Lollapalooza has announced its 2013 lineup and has already sold out of three-day passes, individual day passes, and VIP passes. I’ve gone every year since it settled in Chicago and have consistently had a good time. Some years have been more fun than other, but there are always bands I’m excited to see and there are always a few surprises.

It will be fun to see the Cure headline a big fest like this. I haven’t seen them since the Curiosa Festival came to Tinley Park. I’m also super excited about seeing Father John Misty, but — as always — it would probably be way better to see him in a smaller, darker venue. He’ll probably play at 2 o’clock as the sun beats us all into submission. But hey, that’s when the good stuff happens at Lollapalooza. Nobody goes to these things just to see the headliners, do they?

FRIDAY

The Killers
Nine Inch Nails
New Order (soundcloud)
Queens of the Stone Age (soundcloud)
Steve Aoki (soundcloud)
Thievery Corporation (mp3)
Lana Del Rey (mp3)
Flux Pavilion (soundcloud)
Band of Horses (mp3)
Hot Chip (mp3)
Crystal Castles (mp3)
Imagine Dragons
Frightened Rabbit (mp3)
Dillon Francis
Smith Westerns (mp3)
Disclosure (soundcloud)
Father John Misty (mp3)
Ghost B.C.
Modestep
Emeli Sande (soundcloud)
Jessie Ware (soundcloud)
Atlas Genius (soundcloud)
Timeflies (soundcloud)
Theophilus London (mp3)
Monsta (soundcloud)
IO Echo (soundcloud)
Icona Pop (soundcloud)
Chance the Rapper (mp3)
Lance Herbstrong
Robert DeLong (soundcloud)
Deap Vally (soundcloud)
Twenty One Pilots (soundcloud)
San Cisco (soundcloud)
Hey Marseilles (mp3)
Keys N Krates (soundcloud)
The Neighborhood (soundcloud)
Pacific Air (mp3)
American Authors (soundcloud)
Houndmouth (soundcloud)
Brick and Mortar (mp3)
D-Pryde
Brite Lite Brite (soundcloud)

SATURDAY

Mumford & Sons (soundcloud)
The Postal Service (mp3)
The National (mp3)
The Lumineers (soundcloud)
Kendrick Lamar (mp3)
Eric Church (soundcloud)
Steve Angello (soundcloud)
Ellie Goulding (mp3)
Azealia Banks (mp3)
Local Natives (mp3)
Dada Life (soundcloud)
Matt & Kim (mp3)
Foals (mp3)
Death Grips (mp3)
Court Yard Hounds (soundclouds)
Adventure Club
Ben Howard (mp3)
Griz (soundcloud)
Charles Bradley (mp3)
Heartless Bastards (mp3)
Baauer (soundcloud)
Haim (soundcloud)
Unknown Mortal Orchestra (mp3)
St. Lucia (mp3)
Shovels & Rope (soundcloud)
Little Green Cars (soundcloud)
Family of the Year (mp3)
360
The Bright Light Social Hour (soundcloud)
Reignwolf
Pujol (mp3)
Planet Hemp
Cole Plante (soundcloud)
Lukas Nelson & P.O.T.R. (soundcloud)
Blondfire (soundcloud)
Frontier Ruckus (soundcloud)
Wheeler Brothers (soundcloud)
The Dunwells (soundcloud)
Supreme Cuts (mp3)
Cherub
Wild Cub (mp3)
Brooke Waggoner (soundcloud)
Beast Patrol (soundcloud)

SUNDAY

The Cure
Phoenix (mp3)
Vampire Weekend (mp3)
Knife Party (soundcloud)
Grizzly Bear (mp3)
Major Lazer (mp3)
Dog Blood
Two Door Cinema Club (mp3)
Tegan and Sara (mp3)
Beach House (mp3)
Cat Power (mp3)
2 Chainz (soundcloud)
Alt-J (mp3)
The Vaccines (mp3)
DIIV (soundcloud)
Alex Clare (mp3)
Baroness (soundcloud)
Lianne La Havas (mp3)
Wild Nothing (mp3)
Angel Haze (mp3)
Wavves (mp3)
Alvin Risk (soundcloud)
Jake Bugg (soundcloud)
Wild Belle (mp3)
Art Department (soundcloud)
MS MR (soundcloud)
Guards (mp3)
Kill the Noise (mp3)
Skaters (soundcloud)
The Orwells (mp3)
Palma Violets
Astro (soundcloud)
Machines Are People Too (soundcloud)
Yawn (mp3)
Half Moon Run (soundcloud)
The Mowgli’s (mp3)
Wake Owl (mp3)
Bear Mountain (mp3)
O’ Brother (soundcloud)
Makeshift Prodigy (soundcloud)

Photo by Alan M. Paterson.

Concord Music Group’s reissue campaign of the Paul McCartney catalog continues on May 28 with 1976′s triple live album, Wings Over America. This will be the fifth release in this series following Band On The Run (2010), McCartney and McCartney II (both 2011), and Ram (2012). All of those have featured excellent remastering and presentation. Bonus tracks have been a little skimpy, but the focus of these reissues seems to be presenting the official recordings with the best sound quality.

Wings Over America is a great 70s live album, but I’m most excited about the DVD/Bluray release of the concert film, “Rockshow.” When we were in high school, GLONO co-founder Derek Phillips and I rented this movie from Crazy Larry’s and watched it in his parents’ basement shortly before watching 80s sex comedy “Hard Bodies” (“HEY DORK EAT ME”). I haven’t seen either movie since then.

Full press release below…

Take Flight Again in 2013… With Wings over America

· Re-release of Paul McCartney & Wings’ groundbreaking 1976 live album Wings over America containing bonus material out May 28th on Hear Music/Concord Music Group

· DVD release of the live concert film ‘Rockshow’ documenting the band’s epic Wings over the World tour across America (June 11th)

· Theatrical release of ‘Rockshow’ and an exclusive VIP premiere screening – featuring an introduction by Paul – at BAFTA (May 15th)

This Spring will see another chapter unfold in the life of Wings, the band formed by Paul McCartney after the break-up of The Beatles – and one of the most successful bands the UK has ever produced.

Wings over America

First, the historic live album, which documented the band’s triumphant 1976 tour across North America, will be reissued in a range of formats. Fans and hardcore devotees alike will be especially thrilled with the stunning four-book, four-disc (3CD, 1DVD) Deluxe Edition Box Set. The box set’s superior audio and video include the two-disc Wings over America album remastered at Abbey Road, a bonus audio disc recorded live at San Francisco’s Cow Palace, a bonus DVD containing the rarely seen 75-minute television special Wings over the World and the photo gallery montage entitled ‘Photographer’s Pass’. Moreover, the Deluxe Edition Box Set contains four exquisitely rendered art books packaged with an incredible array of exclusive memorabilia, souvenirs, mementos, keepsakes and never-before-seen photos and art work from this historic tour. The spectacular 110-page commemorative tour book beautifully recounts the behind-the-scenes drama through dozens of live performances and backstage photos along with new interviews and liner notes from eminent music journalist David Fricke. The Wings over America leatherette-bound ‘Tour Itinerary’ contains extravagant memorabilia including printed 8X10 glossy band photos, a backstage guest pass, facsimiles of the invitation to the infamous end-of-tour party at the Harold Lloyd Estate in Beverly Hills along with Wings over America concert tickets, original album art work, tour posters, set lists, lyrics, press materials and much more. ‘Look’, the box set’s warm and intimate book of Linda McCartney photography features Paul and the band in their everyday life as they made their way across the country in the spring of ’76. Lastly, the set contains ‘The Ocean View’ an extraordinary hardbound compendium of drawings and sketches by artist Humphrey Ocean that captures the band on tour in relaxed and revealing ways. A striking artistic achievement in and of itself, the audacious Wings over America Deluxe Edition Box Set is a must have for any McCartney enthusiast.

Rockshow DVD Release

And for the first time a DVD will be released by Eagle Rock of the live concert film Rockshow which was shot in 1975 and 1976 when Paul McCartney & Wings undertook the epic Wings over the World tour–the largest-scale tour they would ever undertake as a band. Packed with all the classic Wings hits – plus some of Paul’s solo and Beatles classics – the film is released on both DVD and Blu-ray formats. Although filmed on this tour at the enormous Kingdome in Seattle, Rockshow, originally an edited version of the concert, was not premiered until November 1980 in New York and April 1981 in London. It was originally released on Betamax (later on laserdisc) but it’s only now that the complete full-length concert is being made available fully restored from the original 35mm film and with restored & remastered sound, including a 5.1 mix for the first time.

Rockshow Theatrical Release

And then third, but by no means least, Eagle Rock has partnered with distributors Specticast who are releasing the film theatrically worldwide for a ‘one night only’ event’ on May 15th (see here for more details: http://rockshowonscreen.com/) – meaning the film will be shown in more than 500 theaters across the world! The theatrical release features an exclusive introduction with Paul McCartney, but there will also be an exclusive VIP premiere screening of Rockshow, with Paul in attendance and introducing the film, at BAFTA on 15 May 2013.

For Wings Across America Paul brought with him one the most sophisticated and dazzling rock shows of the mid-Seventies (a time when nobody worried about extravagance or expense) and the band would eventually perform to more than 600,000 people at 31 shows in the US and Canada, ending with three mind-bending nights at The Forum in Los Angeles. It’s no exaggeration to say that the demand that greeted Paul McCartney & Wings (Linda McCartney, Joe English, Denny Laine and Jimmy McCulloch) in the spring of 1976 as they embarked on what would become their one and only North American tour was overwhelming. Having released four consecutive chart busting albums including Red Rose Speedway, Band on the Run, Venus and Mars and Wings at the Speed of Sound – not to mention 1973’s Academy Award-winning James Bond theme “Live and Let Die” – Paul’s solo career was in full flight… and having not performed in the States for 10 years either solo or with The Beatles, excitement had reached fever pitch.

Now Paul gives fans the chance to be able to immerse themselves in a concert that is destined to live forever.

www.paulmccartney.com

Brudenell Social Club is a workingman’s club in Leeds with an old function room that was used previously for bingo and cabaret style acts – it still has brass fittings and seats and tables at the back on the elevated section – while the dance floor in front of the stage is all standing. It still has another room adjacent which is full of some interesting local “characters” that you would not normally find at a gig. In keeping with it being a working men’s club it still has dirt cheap drink prices.

It is a regular on the circuit for touring bands – I have seen Jesse Malin, Dan Sartain, Constellations Festival (headlined by Ariel Pink). At the end of the gig Johnny mentioned how much he loved the venue – I am guessing he would have played there with the Cribs as it is one of their favourite venues. The capacity is about 300. The audience last night was a mix of ages from diehard Smiths fans from way back in the day and new fans coming to see what they have missed.

He played a 70 minute set with mainly new songs and a few old songs (his description). Most of the set is here on video.

All photos by David Wala. See more of his work at davidwala.net.

I loved that song when I was 19. I worshiped the Smiths in high school and followed Johnny Marr’s career when he split the group. Pretenders, Talking Heads, Kirsty MacColl, even Andrew Berry and Stex. If I read about a Johnny Marr project in an imported copy of NME, I bought the 12″ at my local record store.

But The The’s Mind Bomb was something else. It lived up to its title. Mind Bomb blew my mind. My 7″ of the lead single, “The Beat(en) Generation,” had not prepared me for the heaviness of the album that followed. Matt Johnson’s lyrics expanded my idea of what subjects rock and roll could take on. From religion and terrorism to lustful, crippling possessiveness, Mind Bomb was unlike anything I had ever heard. And I became obsessed.

My best friend Phil and I drove across the state to see them at the Royal Oak Theatre on the “The The vs. the World” tour. We got there way too early and ended up in a guitar shop where I bought a vintage hollow-body Gibson. I thought if I had a really cool guitar then I would surely learn to play it. (Still hasn’t happened.) I bought a tour program and we waited outside by the tour bus after the show and I got Johnny Marr’s autograph as he left the venue. I was starstruck and delirious. Emboldened by my brush with a hero, on the way to the car I kissed a girl I had just met while waiting in line.

This night was clearly worthy of nostalgia.

Shortly after Mind Bomb, The The released “Jealous of Youth.” The chorus goes, “Now the autumn leaves are turning to the color of rust, I’m getting jealous for youth’s first yearnings for lust. I wanna live, but I ain’t a big enough man to do anything other than think.” Matt Johnson was 29 when this song was released.

I was 19, but I connected with those lyrics. Deeply. I truly wanted to live and have crazy experiences like my night in Royal Oak. But I was tied down by a feeling of awkwardness and a shyness that, looking back, really was rather vulgar. Not criminally so, but still.

My big problem was that I was preternaturally nostalgic, especially for my age. I joke that I had my first mid-life crisis at 15 after experiencing the shock of seeing what Davy Jones looked like in 1987 after months of practically falling in love with him via Monkees reruns. But it wasn’t funny. I feared the aging process.

In college lots of kids look back to the quirky pop culture of their childhood with innocent fondness. It’s why 80s bands covered the Sesame Street theme. Remember Ben Stiller’s plastic Hulk bank in Reality Bites? And his character wasn’t even the cool one!

Throughout my twenties and most of my thirties, I continued to worry about how old I was getting and how young I used to be.

But at some point I realized that in ten more years I’m going to look back at myself now and think I was young. So I might as well live it up. The past is fodder for fun stories, but I try to no longer waste any time dwelling on it. Or at least wishing for it. I’m happy now. I’m getting older every day. Which is a lot better than the alternative. Not to get all Bobby McFerrin on your ass, but life is good.

You see, I am not genetically predisposed to longevity. My dad died at 38 when I was 10 and my mom died twenty years later at 54. I’ve already had more time than my dad got and I try to appreciate every day.

So I try hard to fight nostalgia. It doesn’t come naturally to me, but it’s a goal.

There’s a line from a Mountain Goats song that serves as something of an antidote to my tendency toward nostalgia: “If we get our full threescore and ten, we won’t pass this way again. So kiss me with your mouth open.” You’ve gotta live your life right now, everybody, because you might not get as many tomorrows as you think.

My mom’s last words were “Down the hatch!” She was referring to her final dose of meds, but I’ve reclaimed it as a toast. And these days I’ll raise my glass to the future and maybe occasionally pour a little on the curb for the past.

It’s interesting timing, because just a couple months ago GLONO co-founder Derek Phillips, who I call Phil, turned me on to the glory that is video footage of Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show from the 70s. I knew “Cover of Rolling Stone” from classic rock radio, but didn’t know anything else and had certainly never seen them live.

Seeing this video blew my mind. Will Sheff put a lot of thought into his essay, but what we’re presenting below are our first reactions to experiencing this crazy, wasted party that was a live Dr. Hook show.

Session Start (Jake:Phil): Thu Nov 29 13:08:45 2012
[13:08] Phil: Hey
[13:09] Jake: yo
[13:10] Phil: You see that crazy shit I posted to the GLONO FB?
[13:10] Jake: no
[13:10] Phil: Dude
[13:10] Phil: Take a break and watch it
[13:10] Jake: the dr hook video?
[13:10] Phil: yes
[13:11] Phil: it is awesome
[13:11] Jake: watching now
[13:11] Jake: those guys are wasted
[13:11] Phil: big time
[13:11] Jake: not in tune at all
[13:11] Phil: Oh no
[13:12] Phil: I mean, why tune up? You’re only on TV
[13:12] Jake: i didn’t realize that’s what dr hook looks like
[13:12] Phil: Looked
[13:12] Phil: past tense, by a long shot
[13:12] Jake: wow
[13:12] Phil: oh yeah
[13:12] Phil: keep watching
[13:12] Jake: the shirt thing!
[13:13] Jake: eyepatch!?!!!
[13:13] Phil: hahahaha
[13:13] Phil: I know. It’s crazy
[13:13] Jake: who’s george?
[13:13] Jake: he’s hairy.
[13:13] Jake: i can practically smell them from here
[13:14] Jake: the eyepatch guy’s dance moves are COLOSSAL
[13:14] Jake: he is the coolest guy i’ve ever seen
[13:14] Jake: wait. that SOLO?
[13:14] Jake: WHAT?
[13:15] Jake: these guys are not sober
[13:15] Phil: I don’t think so either!
[13:15] Jake: OMG
[13:15] Phil: I think they’ve been drinking!
[13:15] Jake: this is the greatest performance i’ve ever seen
[13:15] Phil: you’re welcome.
[13:16] Jake: holy crap
[13:16] Phil: I had to make sure you saw it
[13:16] Jake: this confirms everything i thought was true about the 70s
[13:16] Jake: but only had photo evidence
[13:16] Jake: like from goose lake
[13:16] Jake: or the grand river raft race
[13:18] Phil: When you have a minute go YouTube Willie’s 4th of July picnic videos
[13:18] Phil: more of the same
[13:18] Phil: pure awesome
[13:19] Jake: reading dr hook’s wiki page now
[13:20] Phil: dude has lived
[13:20] Phil: and his album with Dan Auerbach is tight
[13:20] Phil: …and I am not a fan of Dr. Hook’s music normally
[13:23] Jake: dude that’s dr john
[13:23] Jake: different doctor
[13:24] Phil: Oh ho!
[13:25] Phil: Yes, I meant Dr. John, not Dr. Hook
[13:25] Phil: but what do I know about any of this?
[13:25] Phil: I have multiple work conversations going on
[13:25] Phil: I don’t know who I am
[13:25] Phil: where am I?
[13:25] Phil: I am as drunk as those dudes
[13:25] Jake: i want to know what kind of show that dr hook song was filmed for
[13:26] Jake: because if that got played on TV, that makes the 70s even better
[13:26] Phil: right
[13:28] Jake: holy cow. more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0yCzCEgfqE

[13:28] Jake: sounds like hasil adkins
[13:29] Phil: I would like to get loaded and watch these videos with Father John Misty
[13:29] Jake: YES
[13:29] Phil: he is my current hero
[13:29] Jake: i was thinking that when i saw the dance moves
[13:30] Jake: i hope he tours with phosphorescent and jonathan wilson
[13:30] Jake: wouldn’t that be a tour?
[13:30] Phil: oh fuck, that would be awesome
[13:30] Jake: i’d follow them around like the dead
[13:30] Phil: hahahaha
[13:30] Phil: “I am going on hiatus. See you guys in three months”
[13:30] Jake: dig the drummer’s t-shirt
[13:31] Jake: i swear these dudes regularly hung out on the brownshoe [My dad's boat when I was a kid. - ed.]
[13:31] Phil: hahaha
[13:31] Phil: Dude, that’s John C. Reilly on drums!
[13:31] Jake: ha
[13:31] Jake: i have found my new favorite band
[13:31] Phil: these dudes were fucking LIVING it, man
[13:31] Jake: people loved the 50s in the 70s
[13:31] Phil: look at them!
[13:32] Jake: sweating balls
[13:32] Phil: they sure did
[13:32] Jake: i love the ragged harmonies though
[13:32] Phil: I know nothing about Dr. Hook
[13:33] Phil: I need to fix that
[13:33] Jake: srsly
[13:33] Jake: new favorite band!
[13:33] Phil: no joke
[13:33] Jake: unreal
[13:33] Phil: Portland is all about tribute shows right now. I could pitch this easily
[13:33] Phil: The rare occasions I do hang out now is with dudes who look like this
[13:33] Jake: looks like that whole don kirshner show is on youtube
[13:34] Phil: bad ass
[13:34] Jake: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dr+hook+kirchner
[13:34] Jake: there goes my productivity
[13:34] Phil: uh oh: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iYpboTjtoQ

[13:35] Jake: oops. turning that off immediately
[13:35] Phil: the video is pretty awesome
[13:35] Jake: watching rollin’ in my sweet baby’s arms from 76
[13:35] Jake: in HD
[13:35] Phil: link
[13:35] Jake: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaE0D852n3Q

[13:37] Jake: i wish we still had don kirshner’s rock concert
[13:37] Phil: this band must have been a riot on the road
[13:37] Phil: can you imagine?
[13:37] Jake: i can
[13:37] Phil: I know this dude named Matt who tours as The Don of Division street who looks just like that dude without the patch
[13:38] Jake: i have a new favorite band
[13:38] Phil: no shit
[13:39] Phil: one of the things I’ll miss the most about Portland is The Hoot, which is a party once a month on this farm in SE Portland
[13:39] Phil: looks and sounds a lot like this
[13:39] Jake: another 50s cover: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olQNes_mq8I

[13:40] Jake: these dudes are actually good, soulful singers
[13:40] Phil: This concert is incredible
[13:40] Jake: they’re just insane
[13:40] Phil: WTF?!?!? How have we missed this band?
[13:40] Phil: until now?
[13:40] Jake: this is exactly what is missing from indie rock
[13:40] Phil: No shit, this is exactly what The Hoot is like
[13:41] Phil: not as drunk or high, but this vibe and look
[13:41] Jake: these dudes clearly love each other too
[13:41] Jake: i bet their records sound terrible
[13:43] Jake: looks like this is the first song from the kirshner concert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF0_947VPNA

[13:43] Jake: sounds like a beegees ballad
[13:44] Jake: wtf?
[13:44] Phil: I am just catching up on Only 16
[13:45] Jake: srsly this song could be on the soundtrack for grease
[13:45] Phil: hahaha
[13:45] Jake: and now that bearded non eyepatch singer is reminding me of bobier
[13:45] Jake: which is creeping me out a little
[13:45] Jake: i think i’m coming down…
[13:48] Phil: “Sexy Eyes” is Dr. Hook
[13:48] Phil: I had no idea
[13:48] Jake: what is that?
[13:48] Phil: Oh you’ll know it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ3DWa_QLO4

[13:48] Jake: DISCO SUCKS
[13:49] Phil: This is more like it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHufyCHSF1U

[13:49] Jake: man, they must’ve disappointed a lot of people
[13:49] Jake: starting out that great and crazy
[13:50] Jake: and ending up disco
[13:50] Phil: everyone was finding coke together, man
[13:50] Phil: Holy shit, watch the yodel song I just sent
[13:50] Phil: they have a BEZ
[13:50] Phil: crazy hill dancing
[13:50] Jake: amazing
[13:51] Phil: good lord
[13:51] Jake: that dancer is my hero
[13:51] Jake: omg
[13:51] Phil: is this not amazing?
[13:51] Jake: this is fantastic
[13:51] Jake: his “butt dance”
[13:52] Phil: complete insanity
[13:52] Phil: OK, I think Dr. Hook and The Medicine Show is the era
[13:52] Jake: yes
[13:52] Jake: seems to be
[13:53] Jake: although this kirshner show is 76
[13:53] Jake: which seems to be post-medicine show
[13:53] Phil: still buzzing
[13:53] Jake: yes
[13:53] Phil: craziness
[13:53] Jake: shel silverstein wrote their first album
[13:53] Phil: what?
[13:54] Jake: and some of the second, incl cover of the rolling stone
[13:54] Phil: crazy time
[13:54] Jake: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Hook_%26_the_Medicine_Show
[13:55] Jake: they’ve got a 1975 live album: Bankrupt [It's actually a studio album. - ed.]
[13:55] Jake: i bet that’s the one to get
[13:55] Jake: i don’t normally like live albums
[13:55] Jake: but with these guys, i bet that’s the winner
[13:56] Jake: they have a song (written by silverstein) called looking for pussy
[13:59] Jake: ok i’m streaming their album sloppy seconds now
[14:00] Phil: I am listening to Essential Dr. Hook & Medicine Show on Spotify
[14:00] Jake: i might switch to that one
[14:01] Jake: ha
[14:01] Jake: that amg review confirms what we feared
[14:02] Jake: “ramshackle, Shel Silverstein-singing, goofy bar-band hippies”
[14:02] Jake: yes please
[14:03] Phil: more of that!
[14:04] Jake: cover of the rolling stone is pretty perfect though
[14:05] Phil: yes
[14:05] Jake: it needs to go on a mix immediately before or after the doobies’ “black water”
[14:05] Phil: right!
[14:06] Jake: someone needs to sample that “aww beatutiful” at the very end of that song.
[14:06] Jake: (if they haven’t already)
[14:06] Jake: sylvia’s mother kinda sucks.
[14:08] Phil: it does
[14:08] Jake: i bet sab would love it
[14:08] Phil: of course
[14:10] Jake: this band is weird
[14:11] Jake: i don’t understand how bobby keys is NOT in this band though
[14:12] Jake: how did they NOT have a sax player at all?
[14:13] Jake: too many lame ballads
[14:14] Phil: yeah, more party music
[14:15] Jake: hilarious: mog shows similar artists as three dog night, ozark mt daredevils, leo sayer, olivia newton john, status quo, rod stewart, and harry nilsson
[14:16] Phil: jesus…
[14:17] Jake: i’m switching to something in mog called alive in america
[14:17] Jake: by its tracklist, i’m guessing it’s 1976 ish
[14:17] Phil: There was a really interesting article I can’t find anymore about Amazon’s recommendation machine and one of the lead developers said, “It’s more about what’s NOT recommended than what is.”
[14:18] Jake: it’s just not as good without the video
[14:18] Phil: Dude cited The White Album as an example. On the surface, The White Album would be a great recommendation for huge numbers of music fans. But he says everyone who wants the White Album has it
[14:19] Jake: huh
[14:19] Phil: something like that
[14:19] Phil: I want a live Dr. Hook album from that era
[14:20] Phil: or just a great audio file from the Kirshner show
[14:20] Phil: I’ll take that and be happy
[14:20] Jake: someone should sell the complete don kirshner rock concert series on bluray
[14:20] Phil: mos def
[14:20] Jake: i wish licensing wasn’t such a pain
[14:21] Phil: yeah
[14:21] Jake: i wish copyright would expire after a decent amount of time
[14:21] Phil: like it used to
[14:22] Phil: BRB

Hurray! Billboard has published the 2012 Soundscan numbers! I love this data and I’ve been collecting it for years, looking up back issues of Billboard and scouring old news reports. It’s fascinating to see how the numbers evolve over time as people’s music purchasing habits change.

Soundscan has been counting music sales since 1991, and I’d love to be able to fill in some of the missing data, especially total album sales from 1991-1995 and vinyl sales prior to 2006. So if you can hook a brother up, let me know. I may also add in more charts because Google makes it fairly easy and they look kinda pretty. Until then, dig into the data.

Total Album Sales (physical + digital albums)

2012: 315.96 million
2011: 330.57 million
2010: 326.15 million
2009: 373.9 million
2008: 428.4 million
2007: 500.5 million
2006: 542.4 million
2005: 618.9 million
2004: 667 million
2003: 687 million
2002: 681 million
2001: 763 million
2000: 785 million
1999: 754.8 million
1998: 711 million
1997: 651.8 million
1996: 616.6 million

Compact Discs

2012: 193.73 million*
2011: 223.5 million
2010: 239.9 million
2009: 294.9 million
2008: 360.6 million
2007: 449.2 million
2006: 553.4 million
2005: 598.9 million
2004: 651.1 million
2003: 635.8 million
2002: 649.5 million
2001: 712.0 million
2000: 730.0 million
1999: 648.1 million
1998: ~578 million*
1997: 504.6 million
1996: 448.4 million
1995: 368 million

Digital Albums

2012: 117.68 million
2011: 103.1 million
2010: 86.3 million
2009: 76.4 million
2008: 65.8 million
2007: 50 million
2006: 16.2 million
2005: 5.5 million

Vinyl albums

2012: 4.55 million
2011: 3.9 million
2010: 2.8 million
2009: 2.5 million
2008: 1,877,000
2007: 990,000
2006: 858,000
2005: 857,000
2004: 1,187,000
2003: 1,404,000
2002: 1,339,000
2001: 1,246,000
2000: 1,533,000
1999: 1,405,000
1998: 1,376,000
1997: 1,092,000
1996: 1,145,000
1995: 794,000
1994: 625,000

Cassette albums

2009: 34,000
…
2007: 274,000
…
2004: 8.6 million
…
2002: 29.8 million
2001: 49.4 million
2000: 77.2 million
1999: 105.5 million
1998: ~130.8 million
1997: 146 million
1996: 166.7 million

Digital tracks

2012: 1.336 billion
2011: 1.27 billion
2010: 1.17 billion
2009: 1.16 billion
2008: 1.07 billion
2007: 844.1 million
2006: 582 million
2005: 353 million
2004: 141 million
2003: 19.2 million (SoundScan monitored them only during the year’s second half)

Track equivalent albums (where 10 track downloads equal one album)

2012: 449.6 million*
2011: 457.7 million
2010: 443.4 million
2009: 489.8 million
2008: 535.4 million
2007: 585 million
2006: 646.3 million
2005: 654.1 million
2004: 680.7 million

Sources: Billboard, Billboard, Billboard, Billboard, Billboard, Billboard, USA Today, Computer World, New York Times, Hollywood Reporter, CTV, BBC, WSJ, Billboard, Billboard, Billboard, Billboard, Billboard, Billboard, Pitchfork, Narm.

* – Indicates that this number was calculated using officially published numbers.

Why not the Chrysler 300, the sedan that was immediately popular with golfers and gangstas alike when it appeared as a model year 2005 vehicle?

Because that car is built in Canada.

Chrysler is now beating Detroit like Meg White the drums.  Unless it is an ad for Jeep, chances are there is something airing from the company that goes directly back to that “Born of Fire” Super Bowl ad.

It has just launched the 2013 Chrysler 300 Motown Edition.

The commercial for the car shows Motown founder and Detroit native Berry Gordy sitting in the backseat of the car. . .in front of the Motown Museum on West Grand Boulevard. If you’ve ever been to the Motown Museum or on West Grand Boulevard, you know that the word “grand” isn’t used in a particularly descriptive way.

And while Gordy established Motown in Detroit in 1960, he moved it to Los Angeles in 1972.

Thanks, Berry.

And while the 2013 Chrysler 300 Motown Edition moves Gordy through the streets of Detroit, it deposits him in New York City, in front of the Lunt Fontanne Theatre, where “Motown: The Musical” will be opening in March.

He may have forgotten that there is the Fisher Theater literally down the street from the Motown Museum. They stage Broadway shows there, too. It’s not Broadway. But it is Detroit.

The car is all chromed up. Perhaps the best part of it is that the limited-edition sedan’s audio system comes with 100 Motown tracks, but then those are accessible without having to put out an MSRP of $32,995.

“We are Motown and this is what we do,” Gordy says at the end of the spot for the car.

What? Move out of the D?

The pairing is complete nostalgia. There is no other reason that John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John are together for a Christmas album aside from the fact that they were both cast together in a small little movie musical called Grease over thirty years ago.

Grease has flourished since its first run on charm alone. How else can you explain the impossible plot of an Australian immigrant–who is hot off an innocent summer fling with a local gearhead–as she navigates the social landscape of high school with a collective of sexually active girls, headed by a 34-year old Stockard Channing?

As the main characters in the film, Olivia and Travolta aren’t particularly compatible on screen and their voices don’t blend together all that notably during their duets. Regardless, they have managed to become the biggest selling duet in pop history and their presence in Grease completes the film’s campy homage to 50s B-movies, giving all of that aforementioned improbability a free pass.

How these characters have managed to ride Greased Lightening up through the skies and endured for so long is pretty remarkable, so the idea of them returning together to perform Christmas music isn’t completely out of the realm. Unfortunately, when one doesn’t properly attend to the execution of such a reunion, what you get is a record that’s more acknowledged for its weird aftertaste than musical flavor.

I won’t even mention the cover, because it’d be like bitching about how Kraft Macaroni and Cheese tastes nothing like a homemade batch of the gooey comfort food. This is truth in advertising, and the only thing that would make the cover of This Christmas more awesome is if Travolta sported a cheesy seasonal sweater.

As hard as it is to be polite about the cover art, I simply cannot get away from all of the tabloid overtones when Travolta takes over the resistant role of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” We’re all accustomed to Olivia’s occasional glimpses as the sexual aggressor (Shake Shack, anyone?), but to hear Danny Zuko put up a fight to Sandy’s advances thirty years after the fact makes for a perfect hushed whisper of “Beard!”

There are other laugh-out-loud moments within This Christmas that are much less juvenile, but equally surreal. Like the part during “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” when Barbara Streisand pops in for a verse for absolutely no reason at all.

Speaking of guest cameos, there are tons of ‘em. From another brake-slamming appearance (this time with James Taylor on “Deck The Halls”) to a not-so-subtle nod to the Scientology folks with some ivory-tickling from Chick Corea, John and Olivia bring a whole slew of friends to join in their Christmas spirit and it’s as sincere as you pretending to think the gag gift you get at work during your department’s holiday party is funny.

There’s octogenarian Tony Bennett who drops in for “Winter Wonderland,” if you count having your verses recorded at a completely different studio during a completely different session as “dropping in.”

ONJ brings out longtime musical partner John Farrar for the record’s lone original track “I Think You Might Like It.” Farrar was responsible for many of Olivia’s biggest hits, and he served as both the writer and producer for “You’re The One That I Want,” the hit single that propelled the pair into the record books.

Farrar’s latest tune is being called the sequel to that Grease classic, and it’s hard to dispute that claim since it follows nearly the same chord progression under the guise of some light country swag.

Clearly, I’m not the man who should be reviewing This Christmas because I’m overflowing with cynicism at every turn.

So I ask my wife, who often fills the house with a bit of Christmas singing of her own during the holidays, to offer her opinion of the pairing. Suddenly, I find her singing along with This Christmas, causing me to consider that maybe it is my jaded outlook that’s causing me to be so dismissive of this holiday collection.

When I ask her if This Christmas has caused her spontaneous outburst of seasonal caroling, she admitted that it wasn’t the quality of the songs that prompted her singing, but just the familiarity of the material.

Indeed, the selection doesn’t stray far from the obligatory set list that every holiday record seems to cull from. Case in point: ONJ has now selected “Silent Night” for every Christmas album she has released.

This Christmas is the perfect holiday record for anyone who has been waiting since Two Of A Kind for the return of John Travolta and Olivia Newton John. Beyond that, This Christmas is another run-of-the-mill collection of uninspired holiday classics featuring a bunch of questionable guest appearances and two longstanding friends who can’t seem to get away from those hallowed halls of Rydell High.

An extra star has been added for this release as all proceeds from the sale of This Christmas go to the artist’s charitable foundations.

Video: John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John – “I Think You Might Like It”

During my first year of high school, I befriended an upperclassman who shared my obsession with rock and roll music. The two of us were also similar in trying to expand our collective musical knowledge by exploiting every opportunity that presented itself to us so that we could explore uncharted music together.

For my friend, an opportunity presented itself at his job. He “babysat” the automated music playlist at the local FM radio EZ listening station on weekends during the overnight hours.

It drove my friend crazy. After only a few weeks of it, he began to think that the small wage that he was earning was enough to endure the 6 hours of Ferrante & Tiecher format that pumped through the studio monitors. Never mind the fact that he barely uttered a word during his shift as the only time you would even hear him over the air was reading the weather forecast twice an hour, and even that was committed to tape.

The inactivity gave him a lot of free time. He began to snoop around the facilities and noticed that the Program Director for the station occasionally left the door to his office unlocked. During one clandestine operation, he discovered that the shelves of his boss’ office contained a huge array of promotional records, some of which the PD brought from other radio stations.

Instinctively, he began to stuff his book bag with some of the titles, not with the intent of stealing them, but instead to borrow them until the next airshift so that he could dub them off on to cassette.

He began inviting me over to his listening sessions, and I would dutifully wait my turn to fill up a few blank Maxells. The records were mostly A.O.R. titles that graced the cutout bins while providing a glut of promotional albums that would find their ways into the personal collections of radio programmers across the country.

I listened to a lot of new music thanks to my friend’s system, everything from Graham Parker to a live Ramones record (It’s Alive). Every week was a new adventure. On occasion, you’d get a real dud–The Boomtown Rats Tonic For The Troops immediately comes to mind–but the beauty of magnetic tape was how its contents were just a red button away from extinction.

Conversely, there were those records that proved to be so good that I would punch out the safety tabs on the cassette, a feature that prevented someone from accidentally erasing over a particular selection.

Such was the case with Roxy Music, whose live document Viva! made its way to my friend’s turntable and onto a waiting cassette that stayed with me for many years.

I loved the record’s aggressiveness. In fact, it may be the only document of the group that suits the sonic vision that their own name coolly suggests. I fell into it with such great force that I ordered their newest title from Columbia House, Avalon, and became immediately disappointed that they had turned into a bunch of pussies with that record.

Time, repeated listens, and that silly notion of how Avalon is required coitus music, have changed my perspective of that record, but Viva! has always remained my first love, and the first reason why I began exploring the group’s catalog.

Viva! is not found on the recent The Complete Studio Recordings (for obvious reasons) and it’s a record that is curiously overlooked by many Roxy fans. The chief complaint that I hear from them is actually one of the reasons why I love with the record: its brevity.

Clocking in to just barely fit on to one side of a C-90 tape and providing only eight songs to promote a very worthy catalog, Viva! Roxy Music demonstrates a very progressive rock band, one that sounded heavier than their studio versions and one that possessed some very real rock and roll chops.

Beginning with “Out Of The Blue,” the opening track finds drummer Paul Thompson trying to knock the “art rock” label right off the gallery walls. Guitarist Phil Manzanera weaves a very hypnotic guitar phrase while Andy Mackay’s lays down a haunting oboe…that’s right, oboe…making this version a very good candidate for actually being better than the studio version found on Country Life.

This high-energy mix is apparent on nearly all of the tracks on Viva! suggesting that Roxy Music was a band of very capable and exciting performers, ones that contradict the button-down persona of their image. The record clearly proclaims the musicians to be worthy enough to energize even the most pretentious of fans who may view Roxy Music as somehow beneath such primal urges.

Now that we’re all giddy from the nostalgia that The Complete Studio Records brings, and now that the box set correctly bestowed Roxy Music as one of the genre’s most creative forces, it’s time to consider Viva! into the tapestry. It’s a unique document of the band, rolling up their sleeves and slugging out an honest day’s work on stage and on fire.

A few years ago, I named Bryan Ferry’s Olympia release as worthy enough to receive the Roxy Music moniker. The argument went that the Roxy personnel all took part in its creation (including Brian Eno) so why not just used the brand name?

I had a chance to review that brand recently, thanks to the newly issued Roxy Music box set, The Complete Studio Recordings 1972 – 1982. And while I still would have no trouble with calling Olympia a Roxy Music album, the new box set has provided me with a renewed appreciation of why Ferry decided to leave well enough alone, because what they accomplished during their 8 studio records is already better than “well enough.”

The Complete Studio Recordings 1972 – 1982 is a ten-disc collection of those eight records, with the additional two housing the band’s debut single (“Virginia Plain” may be worth the price of admission alone), their b-sides, and the endless mixes on all of the Avalon singles.

Since we’ve already seen Roxy Music’s catalog reissued with the allure of remastered mixes, and since The Thrill Of It All had already served as a boxed compendium, why would anyone need to revisit the band in another career overview?

For me, it was a matter of simple mathematics. Having not gotten beyond a well worn, first generation cd of Avalon (that after a well-worn vinyl version from the friends at Columbia House) and some equally hissy copies of a few other titles, I knew that I’d eventually need to find a home for every single Roxy release. The new box set is priced low enough to hit everything at once.

That sticker price gets every release the full reproduction gatefold sleeves and, perhaps more importantly considering our trend on the loudness wars, a tinker-free release of the original recordings themselves.

This set represents the original mixes–for better or worse in some cases–with no hint of additional compression or heavy-handed eq’ing. That’s important when dealing with a band like Roxy Music, who seemed completely focused on their attention to detail.

“For worse” would be the awful mix that hindered the debut, to the point where Bryan Ferry himself wanted to redo the entire album for years after, because of the record’s unforgiving mix. They got better–as in remarkably better–on the follow-up For Your Pleasure, which finds Ferry exerting his dominance over Eno in the band’s arrangements.

In fact, For Your Pleasure not only shows the band to continue to grow without the aid of Eno’s input, it also finds them growing better as his role diminished. For Your Pleasure secures the band’s place in history even as their sophomore offering, and it’s just one of many discoveries that I found from The Complete Studio Recordings.

There’s two other must have releases, featured in their original and intended mixes that are, without question, deserving of everyone’s record collection: Siren and Avalon. Each effort shows the band in periods of enviable growth and brimming confidence. All three records taken in once again show a band perfectly adaptable at reinventing themselves, seemingly without sounding as if they were even setting out to do exactly that. They stumble into the career building moments with such ease that it makes the entire Eno departure feel like a necessary decision that allowed the band to become as great as they were.

But the real treat with The Complete Studio Recordings is re-examining Roxy Music’s other records, which pale only because that aforementioned trio of essential records shine so brightly.

I remembered being drawn to Country Life as a teenager, most assuredly for its risqué cover and confirmation of Bryan Ferry’s prowess as a ladies man. I am now drawn to it entirely from its content inside. It is a collection of consistent growth, finding the band very comfortable with their fashion and abilities as musicians. This is the sound of a band working hard at their craft, while donning a business casual clothing sense during the rehearsal time.

By Manifesto! the band is acting the part of royal statesmen while Flesh + Blood–a personal favorite that’s much maligned by others outside of the Roxy faithful–begins to show signs of a new subgenre, one whose name doesn’t even exist.

I understand the complaints of how Flesh + Blood is nothing more than a tepid return from a lengthy (by 1980 standards) hiatus, but for me it sounds like a victory lab before unleashing what would become the band’s signature opus, Avalon.

Avalon benefits the most from the 2012 remastering as it leaves the record’s rich texture and subtle dynamics in tact, a rare feat during a time when most re-issues are met with a tradition of remixing records of some note to cater to the thin fidelity of today’s earbud generation.

The Complete Studio Recordings 1972 – 1982 hints at a much different era. It reflects a time when bands were given a wide birth in order to grow and develop. It also demonstrates how this freedom can actually lend itself to fostering an environment where a band can become great on its own, through natural selection and just plain old stubbornness.

It is a necessary document of the band’s legacy and consistency, one that’s needed not only out of the duty that’s created from their influence, but for the sheer enjoyment of listening to a band grow, develop, and become great.

What makes it such a requirement is how it shows that Roxy Music managed to do that not just once or twice, but for at least three of titles included with this collection. And to be able to achieve this in the span of a decade makes this box set not only complete, but completely essential.