Saturday, March 27, 2010

Bump It

New Erykah Badu out this week.  The whole album is filled with strong tracks but the standout is "Gone Baby, Don't Be Long" which uses a sample from Paul McCartney and Wings' soft rock classic "Arrow Through Me".  She got her sample clearance using Twitter and her connection to Stella McCartney.  The analog girl in a digital world days are officially over.

The single shot video for "Window Seat" is of her making a slow and revealing and inexplicable pilgrimage to the grassy knoll in Dallas.  Crazy.  More, please.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

The Stones Made It Good To Be Alone

The album cover for Tattoo You by Rolling Stones is one of my all-time favorites.  The red background, the font, the proportion of image to negative space - all perfect.  The whole package, actually.  The green back cover, the strange horse high heel and gray/white eye-crossing graphic inner sleeve (they also used both images for the "Start Me Up" sleeve).  The artist who put it all together is Peter Corriston, who also did Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti.  

I'm not wild about some of the tracks on the first, "rock", side but damn if "Start Me Up" doesn't still do exactly that.  The second, "ballad", side, however, is one of the most consistently rewarding Stones moments.  "Heaven", with Jagger on guitar, Keith Richards nowhere to be found, is the best of the lot.