Joss Stone didn't grow up in Mississippi, Alabama, Detroit or Chicago; she wasn't the daughter of a pastor, and she didn't sing every Sunday in a Baptist church. She didn't develop her love for gospel music while watching from a choir pew as the preacher hollered beneath the glory of God. Far from it.
Oftentimes, museum exhibits downplay the importance of the collector, ignoring the romance between the appreciator and the art and any sacrifices that go along with it. Since the 19th century, the Weng family has compiled an extraordinary collection of scholarly Chinese paintings, 30 of which are on view at the MFA in Boston in the exhibit "Through Six Generations: The Weng Collection of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy" through Aug. 1.
At the turn of the millennium, major record labels began to realize they could capitalize on the popularity of the independent music scene by marketing music with an "indie" tag, the same way they did with the "alternative" and "garage" genres half a decade earlier. Corporate labels such as Interscope and Capitol began enlisting acts such as The Strokes and Phantom Planet into their ranks at this time in order to profit from their independent images.
Don't listen to "Armchair Apocrypha" while standing. You might think that you're okay through the first two minutes of the first song, "Fiery Crash," but your knees will weaken when the array of instruments crescendo. It then becomes clear that by recruiting a variety of creative musicians, like drummer and keyboard player Martin Dosh, Andrew Bird's latest release "Armchair Apocrypha," has a decidedly different feel than his earlier releases. It is not Bird's best effort to date, but in spite of its faults, it projects his musical genius.
Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that Amy Winehouse is one of the most brilliant soul artists to emerge in a long time. Unfortunately, outside of Great Britain there seem to be a lot of rocks. While her first album went largely unnoticed stateside, her sophomore effort, "Back to Black," was simply too exceptional not to make the trip across the Atlantic.
It can seem like it's the same image every time - the poverty-stricken innocent child, covered in the grime of daily life, nothing but the pure whites of his eyes glinting in the darkness of his forgotten third-world country. That's certainly what one has come to expect when low-income nations are presented through photography (usually taken by Westerners and shown to Westerners). But "Focus on South Asian Photography: Recent Works" at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum at Harvard University puts a completely different spin on the now-hackneyed topic of exotic foreign countries.
If you're thinking Rjd2 has something to do with Star Wars, you might be in for a shock. His first three first albums, "Dead Ringer" (2002), "The Horror" (2003) and "Since We Last Spoke" (2004), were praised for the cinematic scope of their productions and their over-the-top use of music samples.
After the groundbreaking release of "Funeral" in 2004, Arcade Fire set themselves up for a sophomore slump. Shortly after it hit the market, "Funeral" topped every music snob's album of the year charts, and even garnered mainstream radio play. Shows were immediately booked and repeatedly sold out. As the largest grossing album from Merge Records since Neutral Milk Hotel's "Aeroplane Over the Sea" (1998), "Funeral" became the gigantic shoes for the fledgling band from Montreal to fill.
The pattern on the ceiling matches the tiles on the floor in the 808 Gallery at Boston University. In midday sunlight, it's not so incredible to think you might forget which way is up. The wall on the left is startlingly similar to the wall on the right, and at any time of the day, it's easy to think you might double take upon seeing one right after the other. Stand in one end of the gallery and you'll find yourself surrounded on both sides by black and white interpretations of bare tree branches in silhouette. Different walls, different artists, different techniques, even; yet you might still double take.
In celebration of their own history, the pop-punk band Relient K parodies Lincoln's famous speech opener for its album's title, "Five Score and Seven Years Ago." They also give him a nod with their own opener about a man who believes John Wilkes Booth was wrongly accused of his murder.
Close by in the Fogg Museum in Harvard Square, art enthusiasts are lucky enough to have the chance to visit an ongoing exhibition of a selection of sculptures by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. This Baroque artist was a master of his craft and era, justly famed in his time as well as today. Just as Caravaggio's paintings are plunged into a tangible darkness brought to life by illuminating splashes of dramatic light, Bernini's sculptures create intricate patterns of light and shade in their crevices and undulations. They are irresistible explorations of movement and power that draw the viewer in to a push and pull of spectator and spectacle.
Brooklyn-based septet !!! (pronounced "chk chk chk" or any three repetitive sounds) is back with a third album, "Myth Takes," showing that they are still the coolest band to use punctuation for its name. For those new to !!!, they take a little disco freak from Chic, pump it up with some of Liar's "They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top" (2002) punk and use '80s house sound effects for good measure. Their music generally goes well with strobe lights, fog machines and throwing up in the bathroom in the back of a club.
Hailing from Anderson, Ind., The Ataris are far from a new addition to the rock scene, but only recently have they released their second major label record, "Welcome the Night", four years after their debut, "So Long, Astoria." Upon first listening to the new album, it sounds nearly nothing like The Ataris from 2003, who had left a bruise on the hearts of teenagers across the nation with their catchy hit cover of Don Henley's "Boys of Summer."
It's never clear whether displaying conceptual art in a museum is in fact destroying it. How can one curate a show of art that is morally and philosophically opposed to its own role, mocking its own existence until it presents an impossibly vicious cycle of meaning and anti-meaning?
The annual Student Exhibition at the Photographic Resource Center at Boston University collects photographic work from students gathered across the full spectrum of Boston area universities. It is by nature democratic, making no delineation between art school and liberal arts, freshman and senior.
Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips have quite a reputation. Both have been active in the Boston, New York and London indie rock scenes for close to 20 years and have contributed to a plethora of celebrated bands, the most notable being lo-fi outfit Luna.
Artists Hans Hofmann and Nanno de Groot share some common threads. They were both foreign-born painters who had an intense desire to convey nature through abstract expressionism. They were also both important fixtures in the local art colony of Provincetown, Mass.
Step out of the elevator into the bare, hardwood-floored Miller Block Gallery on Newbury Street and listen for the footfalls echoing across the hall into the gallery space. There sits "The City: Through the Lens," a small photography exhibit with huge breadth.
Unfortunately for the Apples in Stereo, Valentine's Day is over. We're all still recovering from a sugar high, and it may be a while before we again look wistfully at the candy aisle.
Ana's Mitchell joins Ani DiFranco and Andrew Bird on Righteous Babe Records with her label debut. Unfortunately, she does not quite follow in her acoustic guitar-toting predecessors' footsteps. "The Brightness" is a disappointment, especially coming from a record label with such prestigious releases. It is an album littered with bad poetry, unimaginative imagery and tedious guitar.
