ON CD > REVIEWING THE MUSIC.FRANK BLACK "93-03" Cooking Vinyl - Four stars BLACK FRANCIS "Bluefinger" Cooking Vinyl - Four stars "93-03" is an abridged 22-song summary of Black's post-Pixies career. A master of beautifully arranged dissonance, harmony and chaos, Black's greatest-hits package includes all of the expected high points ("Los Angeles"), but none of his country-inspired work. Nevertheless, a bonus DVD DVD: see digital versatile disc. DVD in full digital video disc or digital versatile disc Type of optical disc. The DVD represents the second generation of compact-disc (CD) technology. of live moments is a worthy addition. With "Bluefinger," he returns to his Pixies' moniker (1) A name, title or alias. See alias. (2) A COM object that is used to create instances of other objects. Monikers save programmers time when coding various types of COM-based functions such as linking one document to another (OLE). See COM and OLE. , Black Francis. Here, Black recreates the lo-fi chaos ("Threshold Apprehension"), surf-pop absurdity ("Lolita") and dreamy harmonics ("She Took All the Money") that made the Pixies pixies prank-playing fairies; mislead travelers. [Br. Folklore: Briggs, 328–330] See : Mischievousness such a great and influential band. "93-03" is out now; "Bluefinger" arrives Tuesday. >Len Cutler DAN COHEN cohen or kohen (Hebrew: “priest”) Jewish priest descended from Zadok (a descendant of Aaron), priest at the First Temple of Jerusalem. The biblical priesthood was hereditary and male. "Dan Cohen" Weston Boys - Three and one half stars This witty new singer-songwriter sounds more than a bit like Lyle Lovett with his deceptively laid-back, subtly swinging sound. But Cohen's no Texas slacker; he hails from New Orleans, and you can hear it in the funky horns and jazzy jazz·y adj. jazz·i·er, jazz·i·est 1. Resembling jazz in form or nature; rhythmical. 2. Slang Showy; flashy: a jazzy car. beats that energize this collection. Cohen has a sophisticated, celebratory take on lowdown low·down n. Slang The whole truth: gave us the lowdown on what happened at the party. lowdown low (inf) n he gave me the lowdown on it → living, but when he's not cracking wise, he's making you feel the hurt -- and does both, expertly, on the ambivalent marvel "You Can't Break My Heart the Way I Want You To." Mainly a guitarist, Cohen also plays something called goat toes; I don't even want to know. >Bob Strauss LYLE LOVETT AND HIS LARGE BAND "It's Not Big It's Large" Lost Highway - Three and one half stars Doing what you do well is no small accomplishment, especially for a gifted songwriter like Lovett. Mining his standard infectious blend of country, swing, gospel and blues, the Texas-bred singer manages to dig up more emotion than seems possible from this collection of songs. He opens with a toe-tapping version of jazz legend Lester Young's "Tickle Toe," but that seems like a feint feint n. 1. A feigned attack designed to draw defensive action away from an intended target. 2. A deceptive action calculated to divert attention from one's real purpose. See Synonyms at wile. v. for what follows, "I Will Rise Up/Ain't No More Cane." The gospel-based work -- using a few lines from an old prison work song -- becomes an anthem of defiance and faith in the wake of tragedies like Katrina and 9-11 (it's even more affecting live). Even in lighter or fun songs such as "This Traveling Around" or "Up in Indiana" there is the wistful regret in Lovett's voice, which has served him well over the years, that give the tunes more resonance. Some top musicians -- Viktor Krauss on bass, Sam Bush on mandolin mandolin (măn'dəlĭn`, măn`dəlĭn'), musical instrument of the lute family, with a half-pear-shaped body, a fretted neck, and a variable number of strings, plucked with the fingers or with a plectrum. , Russ Kunkel on drums, Sweet Pea Atkinson and Harry Bowens -- add spice to the mix. And the heartfelt ballad "South Texas Girl" is a gem. >Rob Lowman KANYE WEST "Graduation" Roc-A-Fella - Two and one half stars The core of "Graduation," the third and final installment of West's college-themed trilogy, can be found in the song of the same title on his second album, "Late Registration." There, the producer-rapper boasted about his success and accumulation of consumer goods. That's the sort of offensive braggadocio brag·ga·do·ci·o n. pl. brag·ga·do·ci·os 1. A braggart. 2. a. Empty or pretentious bragging. b. A swaggering, cocky manner. that cheapens this new effort. Filled with occasionally amusing rhymes glorifying conspicuous consumption of designer clothes, jewelry, booze and first-class air travel, "Graduation" rubs money, wealth and power in the face of a striving worldwide audience. That said, West can put huge beats together and still devise lyrics that draw a smile -- a rarity in a humorless genre. Addressing his own public image in a lone moment of introspection in the track "Can't Tell Me Nothing," West says his ego leads him to "act more stupidly, buy more jewelry" and make a fool of himself on TV "talking like it's just you and me." While "Graduation" has fewer outstanding moments than West's first disc, "The College Dropout (1) On magnetic media, a bit that has lost its strength due to a surface defect or recording malfunction. If the bit is in an audio or video file, it might be detected by the error correction circuitry and either corrected or not, but if not, it is often not noticed by the human ," there are some useful tracks here. The best is "Champion," based on a small snippet A small amount of something. In the computer field, it often refers to a small piece of program code. of Steely Dan's 1976 song "Kid Charlemagne," which is about as funky as hip-hop gets in this syncopation-free age. >Fred Shuster CAPTION(S): 3 photos Photo: (1 -- 3) no caption (CD covers) |
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