Category: Music

On the title track of the new legendary Roots crew record How I Got Over, lead rapper Black Thought and guest mc Dice Raw sings — yes, sings — one of the most infectious and socially conscious choruses I’ve heard all year.

Out in the streets, where I grew up (How I got over)
The first thing they teach you is not to give a f- (How I got over)
That type of thinking will get you nowhere (somebody, somewhere)
Someone has to care

How you get over? Are we “running out of time out here”? The struggle is alive and well and the Next Movement is back to remind us of it with a 42-minute album that will keep your head checkin’ it and your soul questionin’.

But you’ll keep coming back to this title track, about these damn cold streets, where “every man is for himself” and this “warzone” — this endless war on our poor. “Where no body cares about you, only thing you’ve got is God.” After hearing it, you’ll be thankful for someone to worry about you.

With featured guests like Monsters of Folk, John Legend and Joanna Newsome, The Roots prove they’re more than just another late night house band — they’re great collaborators, making something more powerful than any one of them solo.

On “Dear God 2.0,” they loop Jim James and make a weak song shine — with a slower delivery and some rare-for-their-genre self introspection.

On “Right On,” Joanna Newsome gets “we should shine a light on” stuck in your head and it makes you want to go out and change the world.

On “Walk Alone,” Black Thought gets his “Charlie Parker on” and sing the blues.

And they’re still doing what they do best: keeping it positive with tracks like “Hustla” and “The Fire” and “rising out of the flames like a Phoenix,” like in “Doin’ it Again.”

Face it — I keep doing it well.
Doin’ it sans assistance
Just do it yourself
Doin’ it below the radar, we doin’ it stealth
Doin’ it again for Illadelph, yo who else?

These are songs that leave you proud to have overcome. That give you comfort for being among those who got over. You’ll be celebrating — and cerebrating — “The Fire.”

There’s something in your heart
And it’s in your eyes. It’s the fire. Inside ya.
Let it burn
You don’t say good luck.
You say don’t give up.

Word. You’ll be playing it again.

To be honest, I thought I was listening to a dud when I first popped in the new Stone Temple Pilots, their first record in nine years — and the first one I’ve picked up since 1996’s Tiny Music .. Songs From the Vatican Gift Shop.

A lot can happen in 14 years, and I’m sad to report that there is no powerhouse well-written single like “Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart” or “Vaseline” on the new record.

There’s a lot of what you’d expect, though — some crunchy, roarin’ rock songs from two brothers and a recovering rock star.

The disc opens with “Between the Lines,” with Scott Weiland belting:

“I like it when you talk about love
You always were my favorite drug.
Even when we used to take drugs.”

I bet you’ll be hearing a few of the more infectious cuts off this record on your mainstream radio, including the first single “Between the Lines.” The video of which, found on their website, features what you’d expect of the band made famous by MTV: An attractive model who keeps putting on her clothes and an aging Weiland withering and waltzing to the music.

Other radio-worthy gems: “Hickory Dichotomy,” “Cinnamon,” and “Maver,” the last of which closes out the disc and is a song that has it all — including ponies and pendejos — and the ever-important question, “How many nights did you make it without it?”

Of course, it wouldn’t be a STP record if there weren’t some pretty ridiculous songs thrown in the mix. For instance, “Dare if you Dare” must be one of the lamest songs I’ve ever heard. Ever. I won’t even dignify “Bag Man” with my criticism, let’s just pretend that track was never pressed.

All in all, I’m glad the band that got me through junior high alive and emotionally accessible is back at it again. It’s good to hear old friends again, even if on “First Kiss on Mars” someone sounds a  little too much like Bowie, in a stab at a radio-friendly summer love song complete with “super magic robots” and a free “solar system.”

If the album were to hinge on one thought, it’d be a line from the second track “Take a Load Off,” an otherwise boring song: “Could our shattered past just set us free?”

Here’s hoping that Weiland stays in the studio and out of the jailhouse.

Buy the deluxe edition. The live material and the added cut “Samba Nova” is worth the extra scratch.

Like in “12 Gracious Melodies” on Purple Weiland takes the opportunity to croon on the bonus track:

“You can always buy a new lie
When yours is finally over
Either way you’ll find a new life
When yours is finally over.”

The world needs Lady Gaga. That’s why she’s selling more albums than all the artists I usually listen to. And her tour? It’s the hottest ticket this summer.

OK OK OK, before we go any further, the obligatory disclaimer: She ain’t doin’ nuthin new. See Elton John, Madonna, Cher plus countless others who arguably have done it better. But, they did it then. This is now.

I mean, seriously. We have a disaster fustercluck in the Gulf. We have a liberal president who all my extremist wacko relatives hate — passionately — yet, we’re still entangled in two endless wars, the economy’s still  a flatliner, and all we got is some minor gains in the student loan and debit card rackets. Social security? Still broken, we won’t see any of it. And we have a fustercluck in the gulf. And tar balls in Galveston! And we’re all oil-guzzling accessories to it, one could argue, or …

We can listen to Lady Gaga, singing:

“Sorry I can’t hear you I’m kinda busy.
…
Stop calling, stop calling, I don’t want to think anymore.
I left my head and my heart on the dance floor.”

Play that “Telephone” track, and like — heh — who cares if John Cornyn’s about to throw a hissy-fit on the senate floor over Elena Kagan, lowering himself to Orrin Hatch’s level. I mean, I’m kinda busy.

On “Dance in the Dark,” she advises:

Find your freedom in the music.
Find your Jesus. Find your Cupid.

Nevermind Rick Perry. Maybe “Monster” applies:

“He ate my heart.
He ay-eight-hate my heart
That boy is a monster.”

At least, the last poll I saw, reported Bill White’s neck and neck. Hope, you see, is on the horizon, see: “So Happy I Could Die.”

“Happy in the club with a bottle of red wine
stars in our eyes because we’re having a good time”

She could reveal more with her lyrics, and less with her costumes. Well, i guess you can’t have it all.

On “First Flash of Freedom,” the first of two download tracks released to fans who bought tickets for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ latest tour, the band indulges itself for a minute and a quarter before Petty pipes in with the opening lyrics.

“On our first flash of freedom
I called out your name
love it is hard like an overdue train
we felt so much more than our hearts could explain”

Now, compare those lines with the opening lines sung by Jim Morrison in The Doors’ “Waiting for the Sun.” I have taken the liberty to bold the identical words.

“At first flash of Eden, we race down to the sea
standing there on Freedom‘s Shore
waiting for the sun”

Is this a coincidence?

Could Petty and Mike Cambell, the song’s composers, be paying homage to the great Doors anthem?

Morrison asks, “Can you feel it now that spring has come? And it’s time to live in the scattered sun…” while Petty is more interested in “A fistful of glory; a suitcase of sin / The rain which you dream in / When you count to ten.”

“First Flash of Freedom” clocks in at almost seven minutes, and being the first cut of the Heartbreakers’ new record that was released, it was a clear sign to fans and the critics that their new album Mojo is an exercise in self-indulgence and a good study of several jam genres.

On “Don’t Pull Me Over,” what some critics have called a cheesy Rastafarian ripoff, Petty actually sings “(it) should be legalized.”

“When the moonlight turns to blue light
makes me so afraid
let me go, leave me alone
until I’m warm and safe”

Sure — it’s cheesy, but you’ll be rockin’ your head at the riff at the concert.

And “Candy?” I think it’s a track written with the sole purpose of allowing Petty to flex his drawl, and sing about “turnip greens” — previously uncharted territory for Petty and his southern jam band — which he pronounces “toynup grayns.”

Mojo wasn’t penned for the radio — it was penned for the road, for a summer tour that stops in Houston in September. It was supposed to stop here in May, in The Woodlands, but the record wasn’t released on time which pushed back several tour dates and which means that the Houston audience gets to see ZZ-Top open instead of previously scheduled Joe Crocker.

Mojo was released June 15, and it’s the band’s first album in 8 years since 2002’s The Last DJ.

He puts the best song he’s penned since “Square One,” from his 2006 solo effort Highway Companion, in the second-to-last spot on the record. “Something Good Coming” will strike a nerve.

“And I’m an honest man
work’s all I know
you take that away
don’t know where to go

and I know that look that’s on your face
there’s somethin’ lucky about this place
there’s somethin’ good comin’
for you and me
somethin’ good comin’
there has to be”