Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#872 in the Series) is Tears for Fears, Songs from the Big Chair I don’t know that you can name a definitive album of the 1980’s, but if you could, Tears for Fears Songs from the Big Chair would definitely be in the conversation. The follow up to their also classic The Hurting, it is a classic musically as well as a touchstone in social activism. It is an important aspect of the decade for which it rarely gets credit. Tears for Fears, along with R.E.M., The Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen and a few others were instrumental in bringing 80’s college/alternative/indie rock into the mainstream. This was important because this new genre, and most specifically, Songs...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#871 in the Series) is Otis Blue, Otis Redding Sings Soul.  If you are a musical purist and do not allow live albums, compilations, or greatest hits packages to infiltrate your desert island disc knapsack, then Otis Blue / Otis Redding Sings Soul should be added to your collection post haste. The album, released in 1965 just months after the death of Sam Cooke, was the first really pure Otis Redding record.  More cohesive in style, this effort has much more of a live feel about it, with the entire package (including the sultry, evocative blond on the album cover) produced with an artistic flow that was previously missing from his prior efforts that...

Today’s Cool album of the Day (#870 in the Series) is The Flamin Groovies, Teenage Head If the Whigs, The Black Keys, Parquet Courts, Black Angels, or any of the rest of the present day bands  that are making that electric, salty, psychedelic, garage rock music today were a crime scene, the DNA would lead all the way back to the 1965 San Francisco Rock scene, and The Flamin Groovies would be found guilty as charged. While their influence might not quite be considered beatlesque, and the pairing of guitarist Cyril Jordan and singer Roy A. Loney might not exactly be Lennon and McCartney, their impact on the flowers in your hair Grateful Dead, and the trip happy Jefferson...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#867 in the Series) is Josh Halverson, One Shot When you are applying your trade in a neighborhood that many consider to be the hottest breeding ground of stellar artists this side of Brooklyn or Glasgow, and hang up your performing shingle in Austin, Texas, a city that bills itself as “The Live Music Capitol of the World,” it takes a lot of mojo and a boat-load of talent to set yourself apart, and Josh Halverson has both. From the opening track, “Take Me to Forever,” from his excellent new album, One Shot, your ears perk up to the point that would make a Doberman Pinscher proud as you are treated to a...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#866 in the series) is Beach House, Bloom (Sub Pop) When you think of rock ‘n’ roll epicenters in the colonies you think of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Austin, Seattle, and Athens (GA.), etc… Of all places, Baltimore has dropped Beach House on us. Baltimore’s two biggest musical exports may be O.A.R. and Good Charlotte. Beach House, at an early point in their career, may already be “Charm City’s” most accomplished band. Beach House is a series of musical contradictions. The name Beach House may give you the impression of warm, breezy, summer tunes (each time you say Beach House there may be some brain activity that wants to link this band...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#865 in the Series) is Black Sabbath, 13 Black Sabbath are not merely just one of the founding fathers of heavy metal music, they totally made it their own by making it incredibly doomy and gloomy while still staying true to its bluesy roots and even sounding very optimistic through the shadows. Their latest outing, 13, stays very true to that form and marks the triumphant studio return of original lead singer, Ozzy Osbourne, for the first time in 38 years. The band has had some really nice albums with various other singers, most notably the Ronnie James Dio years of the early ’80’s, but hardcore fans have always yearned for the...

Today’s Cool Albums of the Day (#863 and #864) in the series are Dust, Dust & Hard Attack (We’re going to do something a little differently and bring you both of these albums on one piece since they were just rereleased together on one Compact Disc.) Forty-two years ago (wow!), this skinny, longhaired, 12-year-old future metal head (thank you, Steppenwolf & Blue Cheer!) opened his trusty Circus magazine and read a small story about a new band called Dust. I don’t recall any specifics, but I assume the words “hard,” “heavy,” and, quite probably, “power trio” were used to describe this rather surly-looking threesome. Imagine Motörhead in 1971… Like most, I’m always up for new music. So, off I...

  New White Trash has an album coming out in July 2013 ~ “Age of Authority“. We are still collecting our info for a full post. But, you can hear a few songs tonight on the Lifeboat Hour, 9pm Eastern on the Progressive Radio Network, hosted Michael C. Ruppert. Check out the show!   Until then here’s a taste… Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Recommend on Facebook share via Reddit Share with Stumblers Tweet about it Subscribe to the comments on this post

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#861 in the Series) Is The Zutons, Who Killed ….. The Zutons The Zutons may very well be the summation of rock music at the turn of the century. What I mean by that is if I had to pick one album that incorporates one of the most varied mix of styles and influences from rock history, it would be their debut Who Killed…… The Zutons. The alchemy of the sound includes psychedelia, punk, folk, and garage rock. There is the raw energy of the 60’s, the flamboyant coolness of the 70’s, the tight pop of the 80’s, and the grungy bite of the 90’s. All their influences are often so seamlessly blended...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#860 in the Series) is Black Star Riders, All Hell Breaks Loose Sometime around Christmas 2005 I caught a taxi in my hometown of Belfast and happened to be wearing a Thin Lizzy T-shirt. The surly driver, spotting this young whipper-snapper wearing his beloved band’s logo, struck up a conversation. “So, you’re a Lizzy fan, yeah?” he asked. When I replied in the affirmative, he decided to test me, guessing I was one of those people who wear band shirts because they’re “cool”, but have no idea about the band, like the endless numbers of kids sporting Ramones shirts these days. “What album is this the first song from, then?” he asked, as...