mika and amy winehouse
On the off chance you haven’t heard enough about Mika and Amy Winehouse yet, here are links to reviews I wrote of their respective new albums.
It’s only been a month or so, but the Mika album Life in Cartoon Motion has started to wear on my nerves. There are a few fantastic tracks, (Lollipop is everything Gwen Stefani’s solo debut should have been but wasn’t), but ultimately, it’s way too heavy on the homage. “Wait a second!” you realize at some point, “I could just be listening to Queen.”
Amy Winehouse is a mess, but the first two songs on Back to Black may be my favorites this year. The rest of the album isn’t nearly as good, but there are plenty of totally solid, enjoyable albums without a single track of Rehab’s caliber, so I’m happy to cut her some slack. Also, I may also have been spoiled by James Hunter’s stateside debut last year, People Gonna Talk, which may just be the best British soul since Van Morrison.
In addition to music reviews, I’ve just signed on to be the new calendar writer for Frontiers Magazine, which is very cool - the prospect of getting a regular paycheck for writing is pretty terrific. My first calendar will appear in the issue that’s coming out next week, along with my review of the new Jeff Buckley retrospective and a few contributions to what can only be described as wall-to-wall coverage of the new Rufus Wainwright album. I’ll post links to those when they’re available.
