Great music comes out of great discontent.  Infighting between bands members is never good for the longevity of a band…but some of the best albums are made during these times of turmoil:  Fleetwood Mac Rumors, Van Halen 1984, and Pink Floyd The Wall.  Band members have that Internal rivalry to be the best among each other and push themselves to produce the best music they’ve ever down.  The Civil Wars now face a similar situation.  Since recording their sophomore album in September of 2012, the two members of the band Joy Williams and John Paul White (whose name is technically also Jack White) have not spoken with each other at all.  And the future of the band…more albums, touring, is in complete jeopardy.  The new album drips with darkness and a whirlwind of personal calamity.  It a murky wagon ride through a Tim Burton-esque portrait of a gothic prairie from 1813.  They’ve purged their inner struggles and thrown them down like a white glove as if to say, “this is all I’ve got.”  They’ve saved the anger and the punches they had for each other and delivered that animosity as a musical one-two smack down.  How the album will fare in the future will weigh as heavily on the music as the timing…but hating each other has them off to the right start.

Here are The 11 Best Songs By The Civil Wars:

1. My Father’s Father (Barton Hollow)
2. I’ve Got A Friend (Barton Hollow)
3. Tip of My Tongue (Poison & Wine EP)
4. Poison & Wine (Barton Hollow)
5. Finding North (A Place At the Table)
6. Barton Hollow (Barton Hollow)
7. Pressing Flowers (Poison & Wine EP)
8. Dance Me to The End of Love  (Barton Hollow Bonus Track)
9. Long Time Gone (A Place At the Table)
10. Tracks in the Snow (Tracks In The Snow)
11. Falling (Barton Hollow)

Somewhere between the misty mountains of Led Zeppelin and the dirty ground of the White Stripes, a little three-piece clawed their way out from down under using only their six-strings and their mushroom cloud hair, howling and shredding the whole way.  Their brief two album career amount to a stellar debut album and a fierce sophomore double album that suffered from being too much too fast.  Not only was it two full albums worth of material…it also came with an third album’s worth of b-sides, covers and live tracks.  The Smashing Pumpkins waited until album number 4 to drop an entire library of new material on us.  Guns N Roses even waited until their third release to hit with the double LP.  Wolfmother may not have been on the same level but they aspired to be.  And like Icarus, their demise could have been trying to fly to the sun too fast.  The band never made it to their third album.  With only lead singer, songwriter and guitarist Andrew Stockdale left in the band…even he quickly realized he was making a solo album and not another Wolfmother album.  That said…his new solo album deserves a place next to the rest of the band’s catalog.

The 11 Best Songs By Wolfmother:

1. Violence of the Sun (Cosmic Egg)
2. Joker & The Thief (Wolfmother)
3. New Moon Rising (Cosmic Egg)
4. Woman (Wolfmother)
5. Cosmic Egg (Cosmic Egg)
6. Back Round (Cosmic Egg)
7. Where Eagles Have Been (Wolfmother)
8. Please To Meet You (Spiderman 3)
9. Colossal (Wolfmother)
10. Sundial (Cosmic Egg)
11. Pyramid (Wolfmother)

In the ’90s, the Pumpkins were one of the most prolific bands.  To follow up a double album, the band put out a 5-disc b-side collection.  That’s pretty hardcore in a pre-Ryan Adams era of music.  Though the Pumpkins took a hiatus through most of the ’00s, they made a big comeback in the teens re-releasing of all things…their ’90s of material.  While other bands may take years in between reissues (I’m looking at you Pavement).  The Pumpkins have been turning out reissues quicker than Fast and the Furious sequels.  This past week saw the release of the Pumpkin fan favorite Aeroplane Flies High.  A 5-CD EP set of b-sides, covers, and who the hell know what the “Pistachio Medley” was.  Expanded from 33 to 104 tracks, the Pumpkins don’t shy away from giving their fans their money’s worth like some bands that will re-issue an album with one bonus demo or live track.  This is the fifth album in the Pumpkins re-issue series and though the packaging may be the strongest of the series, it’s probably one of the weakest when it comes to content.  That’s saying something when their release with 70 extra tracks is the weakest of the re-releases.  So far Pisces Iscariot has set the bar for the re-releases.  With a spot-on second disc of rare unreleased tracks, where every song was winner, it’s by far the package that encourages the most re-listens.  Also, it bares the best DVD show of any of the releases, featuring a live show with an entire slate of unreleased songs.  Gish and Siamese Dream hold up as strong contenders both with solid discs or rare tracks and DVDs with stellar live shows.  Gish‘s DVD is slightly better because Corgan has yet to begin evolving into Jesus-mode.  Mellon Collie seemed like it would be the best of the bunch but was the biggest let down so far.  Though it is packed with 3-discs of alternate takes (most which sound a lot like the originals) and rare tracks (most are instrumentals), there are very few true gems in the package.  This makes it increasing frustrating due to the re-issue’s hefty $130 price tag.  That’s a lot of money for some alternate takes and instrumentals, especially when the package comes in a cumbersome vinyl-sized box set that doesn’t include any vinyl!  I mean honestly, where the heck am I supposed to store this?  Also, they included b-sides that would be included on the Aeroplane box.  What’s the point of that?  The Aeroplane box set is much bigger and much more concise and structured with the instrumentals on one CD, the alternate tracks on another, and the live tracks on their own. It’s also $40 less for 6 CDs versus 5.  That’s still a lot but at least I feel like I’m getting my money’s worth.

Here’s a look back at the best new tracks we’ve heard on the expanded editions.

Here are the 11 Best Smashing Pumpkins Reissues Rare Tracks:

1. Siamese Dream (Siamese Dream Bonus)
2. There It Goes (Pisces Iscariot Bonus)
3. Speed (Mellon Collie Bonus)
4. My Dahlia (Pisces Iscariot Bonus)
5. Methusela (Mellon Collie Bonus)
6. STP (Siamese Dream Bonus)
7. Crawl (Pisces Iscariot Bonus)
8. Jesus Loves His Babies (Pisces Iscariot Bonus)
9. Moleasskiss (Siamese Dream Bonus)
10. One and Two (Mellon Collie Bonus)
11. Translucent (Pisces Iscariot Bonus)

Buy The Smashing Pumpkins Deluxe Edition of Aeroplane Flies High…now!

There really is no artist that dominated the decade of the ’00s more than Jay-Z.  He helped initiate the mash-up genre with The Black Album ( and The Grey Album).  The Blueprint is easily the best rap album of the decade if not the best album overall.  He’s written #1 soundtracks.  He’s had #1 rock album (Collision Course with Linkin Park)  He’s written best-selling books.  He owned an NBA team and rebranded the Nets to be likable.  He has Obama on speed dial.  For this album, he created his own phone app.  There’s nothing Jay-Z can’t do.  I hear NASA is sending him to Mars…just so he has a new planet to conquer.

Here are the 11 Best Songs By Jay-Z (of the 00s):

1. Heart of the City (The Blueprint)
2. 99 Problems (The Black Album)
3. Roc Boys (American Gangster)
4. Empire State of Mind (The Blueprint 3)
5. Run This Town (The Blueprint 3)
6. Encore (The Black Album)
7. Song Cry (The Blueprint)
8. My 1st Song (The Black Album)
9. Izzo (H.O.V.A.) (The Blueprint)
10. Show Me What You Got (Kingdom Come)
11. Ignorant Shit (Kingdom Come)

It’s the 4th of July mid-way point of 2013.  Time to take a little look back at what music we are loving here.

Sorry, I’ve been out of touch…but with such limited releases at this time of year…I’ve taken some time off to finish my book (which is based on this blog) so it can be published this November.  More on that to come.

Here are the 11 Best Albums of 2013 (so far):

1. Daft Punk – Random Access Memories
2. Empire of the Sun – Ice on the Dune
3. Capital Cities – In A Tidal Wave Of Mystery
4. Ra Ra Riot – Beta Love
5. The Strokes – Comedown Machine
6. Small Black – Limits of Desire
7. Pickwick – Can’t Talk Medicine
8. Kisses – Kids in LA
9. Calexico – Spiritoso
10. The National – Trouble Will Find Me
11. Jim James – Regions of Light