New Music Monday: Neil Young, Bette Midler, Deerhoof, Gruff Rhys, and More!

Happy Monday music maniacs! Like new stuff? Great! You’ve come to the right place. Each week all sorts of audiolicious goodies are unleashed onto the masses and this is where they come to be judged. I’ll tell ya what’s good, what’s bad, and what’s a waste of your time. Thanks for stopping by!

The Big News!

Neil Young’s thirty fifth album, and second album to be released in 2014, Storytone, is not getting good press, but it is worth a listen. Consisting of ten songs with Young accompanied by a full ninety two piece orchestra, the record also includes solo acoustic versions of each song and more. People are praising the solo acoustic stuff, predictably, while panning the orchestral stuff. Says NPR: “Coming from a singer who derives so much of his power from the nervy, earnest bitterness of his voice, these arrangements [the orchestral stuff] sacrifice the intimacy in the name of beauty, in ways that don’t always suit the compositions at the core.” Yahoo called the orchestral stuff like “something out of Pirates of the Caribbean“. Yeesh!

The Divine Miss M Returns

The queen is back and if it weren’t for that pesky Neil Young nonsense THIS would be THE BIG NEWS. You know why? Because this is only Bette Midler’s first album since 2006 and it’s her 25th overall and it is comprised of Bette’s versions of classic girl group songs from the 1930’s to today, including TLC’s classically annoying “Waterfalls”.

Indie Masters Return

Deerhoof, a band that is a great American treasure and is celebrating it’s 20th anniversary this year, release their 12th record, La Isla Bonita, this week. Quoth Exlaim.ca: “With La Isla Bonita, Deerhoof have returned to the raw materials of their idiosyncratic sound, throwing out most of the synths and occasional studio trickery and delivering many of the blistering tunes via demo recordings, to which they later added vocals.” Sounds good!

Super Furry Animal Gruff Rhys finally unleashes his superb solo effort, American Interior, a concept album about the Welsh explorer who mapped the Missouri river, in the States this week. It’s his fourth solo effort (all of them are great). According to The Guardian it’s “an album full of wit, originality, and indelible tunes.” I can’t wait to get my grubby mitts on this thing!

Legendary Legends

You’re dad’s favorite band to smoke weed to (because he doesn’t know you’re mom banged the drummer in a tour bus in 1974), The Doobie Brothers and Michael Macdonald, return this week with Southbound, the band’s fourteenth record and first in forever. It consists of re-recordings of their greatest hits with guest vocalists like Toby Keith and Zac Brown. Some people will do anything for money.

My Recommendation

New Dean Blunt. Yeah, how ’bout that.

Next Week

Getting ready for end of year top ten lists, albums and singles. If anyone has any suggestions send me a message or leave a comment. Also, tune in next week, same new music time, same new music channel for new stuff from, oh, I don’t know that new Foo Fighters record everyone’s talking about!