Cosmic America

Our next artist spotlight is The Black Crowes, a band that had one of the bigger roller-coaster rides in recent rock and roll memory. It all started with Shake Your Money Maker, a dynamite set of songs in the classic 70's Stones/Free/Aerosmith mold that emanates energy and youthful vigor. A twin guitar attack, aggressive riffage, a couple of slower gems, and Chuck Leavell on keys help to set the stage for one of the more enduring debut albums in this style.

Galen and Alex begin the post-Grammy era of Arcade Fire with a look at the band’s longest and most bizarre album, Reflektor. Is there too much LCD Soundsystem and not enough Regine Chassagne? Is it too unfocused thematically? The boys dive into these questions and more on this episode of Cosmic America.

The Suburbs is either the best or second-best Arcade Fire album according to most fans, and it's easy to understand why people hold it in such high acclaim. The soaring, anthemic title track sets the table for a tremendously well-written series of vignettes on middle America (and Canada), and the melodies and lyrical content mesh with an increasing level of professionalism in the studio. It's a Grammy-winning album that actually deserves such awards.

Cosmic America is back, and we're tackling the discography of Arcade Fire, one of the more enduring and endearing bands to come out of the Aughts. We start with an overview of the band, before segueing into a review of their first official release, the Arcade Fire EP, which contains a lot of precursor ideas and sounds to what the band would come up with on later releases.

Our Rolling Stones reviews are sadly at an end (at least, until the band releases a new album!). On this final episode, Alex and Galen take a look back at the herculean task of reviewing one of the longest and most distinguished musical catalogs in rock and roll, and talk about what they learned along the way.

We're not quite done with the Rolling Stones yet! Although the number of albums dropped off precipitously in the post-Wyman period, the number of tours increased quite a bit, as did the number of greatest hits albums. We take a tour through the "extra" tracks that dotted the band's landscape during this period, from the bonus songs "Highwire" and "Sex Drive" off of Flashpoint all the way through to the present-day "Living In A Ghost Town".

The Rolling Stones last studio album? Can that really be? (The answer is yes, at least until the long-rumored 2020 album comes out). It's hard to believe we've finally gotten to this point.So we arrive here, and what do we find? A pretty good album overall! Very back-to-basics, especially considering the all-over-the-map approach that they took on Bridges to Babylon. The guest musicians and sidepeople are kept to a minimum, as are the producer and writer credits. Many of the tracks feature just the core band in the studio making music (and sometimes that just includes Mick, Keith, and Charlie). There's some good riffs, there's some good vocal melodies, and there are a couple of unexpected treats. There's also a larger amount of filler here, and this album ends up suffering from some of the mid-70s "we didn't really develop this idea very fully" problems that they'd mostly avoided on their last three releases. We evaluate this latest (and potentially last) Stones album track-by-track.

Voodoo Lounge showed that the Stones might actually be able to pull off the unthinkable --- a melding of the classic melodicism and guitarplay that they'd been known for with songcraft that sounded relatively fresh and, if not modern, at least in keeping with the aesthetic of the times. Part of that was due to the rotation of music fashion, with the sounds of the 1990s sounding a lot more like the late 60s and early 70s than the 1980s had. Bridges To Babylon, however, showed that the union of Rolling Stones album and modern sound was still a hit-or-miss proposition. There were some fascinating modern touches on this album, and some songwriting that was still pretty remarkable despite its new production wrapper. There were also a lot of songs and ideas that just didn't quite cut it, and an atmosphere of separation and disagreement in the writing and production structure that ends up making the album feel like a bunch of solo projects going on simultaneously.The result is an album that is a genuinely interestin

This 1994 release is the first Stones studio album Galen had on CD, and it’s the first Stones album released in Alex’s lifetime. Beyond the personal connections to the album, Voodoo Lounge offers a wide variety of musical stylings and some excellent performances. The hour-long album offers tastes of country, baroque pop, alt-rock, balladry, blues rock, and a towering Keith Richards song at the end. Though not every song is a home run, Voodoo Lounge earns high praise from the Cosmic America team as the best Stones album in more than a decade at that point.

The 1980s, mercifully, were coming to an end as the Rolling Stones released Steel Wheels on August 29, 1989. The album, hailed at the time as a return to form, marked the Rolling Stones’ returning to their signature sound. Galen and Alex break down the good and bad about this album, and there’s quite a bit of both. The production of the album is very 1989 -- in other words, not very good -- but there are indications that the band is entering an era of increased creative energy. All that and a farewell to longtime bassist Bill Wyman on this episode of Cosmic America.

From the album cover to some of the songs that sound unfinished or uninspired, there’s quite a bit to criticize about Dirty Work. The 1986 album was made amid internal disagreements and continued substance abuse issues, leading to a musical document that marks another rough time in the band’s history. It’s not all bad, though! As with most of the post-Tattoo You period for the Rolling Stones, properly evaluating the album requires that you separate the musical document from the in-the-moment critical analysis. The first and last songs serve as highlights, and there are some bright points along the way.

The mid-1980s were not an easy or fruitful time for the Rolling Stones. Galen and Alex break down the goings-on behind the scenes while examining the band’s 1983 effort Undercover. It sounds very much like a 1983 album, with echoey drums and synth sounds. From the title track to “Too Much Blood”, there’s quite a bit to like about this album, even if it’s not a traditional-sounding Rolling Stones record.

The Rolling Stones were back in 1981 with a brand new album --- except this was unlike any "Brand New Album" they'd ever released as a band, since almost none of it was actually brand new. Instead, the Stones and their engineering team combed the vaults and found a bunch of half-finished tracks, put lyrics and modern production on them, and released them to the public. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, right?Except it was great. Tattoo You is broadly viewed as the last truly awesome Rolling Stones album, and time has arguably been kinder to it than even the initial reviews were. Similar to mix of rock, balladry, and groove that they perfected on Some Girls, this mix of songs sounds surprisingly coherent, despite most of them not coming from the same recording session (or even the same group of musicians, in many cases). We go track-by-track through the grooves on this album, from the archetypal riffage of Start Me Up all the way to the dreamy songscaping of Waiting on a Friend.

Emotional Rescue was not a well-loved album by many at the time it was released in 1980, and it's relatively low reputation among Rolling Stones albums has largely persisted over the years. Is that a fair perspective? Or did the album simply get caught up in disappointment that it wasn't quite as good as its predecessor? We check it out in detail on this episode of Cosmic America.

The Rolling Stones were back in a huge way in 1978, roaring into the hearts and minds of fans and critics with the rock/punk/disco/country synthesis of Some Girls. Here finally, at the end of the 70s, was an album that once again sat right in the middle of the musical zeitgeist of the era. Of course, it took a lot for the band to get to this point. Keith Richards spent much of the run-up to this album in and out of courtrooms and rehab programs, stemming from a 1977 drug bust in Toronto that threatened to put him in jail for years. Mick Jagger and Ron Wood helped to steer the ship through this tumultuous period, with Jagger learning guitar and Wood adding his instrumental virtuosity and rock sensibilities to a (mostly) gritty set of songs about urban life in New York City. For many fans, Some Girls has become their favorite album, even exceeding those magical releases of the late 60s - early 70s period. It's compact, it rocks, it's funny, and it's got a sound quite unlike anything else in the catalogue up to

Mick Taylor is gone, having quit shortly after the release of It's Only Rock & Roll. While he wasn't a huge fixture on that album, he helped to provide some of its most memorable moments. With Keith Richards sinking further into addiction-related absence, it was a fair question to ask what would become of the Rolling Stones musically in the mid-70s.Black and Blue saw the band going through the process of auditioning guitar players to replace Taylor, and it showed. Three new lead or second guitarists make major contributions on this album, and their musical contributions ran the gamut of rock and roll. But there are other influences here of note. The production is much cleaner and more focused than on the previous album, the songs are largely more thought-out, and the influences from other realms of pop music are starting to really make a mark on the sound of the band. You hear elements of funk, disco, synth-driven balladry, and reggae all over this album, making it a pretty eclectic musical experience. Bu

The Stones may have taken a step back on the recording front in the eyes of many with 1973's Goats Head Soup, but the band had never been stronger on the road, plowing through a legendary set of tours in both the United States and Europe that cemented their reputations as the biggest rock and roll band in the world. They resumed recording operations during this time, but with new producers --- themselves. Or, more precisely, Mick and Keith, restyled as "The Glimmer Twins", taking over the reins full-time from Jimmy Miller, who had largely bowed out during the previous album's sessions.The resulting album, released in 1974, still retains many of the hallmarks of the Rolling Stones that we'd come to know over the previous decade. But it was a different sort of album, a different sort of songwriting, a different sort of production. We delve into the individual tracks and discuss what works, what doesn't, and where we disagree (which is quite often, surprisingly!) on this latest edition of Cosmic America.

Goats Head Soup is largely identified as the album where the Rolling Stones stopped being as special as they once were. It would have been nearly impossible for any band to keep up the breakneck pace of incredible art that the Stones pumped out from 1966 to 1972, and for many critics and fans, Goats Head Soup doesn't come close to their previous four albums in terms.Is that a fair criticism? Certainly there are a couple of questionable moments here, but there are also a large number of really fascinating and rewarding aspects on this album that have largely been lost to time. You can clearly hear the strain on this album from a band that has been living under tremendous pressure and change for the previous several years, but that creates a different --- and still very interesting --- listing experience. We delve into the album track-by-track and evaluate each moment, and come away with some surprising conclusions.

Few musical releases are more steeped in rock and roll mythology than Exile on Main Street. The self-styled World's Greatest Rock 'n Roll Band produced a double album that acted as a road map for most of their musical influences and creations, recorded during a time of great personal and professional transition, operating as tax exiles the south of France and seemingly awash in decadence and inspiration. The result of all these factors was an album that is unlike almost any "great" album in the history of rock and roll --- an album devoid of a hit single, an album with many songs where the lyrics are so indecipherable as to resist interpretation, an album that sits within one of the murkiest and least-defined soundcapes ever attempted by a major artist. Many rock and roll fans --- many ROLLING STONES fans --- find this album to be inferior to the previous three, lacking the obvious hooks and clear mission statement that is so present on Sticky Fingers or Let it Bleed.But despite this, Exile on Main Street is

After an 18 month hiatus, the Rolling Stones returned to the global spotlight in 1971 with Sticky Fingers, the album that many critics and fans consider their very best. And it's hard to argue with perspective. Sticky Fingers is chock full of incredible musical moments and ideas, watching the band cover familiar territory with new approaches while also extending their approach to incorporate new shades of blues, country, and rock and roll.Sticky Fingers was a key album for Stones mythology as well, as much of what had made up the band in the decade prior was changing. Mick Taylor had now completely integrated with their musical sound, studio sidemen like Nicky Hopkins were now integral pieces of their presentation, and Mick Jagger was starting to pursue his musical ideas more independently from Keith Richards at times. And the legend of the Rolling Stones had now fully matched the marketing --- after years of living in the shadow of The Beatles, the Stones were alone in the spotlight. They attacked the oppor