Listen Up
Red Hot Chili Peppers, Zac Brown Band to NLR in March
posted: 12/02/2011 8:38 a.m. Discuss
Verizon Arena in North Little Rock has announced two acts for March.
LISTEN UP: Radar blips merrily along, perking up gloomy themes
posted: 08/28/2011 4:50 a.m. Discuss
Patrolled by Radar Be Happy Knitting Factory A Before it was Patrolled by Radar, this quintet went by 50 Cent Haircut, and ostensibly got confused with the rapper 50 Cent. But the jangly alternative-country that PBR masterfully weaves is a far cry from that other genre. Here, the group exhorts us to be happy as the album title suggests, even as themes dark and desolate beckon us to grittier places.
LISTEN UP: Adkins sings what sells; Brandy, lose the posse
posted: 08/07/2011 2:56 a.m. Discuss
Trace Adkins Proud to Be Here Show Dog C+ Trace Adkins seems more like a business plan than a bona fide country and western music singer, as he seems to split the difference between Toby Keith belligerence and the neutral, yet masculine good ol’ boyness of, say, Blake Shelton. While he most assuredly is not an outlaw, he glowers and rumbles in a pleasant roughneck baritone and he wears his Americanmade Stetson with the same sort of unexamined jingoism that’s been crashing empires for millennia.
LISTEN UP: Superb Outlaws might get Arkansan arrested
posted: 07/10/2011 4:57 a.m. Discuss
Justin Moore Outlaws Like Me Valory Music B+ Poyen’s Justin Moore made quite the impact with his 2009 debut and its hits, including “Small Town U.S.A.” His new album is even better.
LISTEN UP: Old 97’s play a strong second half on Grand
posted: 07/03/2011 3:31 a.m. Discuss
Old 97’s The Grand Theatre Vol. 2 New West A- The time is propitious for the release of the second half of Old 97’s The Grand Theatre (New West, in stores and online Tuesday), for it’s the summer of second halves — the second half of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, the second-half heroics of the Dallas Mavericks (frontman Rhett Miller’s beloved basketball team), the second half of the centennial celebration of Marie Curie’s Nobel Prize in chemistry.
LISTEN UP: 1960s film scores scamper from Danger Mouse’s nest
posted: 06/26/2011 4:46 a.m. Discuss
Danger Mouse/ Danielle Luppi Rome Capitol B Leave it to Danger Mouse to aspirate the moribund sub-genre of the movieless soundtrack. Rome is an album you didn’t know you needed until you hear it, like the mash-up of The Beatles’ White Album and Jay-Z.
