Friday, December 5, 2008

What I said about the grammys...

A couple of months ago, upon misguidedly volunteering to review some tepid crap by Los Lonely Boys, I went out on a limb to observe that "grammy-winning" or even "grammy-nominated" is often a synonym for "not very good."

On Monday, I am interviewing Adele, the 20-year-old British phenom just nominated for four Grammys.

Her album 19 is a bit top-heavy -- with strings and such draped over fragile little melodies, a slickness that it turns out you can buy at a store, if you know where to shop and have a big credit line, and, I admit, a certain amount of charm.

It's for Venus.

Here's a video of Adele on Jools Holland.

5 comments:

Nan said...

Have you ever experienced LLB live? I think you'd change your mind about The Boys! but, maybe not... what do you like?

jenniferpkelly said...

Well, yes, I did see them on Austin City Limits once, does that count? ACL makes everybody look boring though, don't you think? Even the Pixies.

I like Latin Playboys, Alejandro Escovedo, Calexico, Giant Sand, the Waco Brothers, even bits of the Iguanas, so it's not like I'm ruling out the whole latin-americana thing. I just thought Los Lonely Boys' last album sucked.

And honestly, every time I get a grammy-nominated album, it's overproduced and boring.

But nice to meet you anyway...no hard feelings I hope?

robp said...

Hey Jen, ACL has had some great concerts (Flaming Lips comes immediately to mind, especially when Cat Power came on and they did War Pigs - wow) but when I look at the crowds at those shows it does look like they decided to book a free gig at a retirement home.

It may be a tough place to play, but some folks - Joe Ely, and the one that startled me, Junior Brown, cuz I'd never heard of him (can't find any ACL clips of him either, but that good ole boy may be the best guitarist alive)- have no problem tearin it up.

Check this non-ACL clip of Junior on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPZ0r7eSn_0

Or just search for him when you get there. It's taken me a helluva long time to finish this comment, been watchin and bookmarkin Junior.

jenniferpkelly said...

Hi, Rob...no I never saw Flaming Lips on ACL, that sounds fun.

In general, their choices are a little bit conservative for my taste, and, you know, the show is on at one in the morning here, so the fact that it makes me sleepy is probably not all it's fault.

I don't know anything about Junior Brown...sounds like a blues singer?

robp said...

Junior is a country singer with a serious Hendrix fixation. He also does one helluva surf medley. Gotta refind those albums, I have the early ones on cassette only.