There's not many popular bands right now that exhibit as much restraint as XX. The London band blew the doors off the indie rock world with their 2009 debut & we imagine it was rather stressful to create this follow-up. Fortunately for the band, the pulled it off. Surprisingly, XX has gone even MORE minimal this time. Sometimes so little is happening in a song, it's hard to imagine how they built it. Jamie XX's post-UK bass production is subdued & so sparse that it's easy to miss on the first listen. In a way, XX seems like the Sade for twenty-somethings in 2012, with lusty & longing whispered vocals & soft beats & production & you know what, that's pretty F-ing smart, cuz everybody loves freaking Sade.

Snappy is as snappy does! This here is the first album from the outta sight outfit YEAH YEAH YEAHS. **** MAPS ****

OWNER OF A LONELY HEART

You'd never guess from the title but Neil Young's 2021 album with Crazy Horse was recorded in a barn. The barn was built in Colorado in the 1850s & recently restored by Young. This version of Crazy Horse once again features Nils Lofgren as Frank Sampedro seems to be permanently retired. This has a nice mix of dirty rockers & mellow numbers & at nearly 80 years young (pun intended), Neil & the band show no signs of slowing down.

A nice random collection of tunes from throughout Zappa's catalog, interspersed with bits of dialogue and other ephemera. It's a Zappa sampler that actually sounds like Zappa put it together!

Classic ZAPPA remastered in 2012.

this is the version of Romeo and Juliet you watched in high school because the one with the Radiohead song in it was TOO EDGY for kids. This one's good too though and probably captures the flavor of the original play better.