Bloggerhythms

I offer my deepest apologies to those people who believe the Rolling Stones really were the "world's greatest rock 'n' roll band" because I'm about to commit rock 'n' roll blasphemy with this statement: Exile on Main Street , the band's 1972, double-disc LP, considered by most critics of the musical cultural elite to be one of the finest rock albums ever recorded, is an immensely bad set of songs. Maybe it's the very muddy sounding final mix that made every track, except for the two big hit singles, "Tumbling Dice" and "Happy," sound exactly the same, or is it the crudity of many of the songs. After all, what is there to like about a song titled "Turd on the Run?" Therefore, you may be surprised to find that I feel just the opposite about this compilation from Telarc consisting of ten songs from Main Street re-recorded by a crackerjack blues band along with a host of blues all-stars. Exile on Blues Street is ...

Love (the cover has only a heart signifying the disc's title), is Michael Bublé's first album since his very young son, Noah, has gone into remission during his hard fought battle with liver cancer. Love is another of Bublé's perfectly executed collections of songs and the album's title is a brief, but accurate, moniker for the disc's theme. On this, his tenth release, the Canadian star has proven again that he is today's most important purveyor of the Great American Songbook. No one else comes close. The eleven tracks feature big band arrangements, full blown orchestras, and small groups. Much of it is swinging. "Such A Night" is high octane, big band, jazz at it's finest and "I Only Have Eyes For You" sounds like Nelson Riddle backing Frank Sinatra. Bublé does great justice to "La Vie en Rose." He receives important assists from a sad violin that conjures up images of a Parisian sidewalk café and from a Grammy winning...