Ken Tucker

Daft Punk: Accessing Electronic Music's Humanity

Ken Tucker — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:14:00 +0000

I freely admit that, until the new Random Access Memories, I wasn't much of a Daft Punk fan. I could appreciate the craft and imagination that went into creating the French duo's mixture of electronic genres — techno, house, disco — but the mechanical repetitions and heavily filtered vocals didn't turn me on in any other way.

But now, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo have come up with an album that exposes the human side of their musical impulses.

Dawes Knows Where It's Been And Where It's Headed

Ken Tucker — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:07:00 +0000

If you heard the Dawes song "Just Beneath the Surface" and said, "Somebody's been listening to their old Jackson Browne albums," you're not exactly insulting Dawes. The band has actually backed Browne on tour — and Browne has sung backup on at least one of its songs — so you could say that Dawes comes by its riffs and phrasing honestly.

Natalie Maines: A Country-Music Rebel Rocks On Her Own

Ken Tucker — Wed, 08 May 2013 15:30:00 +0000

Natalie Maines doesn't hesitate to make audacious moves, and wresting away "Mother" — Roger Waters' hymn to oppressive maternal authority figures from Pink Floyd — is the biggest one on her first solo album. Maines takes the "Mother" from Pink Floyd's The Wall and deconstructs it, emotional brick by emotional brick.

Caitlin Rose: A Singer Grounded In The Details Of Yearning

Ken Tucker — Mon, 06 May 2013 15:39:00 +0000

"Pink Champagne," a song on Caitlin Rose's second album The Stand-In, presents Rose's voice in its sparest purity and veiled shrewdness. She sends her voice skyward, the notes as buoyant and light as the bubbles of the pink champagne she's singing about. Her high trills could, with only a slight shift in tone and attitude, become self-conscious with a Betty Boop coyness, as they do once or twice on The Stand-In.

Brad Paisley's 'Wheelhouse' Of Good Songs — And Intentions

Ken Tucker — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:52:00 +0000

Brad Paisley's Wheelhouse is yet another very good album from a singer, songwriter and guitarist who's made a bunch of them in a row. It features a slew of shrewd songs about finding pleasure and comfort in a frequently unpleasant, uncomfortable world.

Kacey Musgraves: Country's Blunt And Poetic New Voice

Ken Tucker — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 18:46:00 +0000

Kacey Musgraves is something of an anomaly. A Texas native in her mid-20s, she fits most easily into the contemporary "country" category, but the work she co-writes with a variety of collaborators is really a throwback to an earlier era of singer-songwriters — as much influenced by rock and folk as by country.

Justin Timberlake Returns To Music With Enthusiasm and 'Experience'

Ken Tucker — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 17:17:00 +0000

The orchestral swirls, the transition to a soul-man groove, the falsetto croon — there you have some of the key elements to Justin Timberlake's album The 20/20 Experience.

Tegan And Sara Reach Out To New Audiences With 'Heartthrob'

Ken Tucker — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 16:52:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9e9NSMY8QiQ

David Bowie Awakens To 'The Next Day' Of His Career

Ken Tucker — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 17:33:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH7dMBcg-gE

Ashley Monroe Is 'Like A Rose,' Briars And All

Ken Tucker — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 17:37:00 +0000

The high lonesome sound of Ashley Monroe's Tennessee voice in "Like a Rose" serves as a clear signal that she's working within a tradition that extends back well beyond her twentysomething years on Earth. One of Monroe's collaborators in that song was Guy Clark, a seventysomething Texas country veteran who's often too tough-guy romantic for his own good.

Guards: Anthems With Gravitas

Ken Tucker — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 17:24:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcCarUGWBBQ

Richard Thompson's New Album Examines 'Electric' Love

Ken Tucker — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 17:39:00 +0000

Delicate phrasing, with both voice and guitar, has always made Richard Thompson a musician worth hearing — and sometimes even liking on a personal level. For a man who can make such pretty music, it's to his credit that he prefers to show his thorny, stubborn, cranky, even mean side in many of the songs in his solo career.

Paloma Faith's 'Fall To Grace' Is A Keeper

Ken Tucker — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 17:51:00 +0000

In culling through albums released late last year that I still play with pleasure, Paloma Faith's Fall to Grace was a real keeper. In contrast to my joy, Faith was singing about her agony: her broken heart, her wracked sobs about ruined affairs, her choked goodbyes to lovers who'd left her. She made all this sound tremendously intense and exciting.

'Nashville' Soundtrack Stands On Its Own

Ken Tucker — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 15:54:00 +0000

"Telescope," the fictional hit single by the fictional country star Juliette Barnes on Nashville, is sung by the actress who plays Juliette, Hayden Panetierre. If it didn't become a real-life hit when the song was released a few months ago to country radio stations, it wasn't for lack of catchiness, courtesy of producers T-Bone Burnett and Buddy Miller.

Ken Tucker's Top 10 Albums Of 2012

Ken Tucker — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 17:03:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIlLq4BqGdg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNBD4OFF8cc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0DkddeTSEM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfhBHu6yFQA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lIqNjC1RKU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPXfwgKd208

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-ejyHzz3XE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgJpXjrhK8Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mns9VeRguys

Ke$ha: A 'Warrior' In Search Of Legitimacy

Ken Tucker — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 18:40:00 +0000

Ke$ha uses a dollar-sign instead of an "s" in the middle of her stage name. It's one of those gestures that's meant to bait her detractors — suggesting before anyone else does that she's only in it for the money. It turns out, though, that like pop stars ranging from Madonna on back to Chuck Berry, Ke$ha wants it both ways: mass-audience success and artistic acknowledgment. For Ke$ha, that's what her album title Warrior means: She's fighting a war on multiple fronts.

To continue the war metaphor Ke$ha introduces on Warrior, sometimes combatants die on the battlefield.

Tracey Thorn: 'Secular Carols' For The Holidays

Ken Tucker — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 18:17:00 +0000

Tracey Thorn's interpretation of "Maybe This Christmas," by the Canadian singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith, is typical of her new holiday album, Tinsel and Lights: It's simply arranged, emphasizing Thorn's lovely, delicate voice and bolstered by a firm intelligence; it avoids the fatty treacle that weighs down lots of Christmas albums.

'Buddy And Jim': Friends In Life And Songwriting

Ken Tucker — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 19:34:00 +0000

Buddy Miller and Jim Lauderdale are singer-songwriters who've each written hits for country and rock acts, and have enjoyed extensive solo careers as performers and producers.

An Unlikely Tribute: Jamey Johnson Covers Hank Cochran

Ken Tucker — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 17:35:00 +0000

Jamey Johnson, one of the most popular country singers of recent years, has just released an album titled Living for a Song: A Tribute to Hank Cochran. Cochran, who died in 2010 at age 74, wrote hits for singers such as Willie Nelson, Patsy Cline, Ray Price and Loretta Lynn.

Cody ChesnuTT Contains A Universe On 'Hundred'

Ken Tucker — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 17:22:00 +0000

Cody ChesnuTT is the best sort of egomaniac. He places himself at the center of his musical universe; he contains that universe within him. On his new album, Landing on a Hundred, he sings one song in the voice of the entire continent of Africa.

Taylor Swift Leaps Into Pop With 'Red'

Ken Tucker — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 18:34:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA4iX5D9Z64

Gary Clark Jr.: A Raucous Blues Shout

Ken Tucker — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 16:49:00 +0000

On his major-label debut Blak and Blu, you can hear the roar in Gary Clark Jr.'s blues guitar, and in his vocal throughout "Bright Lights." It's one of the few straight-up blues songs on what is essentially an introduction to one of the most highly praised young blues guitarists in recent times.

Iris DeMent's Emotionally Complex 'Sing The Delta'

Ken Tucker — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 14:14:00 +0000

Iris DeMent possesses one of the great voices in contemporary popular music: powerfully, ringingly clear, capable of both heartbreaking fragility and blow-your-ears-back power. Had she been making country albums in the '70s and '80s and had more commercial ambition, she'd probably now be considered right up there with Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette.

Low Cut Connie: The Self-Deprecating Bar Band

Ken Tucker — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 19:10:00 +0000

Low Cut Connie is one of an increasingly rare breed: a party band, a bar band, a band with a sense of rock 'n' roll history that isn't weighed down by nostalgia or the foolish feeling that music was better way back when. Positive fellows, for the most part, even when they're in their cups, these guys "say yes," as the title of one song goes, to a life in music. Oh, and they're also trying to get women to say yes to their craven come-ons.

Adam Weiner sings in a nasal sneer that's really a leering grin in disguise.

Aimee Mann: The 'Charmer' And The Disciplined Id

Ken Tucker — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 15:16:00 +0000

If you listen to the music on Charmer, hearing Aimee Mann's vocals as just another lilting instrument, you'd probably think the album was just what the title suggests: a charmer. The melodies have an airy quality, at once floating and propulsive, and even without fixing on the words, you can hear that they're metrically precise, with carefully counted-out syllables and tight rhymes.

Once you key in to what Mann is singing about, her new album takes on another dimension.

Dwight Yoakam: Weary And Wary On '3 Pears'

Ken Tucker — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 18:04:00 +0000

Dwight Yoakam persists in mixing genres in a way that may leave him out of the country mainstream, but puts him in a good position to make a personal album with some of his best music.

Yoakam has been trying to carve out his place in the music industry for decades now, with regular side-trips into the film industry as an actor. In a way, this is a key to the difficulty he's had maintaining the visibility he deserves.

Bob Dylan's Baffling And Sometimes Beautiful 'Tempest'

Ken Tucker — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 15:16:00 +0000

Bob Dylan made the rare mistake of talking about his creative process shortly before the release of Tempest. He told Rolling Stone that he'd originally wanted to write a collection of what he called "religious songs," saying, "That takes a lot more concentration to pull that off — 10 times with the same thread than it does with a record like I ended up with." Which means that either his powers of concentration failed him, or he became distracted by other themes, topics and moods. I think it's a little bit of both.

When Ian Hunter Is 'President'

Ken Tucker — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 16:38:00 +0000

Recently, I was listening to a new tribute album covering the songs of Fleetwood Mac, and thought once again how dreadful most tribute albums are: They don't add much to the legacy of the artists being saluted, while inadvertently freezing vital old music in an amber of sentimentality. Then I turned to When I'm President, an album of new songs by Ian Hunter.

Shoes: After 18 Years, The Power-Pop Band Re-Ignites

Ken Tucker — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 16:03:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Vb-_Kgaj3I

Dan Auerbach Likes It Fast, Simple And Loud

Ken Tucker — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 15:58:00 +0000

Dan Auerbach, one of two founders of The Black Keys, also maintains an active side business as a producer for other bands that share his love for blues- and country-influenced rock.