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Adult Listening
Chart Toppers -
Available through Amazon.com
 FlyDixie Chicks
Reviews
After the roaring success of Wide
Open Spaces-a blend of turn-of-the-century pop and country
traditionalism--what do you do for an encore? Rather than deliver more of
the same, the Chicks have chosen instead to up the ante in country radio
with a follow-up that's both poppier and twangier than its predecessor,
and just plain better too. Some of it we've heard before: "Hello Mr.
Heartache," for example, adheres pretty closely to the honky-tonk
model of "Tonight the Heartache's On Me." Mostly, though, the
record lights out for new territories. "Without You" is driven
by an in-your-face string arrangement that's downright fierce, and the
rootsy "Sin Wagon" may rock harder--and with more solos--than
any mainstream country since Buck
Owens held forth. That's not to say Fly's perfect. A couple of
songs miss the mark, particularly "Goodbye Earl," an
abusive-husband murder song that's sure to get criticized (wrongly) for
being antimale but actually fails because it can't decide if it's a moral
lesson, a horror movie, or a joke. Still, even in this failure, the Chicks
are bravely pushing the envelope. If they push hard enough, maybe Young
Country radio will open up some wider spaces.
--David Cantwell
 Western
Wall: The Tucson Sessions
Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou
Harris
Reviews
Amazon.com
Emmylou Harris once said of her four-shows-a-night salad days that she
refused to sing anything on the hit parade, opting only for "bizarre,
left-field songs" that "made it hard to make a living." Decades
later, Harris still spends a lot of time in left field, and it's those offbeat,
haunting gems--more than the classics here from Leonard
Cohen or Jackson
Browne--that make Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions, her duet album
with Linda Ronstadt, so memorable. That, and her exquisitely pained
soprano--reminiscent of "cracked crystal," as Linda puts it--nestled
up against Ronstadt's thicker, corduroy harmonies. With arrangements that meet
somewhere between Harris's Wrecking
Ball and Ronstadt's Hasten
Down the Wind, the two explore a mood of morose dreaminess, but profound
beauty. Ghosts gather here, to the sounds of rattling bones--in songs of
abandoned love, of musical giants now gone silent, and of World War I soldiers,
who parade from the arms of prostitutes to the arms of death. Left field, dotted
with the wreckage of heartache and regret, never sounded better.
--Alanna Nash
 Acid
Jazz
Good and greasy, fast and
trippy, sci-fi or retro: acid jazz from both sides of the big pond featuring
solid beats and grooves with gusto.
 Romantic
Period
Isn't it Romantic?
Spontaneity and delicate lyricism shine on these Romantic Essentials from the
likes of Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Beethoven, and more.
 Folk
Rock
Essential recordings from
generations of performers (à la the Byrds and Simon & Garfunkel) who've
combined the drive of rock & roll with the expressiveness of folk
 Movie
Songs
Lights, camera, chart action:
essential movie songs from the '30s to the '90s.
Best from the Best Collections
Best
from the Best -- Classical
Best
from the Best -- Country
Best from
the Best -- Jazz
Best from the
Best -- R&B/Soul
Best from
the Best -- Rock
Best
from the Best -- Soundtracks
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