As fun as it is to complain about “music these days,” and how it’s all been downhill since The Chronic or something came out, it’s even MORE fun to listen to — wait for it — good music. Every Tuesday, a.k.a. Music Release Day, we’ll highlight five albums worth (legally) downloading or driving to the local Best Buy (lolz) for.
Today, we’ve got the debut LP from a hardcore super group, the first “official” release of a Fela Kuti recording in 20 years, and a heavy metal frontman’s Broadway standards album.
Here are but a few words you’ll find in the reviews for OFF!’s self-titled debut album, which lasts all of 16 minutes: “aggression,” “barking,” “apocalyptic,” “manic,” “volatile,” “menacing”…you get the point. Hardcore legend Keith Morris is as pissed off now as he was when he was as a member of Black Flag, and mosh pits all over the country are happy for it.
Live in Detroit, 1986 by Fela Kuti
Less than a year after being released from prison (on a ridiculously trumped up charge of currency smuggling), Nigerian great Fela Kuti played Detroit’s Fox Theater with his fiery band, Egypt 80. Live in Detroit, which has been widely bootlegged for years but not official released until now, captures the Afrobeat group on a particularly exhilarating and hypnotic night, playing only four, jam-heavy songs over nearly two-and-a-half hours. In other words: when you’re not in the mood to listen to OFF!
The Sound of Low Class Amerika by I Self Devine
In case you couldn’t tell by the title, The Sound of Low Class Amerika, I Self Devine’s first full-length LP in seven years, is “a narrative for the current state of the world and a telling history as to how we arrived here,” according to the album’s press notes. In other words: it’s pretty f*cking bleak. But Devine’s steady flow holds your attention, as do the jazz and R&B beats. Feeling like sh*t usually doesn’t sound this good.
We Rose From Your Bed With The Sun In Our Head by Swans
So sweaty, so intensely loud. Michael Gira is only content when you’re in pain, and even then he still wants to kick your ass.
Dee Snider Does Broadway by Dee Snider
Under no circumstance am I advising you to purchase Dee Snider Does Broadway. Instead, I want you to be aware of its existence, and how the former frontman of Twisted Sister, who once appeared on the first episode of MTV’s Headbangers Ball, is now singing “Luck Be a Lady Tonight” with twisted sister Clay Aiken (sorry), so you can ironically post selections from the album on your friends’ Facebook wall. “LOL,” indeed.
