Sadly, 20Ten is...
July 19, 2010 12:00 PM ET -
Korn III: Remember Who You Are | ALBUM REVIEW
Korn have intellectualized their splenic new-metal as they've declined commercially. But their ninth disc jettisons layered samples and pointy-headed craft for a live-band blitz, mutating the bleakest aspects of rap, rock, funk and industrial into a molten...
July 13, 2010 12:00 PM ET -
Fables of the Reconstruction | ALBUM REVIEW
They hated making it and have often dismissed it, but R.E.M.'s third record, a dark meditation on the soul of the South, has aged brilliantly. Recorded with producer Joe Boyd, Fables explored a craggy interiority they'd later...
July 12, 2010 11:45 AM ET -
Custom Built | ALBUM REVIEW
Every rose has its thorn, and every airport bar has its 22-year-old divorcee. But not every album has two songs from different reality shows starring Bret Michaels, or the theme from the prison movie he wrote, directed...
July 6, 2010 3:55 PM ET -
Flesh Tone | ALBUM REVIEW
Kelis doesn't shake much milk on her first record in four years. Instead, she brings it to a slow boil. Flesh Tone is a foray into the percolating house, moody electro and hard trance grooves that pump...
July 6, 2010 3:54 PM ET -
"Misery" | SONG REVIEW
Some people might have a hard time picking out "Misery" from a police line-up of Maroon 5 songs. Thankfully, Adam Levine helps us out by getting his ass kicked by a beautiful lady in the video. The...
June 29, 2010 8:38 PM ET -
"Ultra" | SONG REVIEW
'Fuck the DA, the mayor know me,' Jay raps on this new mixtape track. 'Ultra' works the space between Roc Boy and society man, name-dropping Cosa Nostra and Obama over Swizz Beatz's police whistle and grinding static.
June 29, 2010 11:17 AM ET -
"Light Up (Rikers Remix)" | SONG REVIEW
A song about how hard it is to keep the world partying when you feel like dying inside, 'Light Up' was already one of the more poignant tracks on Drake's Thank Me Later. Jay-Z's cameo was note-perfect...
June 28, 2010 12:30 PM ET -
Lazarus | ALBUM REVIEW
Gym Class Heroes' Travie (formerly Travis) McCoy invented his own market by mixing emo, hip-hop and tween pop, and on his solo debut he makes good on a life of passing out business cards by pulling in...
June 22, 2010 3:41 PM ET -
Shake/Shiver/Moan | ALBUM REVIEW
This U.K. group's 2004 debut was then-trendy blues punk, the kind of sound a band can mine every year or so until it splits up or gets some new influences. Weirdly, both of those things happened. It's...
June 22, 2010 11:20 AM ET -
"Power" | SONG REVIEW
After you've sampled Can and compared yourself to Maya Angelou, how do you reach new heights of left-field craziness? How about rapping over King Crimson's paranoid prog jam "21st Century Schizoid Man"? Kanye's best single...
June 8, 2010 10:55 PM ET -
Disintegration: Deluxe Edition | ALBUM REVIEW
The Cure's 1989 masterpiece gave goth its Dark Side of the Moon — an alienated opus from a tortured star that only deepened his fame. Robert Smith translated the gloom of their gory early-Eighties records into sweeping...
June 8, 2010 2:15 PM ET -
Becoming a Jackal | ALBUM REVIEW
Conor J. O'Brien is as Irish as they come: soft-spoken, given to black moods and flights of literary mysticism, so full of Catholic guilt he probably sweats Communion wine. Villagers' debut album (on which he plays almost...
June 8, 2010 12:00 PM ET -
History From Below | ALBUM REVIEW
This San Diego foursome's rhythm section was in an emo band called Noise Ratchet; as Delta Spirit, they've embraced rootsiness but maintained that gloomy emo urgency: It's no surprise that their second disc opens with a mordant...
June 7, 2010 2:25 PM ET -
Grace Potter and the Nocturnals | ALBUM REVIEW
Grace Potter, 26, hails from Vermont, and she's big on the jam-band scene, but her neoblues has subtlety and concision you don't often find with noodle-dancers. The Nocturnals' third disc tilts from Janis Joplin-esque bluster, to laid-back...
June 7, 2010 2:00 PM ET -
"XXXO" | SONG REVIEW
With its ultraviolent video and synth-punk harshness, the Sri Lankan antidiva's most recent offering, "Born Free," suggested that her forthcoming third disc might be aimed at only her fringiest fans. So it's a big relief that the...
May 25, 2010 3:20 PM ET
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