One more gripe (What flunkie decided Dave Mathews should play ACOUSTIC guitar on "I Saw Her Standing There"??? And Vince Gill's solo got buried!) before MOVING ON to my own FANTASY GRAMMY CATEGORIES: DVDsThe latest in pushing pre-recorded CDs is to stick a limited edition performance DVD in the package. Did this new marketing schtick have any effect on downloads? Doubtful. There were simply too few decent concert vids. Here come the nominees: Sheryl Crowe C'MON AMERICA 2003 (A&M) (Like Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits, Sheryl Crowe is one of … [Read more...]

Elvis Costello, GET HAPPY!!!, PUNCH THE CLOCK (Rhino doubles) What to make of Elvis anymore? I picked up these last year as "advance CDRs," trading off fidelity for early, cheap access. Hoped picking up the real things would help boost his stock (can better fidelity redeem albums that have lost their inner sheen?) Disappointing. Except for GET HAPPY, about which more later, not much here stands up as well as I want. In college this guy was my hero, and I probably would have been more inclined then to admire his "classical" crossover moves, … [Read more...]

So many Grammy targets, so little time. On a seven-second delay to prevent any "indiscretions." … [Read more...]

When you look over the cast of characters in Angels and think about whom we're supposed to sympathize with, and who gets forgiven, you can't help noticing that the most sympathetic, the "best" characters are either ill, or women, or black, or Jewish. Looking over this rather PC list, it occurs to you to wonder whether, in the worldview of this play's creator, the reason why Joe Pitt, who alone of the characters is the most genuinely and interestingly torn, who in fact seeks love the hardest and suffers the most for self-knowledge, can't be … [Read more...]

The hardest working man in show business still pumps up for Super Bowl OLD SCHOOL.And in a clever campaign to upstage her brother's pedophilia trial, ... … [Read more...]