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Album Review

U2: Songs of Experience: Deluxe Edition

Read "Songs of Experience: Deluxe Edition" reviewed by Doug Collette


It's perfectly fitting so many of the song titles on U2's Songs of Experience sound like self-help aphorisms (at worst) or quick excerpts from an individual's inner dialogue (at best). “Love Is Bigger Than Anything In Its Way" and “You're The Best Thing About Me," to name just two, are parceled over the course of a baker's dozen tracks, the sequence of which at large plays off against a search for personal identity against a newsreel of current events.

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Album Review

U2: Songs of Experience

Read "Songs of Experience" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski


By blending a dazzling array of musical influences and directions for more than 4 decades now, Irish band U2 has come to represent one of the boldest rock bands in both genre-blending style and lyrical impact. 40 years since U2 was formed, the band continues to develop and refine the template they essentially created with surprisingly positive results. Several decades forward and U2 remains the world's preeminent rock band. There is literally nobody else in rock music these days that ...

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Extended Analysis

U2: Songs of Innocence Deluxe Edition

Read "U2: Songs of Innocence Deluxe Edition" reviewed by Doug Collette


Given the controversy that arose around the unilateral download of U2's Songs of Innocence, it's either brave, foolish or greedy to see the issue of the album in various physical forms in such short order. Yet the group confounds even further in the way they can, when playing and singing, leave behind the posing, pomposity and lethal careerism. Thus, the prospect of unreleased material and alternate takes of tracks from the original list can't help but pique the curiosity.

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Album Review

Kendrick Lamar: good kid, m.A.A.d city

Read "good kid, m.A.A.d city" reviewed by Jeff Dayton-Johnson


Compton rapper Kendrick Lamar's hit album good kid, m.A.A.d city is subtitled “a short film." Lamar's ambition mirrors that of saxophonist Bob Belden, who derided the narrow conceptual vision of too many musicians in a recent All About Jazz interview, saying: “Modeling music along the lines of film narrative ... should be a logical evolution of the jazz composer mindset. Sadly, we happen to be in an era of ... music that does not tell a story other than that ...

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Album Review

Queen Latifah: The Dana Owens Album

Read "The Dana Owens Album" reviewed by Paul Lewis


With this opus Queen Latifah sets aside her rap “crown" for a jewel-encrusted jazz-pop tiara. Tiara?! Yes, a tiara she deserves for the melodic, nostalgic opus she decided to label with her given name: The Dana Owens Album.

The artist is notorious for feminist controversy, but the only thing controversial about this album is Latifah's hard departure from the rap genre. But jazz fans can rejoice. She spans a continuum from standards to R&B to the blues and more, but ...

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Album Review

Brian Setzer: The Dirty Boogie

Read "The Dirty Boogie" reviewed by Jim Santella


The swing revival is today’s up-to-the-minute news, but has been gaining momentum for quite some time. Brian Setzer formed his big band in 1992 as an alternative choice for folks who have the time and energy to fill their leisure hours with more than just one activity. He defines a “Kustom Lifestyle" as pertaining to one who consistently seeks to explore the roads less-traveled, the things most people overlook, the unsung heroes of the world. Combining his rock and roll ...


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