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It's easy to hear why performers of all stripes are drawn to Christmas music: The tunes are irresistible. The challenge lies in how every known Christmas tune has been played live and recorded umpteen times. Yet hope springs eternal and every artist who dives in thinks they can bring something new to these…

By the mid-1980s, Elvis Costello was in dire need of a change in musical direction. As he recounts in the extensive new liner notes, he was "playing in a band that suddenly sounded like four strangers." Seeking inspiration, he decided the path forward was to use his own name, Declan…

In my review of the T+A R 2500 R receiver in the August 2024 issue, I covered many of its features and took as deep a dive as time and column inches allowed. Suffice to say, it's a very complex device, a near-complete system minus speakers (and a turntable/cartridge system, if you're into vinyl). It's a radio (FM and FM-HD), CD player, networked streamer-computer, DAC, analog preamplifier (including analog tone controls), class-AB power amplifier, and power supply, all in one relatively compact and mid-weight, well-finished metal chassis. It is…

Jeff Buckley: Mystery White Boy: Live '95-'96

Jeff Buckley (vocals, guitar), Michael Tighe (guitar), Mick Grondahl (bass), Matt Johnson (drums)
Columbia 4979722 (CD, 16/44.1 FLAC, Qobuz/Tidal). 2000. Mary Guibert, Michael Tighe, prods.

I was late to Jeff Buckley's music, not becoming aware of his enormous talent as a songwriter/guitarist/singer until long after his premature death in 1997. His album Grace was one of my 2007 Records to Die For, and soon after that I bought Mystery White Boy: Live '95-'96 . It took me a while to warm up to…

The Jam: All Mod Cons
Polydor Records. 0602537459100. Vic Coppersmith-Heaven, prod.; Peter Schierwade, eng.

Paul Weller was running out of ideas, so he turned to his hero Ray Davies for song-writing inspiration. The immediate result was a vibrant cover of The Kinks' "David Watts." "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight" followed—an epic story on 45rpm. Both are included on All Mod Cons, an album that retains the punk edge and attitude, but it's articulate, it has breadth—harmonies even! Each song is a vignette of British life. But what really shocked…

Raspberries: Raspberries' Best
Capitol Records ST-11524 (LP). 1976. Jimmy Lenner, prod.; Shelly Yakus, eng.

Okay, picking a greatest hits compilation is cheating. But here's the thing. I'm convinced that Best is and always was a single album. Raspberries, Fresh, Side 3, and Starting Over weren't albums, you see, but products of an insidious conspiracy. Think about it. These four were like any 1970–'80s power pop albums, a couple of great cuts surrounded by filler. Here's where it gets interesting, though. Power pop albums were unfailingly one and…

Necrophagist: Epitaph
Relapse 6628-2 (CD). 2004. Christoph Brandes, Muhammed Suiçmez, prods., engs.

On the heavy metal family tree is a tiny branch with only a few leaves: German technical death metal. Necrophagist was the spawn of guitarist Muhammed Suiçmez, active from 1992 to 2010 yet only releasing two albums before disappearing, literally, as Suiçmez hasn't been heard from since. While he was almost solely responsible for the debut album Onset of Putrefaction, the follow-up, Epitaph, has an actual band and much more fully realizes Suiçmez's…

Muddy Waters: Muddy Waters Sings "Big Bill"
Muddy Waters, guitar, vocal; James Cotton, harmonica; Otis Spann, piano; Pat Hare, guitar; Andrew Stephenson, bass; Francis Clay, drums.
Chess Records LP 1442 (LP) 1960/Geffen (2015). Leonard Chess, prod.

The day after Election '24, John Atkinson asked for R2L4 picks. What music could possibly be powerful enough to deal with the comatose Blues I had fallen into? There was only one answer: Muddy Waters's first studio album for Chess Records, recorded in 1959, Muddy Waters Sings "Big Bill." The band was…