Where to begin?
- The Pixies are back together for a reunion tour, are not apparently tearing each other limb from limb, and are like a breath of fresh air.
- Morrissey has relased a new album (with a sadly ironic cover photograph of himself holding a Tommy gun), You Are the Quarry, of which the Guardian observes acidly, “And who could have guessed that Morrissey’s seventh solo album would open with a hip-hop breakbeat?”
- Prince has a new post-Jehovah’s-Witness-conversion album out called Musicology that is doing well on the charts (for Prince these days, peaking at #3 for 3 weeks is doing amazingly well) and sounds about as weak as instant coffee tastes. The lead single (and title single) is basically Prince rewriting the themes of Stevie Wonder’s 1977 hits “I Wish” and “Sir Duke” and rolling them together into one song, and not doing a very good job of it. (Nobody could touch those songs, though, so I guess you could say that Prince has cojones for trying.)
- Teena Marie has released an album (La Dona) that has debuted in the top ten. She has never had an album in the top ten. The last time she had an album anywhere near the top ten (let alone debut there) was 1984, the winter of “Lover Girl” and “Help Youngblood Get to the Freaky Party.” Unfortunately, the powers that be have decided that it would be cool to tart Teena up on the CD cover to look like Lil’ Kim. It doesn’t work.
- The Cure are touring the United States this summer for, what, the 4378th time, coinciding with the release of their 13th studio album.
